I got a call from Bill and was told that he and Steve were going out to Western MA to ice fish early in the AM. Since safe ice was still very questionable in my neck of the woods I agreed to join them. I could not wait to rid myself of the cabin fever that had infected me from spending too much time indoors, doing things I hate like cleaning the house, Christmas shopping and waiting for safe ice. Anyway being the first ice trip of the season and getting the call around 8 or 9 PM. I scrambled to quickly get my ice gear in order and the truck packed. So I could hit the sack as early as possible for some Z's before being up at 3:30 AM.

It was a 2 hour ride to the pond, it was a drizzly morning of rain and our bait was your average sized bait shop shiners and far from the giant 11" suckers or goldens I like to use but it did not matter. I was happy just to be out and hang with friends. We all start setting up on the ice and before I could get my second trap set up I managed to land two small pike on my first tip up. Not a bad start, especially while still trying to fully set up. Unfortunately for me those were the only fish I landed for the rest of the day. I did have a few other flags but all with nobody home. Later on Steve managed to land a small pike as well and his first of the season and had some other flags from bait thief's. Shortly after Steve got his fish I noticed another angler from a different group of guys landing a 12 LB pike. A good fish especially for MA waters. Bill in the afternoon seemed to get his chances but he had no luck getting any of the fish to commit to any of his hooks.

Toward the end of the day the temperature dropped a bit but the hot chocolate I grabbed for the ride home cured me of the chill. This was the last fishing trip for us of the 2009 season and not a bad way to end it. TIGHT LINES!

Hey George,

Just wanted to touch base with you.  Well I hope you and your family had a great Christmas, and a soon to be here Happy New Year. 

I did squeeze in some fishing yesterday morning. I have to say it was well worth the trip. I landed a solid 17 to 20 fish in a little over 3 hours. All fish were caught using egg sacs and salmon eggs. The creek was on fire. Nothing really huge but 2 were pushing the 20" class.  Just a great day on the water.

Well here's a few pics for the site. Hope u enjoy. Stay in touch and I'll talk to you soon.

Chris

Well it was a very exhausting but fun filled long weekend. Once again I hooked up with my friends from Ohio, Mark and Larry. Bill from Georgia also joined our group this year (good meeting you Bill). Fishing seemed a bit slow this year at the Oak and just as crowded as last year. The water level had been drawn way down a week or so before our arrival, this did not help our efforts any. We hoped for the best and kept our fingers crossed that some fresh fish would migrate up river for their annual run.

I miss the good old days when the river had fewer anglers and there was plenty of elbow room, now it’s combat fishing all the way and if you attempt to move in hopes of a more productive spot you will surely loose your old spot. More often than not it was better to stay put then trying to find more fruitful spots that end up being worse off than where you were previously.

Anyway after sticking it out, when it was all said and done the whole group managed to land some beautiful trout. Larry who did not do so great last year with the trout was on fire this year and caught enough fish to make up for last year. We were all worried about Bill who was not having any luck fishing (aside from a surprise sucker fish, that gave us a good laugh) and who had traveled the furthest to fish this great river but on his last day managed two brown trout. Persistence paid off for him and he got his brown. Most fish caught were brown trout. However some steelhead were also in the mix. Larry landed a nice fat healthy steelie. Mark landed a decent steelhead as well and I had a good one come unbuttoned after taking to the air. Larry while having a conversation with me and barely paying attention to his drift presentation hooked up to another steelhead, lol (this one a monster) that came unbuttoned but before doing so went screaming far down river in a matter of a few seconds, some powerful fish. With the river so crowded it was hard to chase the fish down river with the gauntlet of fishing lines from all the other anglers. Though I hate using them a good net was needed to aid in ending these battles as quick as possible before the fish headed down river to potentially tangle. Other fish included a incidental king salmon I landed on the first day. My best fish of this trip was the last fish of the trip (as seems to be the trend the last few NY trips) and it happened to be the rare Atlantic salmon, few of these are caught on the river and not only the first in all my years of fishing NY tributaries but also the first one I have ever seen on a NY tributary. This was truly the highlight of my trip. To battle a Atlantic on a fly rod made it even more special to me and it’s many leaps in battle surely proves why these fish have the hard fighting reputation they deserve.

The average trout of the group averaged 5-6 pounds. We did not get into any monster browns like the 13 pounder I landed last year but most of us each landed some hefty trout in the 8-9 pound class. While this may not raise any eyebrows in the great lakes regions these trout elsewhere would be considered enormous and possibly a fish of a lifetime for most fly fishermen. I know myself when heading back to my home waters in Massachusetts again that it won’t be the same targeting those average 1 pound cookie cutter hatchery trout so I’ll be back to NY again next year. I’ll deal with the increasing crowds and the combat fishing and I’ll do so simply to have the opportunity to potentially hook up with more giant trout. How can I resist. Tight Lines All!

P.S. To my friends who were interested in coming on this trip but couldn’t due to other obligations and bad timing, join us next year for some fun and laughs. The more the merrier!

Faithful contributor Chris of PA sent us this quick report: I have been working my ass off LOL. Haven't been out at all. Finally got out this morning and landed 13 trout in just over 2 hours. They were hitting like crazy. Boy it felt good again, I almost forgot how it felt. All fish were caught on grubs and egg sacs.

Great job Chris keep them coming 

Ray was testing out his new birthday gift he received from his girlfriend recently, a new 9 weight salt water rod. He was trying to get a feel for the rod at a local trout pond and nailed this fat 16 inch brook trout. Sweet deal for just a practice run. Nice job Ray!

Here's another quick report from Steve: I attached a pic of a Pickeral I got tonight at Spy Pond in Arlington. It was 24" 3 lbs 11 oz. Was hoping for the elusive Tiger Muskie, it hasn't been stocked with them since 2001. So not sure if there are any left there but big Pickeral are fun too. 

Nicely done Steve.

Stephen was kind enough to send us this quick report and our first one from Georgia: Attached are a couple of photo's of a 22 inch long and 17 inch girth Palomino trout. I caught on the Soque River, north Georgia.

Thanks for sharing Stephen thats a beautiful and impressive trout. Feel free to share with us again in the future. Great job!

Last week my daughter Madison became the first person in the family with a state pin with a nice yellow perch. My digital scale read 1 pound even. The official weight on a certified scale was 1 lbs 3 1/4 oz. Makes me wonder how much some of the Bass we caught over the summer really weighed. The Perch was caught in a small pond attached to Stow Brook. We also had some nice Pickeral action including a nice 22 incher.

For sometime now I’ve been wanting to fish Connecticut's elusive Kokanee salmon (landlocked sockeye) during the fall. I have put it on the back burner long enough and decided to just invest the time and to try it this year. I have fished for them in the past, during the summer months and had some marginal success but what I really wanted was to catch them during the fall. The reason being is the males turn into incredibly handsome fish. This is the time of year when they have already transitioned from a normal silver looking salmon into red bodied, humped back fish with green distorted heads, that sport a crazy kype along with canine teeth. Massachusetts does not have this species which is why my efforts for this quest were focused in the bordering state of Connecticut. This is truly a unique and rare fishery for New England.

However after last week I was almost ready to give up. Me and my good friend Ray made the trek only to be disappointed that neither of us hooked up with any kokanee. I was very skeptical if we would hook any this week but we decided to try again and meet up early Sunday morning. At the last minute though Ray got a stomach bug and was not feeling well and was not up for the trip. At this point I debated on not going, after all it was a 2 hour ride and I could certainly fish much closer waters. But I realized that I generally fish best and focus more when I’m solo, so off I went with hopes of a trophy Kokanee. Like most salmon the kokanee die after spawning. Also Connecticut's Kokanee do not get very large, in fact the CT state record is only 2 lbs 12 ozs. Yearlings are 10" and under, 2nd year class fish are usually 11 -12" and the 3 year olds are the mature adults and usually run 13-15". They may lack in size but make up for it in their beauty.

When I finally got there and launched I immediately headed to the spot where me and Ray had briefly spotted them a few times last week, we could not get anywhere near casting distance from them, without them taking off erratically. I hoped that this would not be the case today. However when I got to the spot not a Kokanee to be seen. At this point I thought I was chasing ghosts and that it just wasn’t going to be in the cards. I decided to make the best of it and continue to try and target the trout and bass as secondary options, if the kokes were not going to co-operate. I also noticed that the fish & game kokanee trap that I had seen last week was gone. I guess they had already collected the eggs and milk they needed to produce next years fry for stocking. I thought to myself that maybe I was too late and missed the full spawn. But while working the shallows I suddenly struck oil when I came across a section of the lake loaded with bright red full spawning kokanee, with the males I was hunting guarding the nests. I felt relieved and immediately started casting spinners and little spoons. Unfortunately they were not interested. I then tried casting a wooly bugger to them with my fly rod, that did not work either. I tied a small jig head on and tossed it and a male koke immediately hit the bait, I set the hook but he came unbuttoned (that hurt). After what seemed like a million casts I finally hooked and lost another. I started experimenting different baits until I found something that seemed to annoy them. I put a countdown rappala on and ran it at the same depth as the fish and gave it a erratic action. It seemed to annoy the hell out of the fish. I figured if I could not get them to hit out of hunger  maybe I could get them to hit out of anger and aggression. I anchored next to a bolder and climbed on it. I had a better view of the fish and no rocking motion. I casted at some fresh fish and that did the trick. It seemed like you had to cast 50-60 times to finally annoy one enough to hit the lure. When it was all said and done I lost 3 kokanee and landed five. While fishing for the salmon I also landed a bonus brown and had another brown come off. I don’t keep to many fish but I ended up keeping 4 of the 5 fish salmon. Two perfect specimens for a wall mount and two others as well that did not seem to look like they were going to make it after their battles. So I decided to keep them for a future meal and since I already had fish to clean I kept the stocker brown as well. What a great day of fishing, it made the planning and targeting all seem worth it. Sometimes persistence does pay off. I ended up leaving earlier than expected to not have to make the long trek home in the dark and risk sleeping at the wheel, better safe than sorry. Going to try and put together a video of these catches and upload it this week, so look for that. Next weekend NY for trophy trout or bust. Hope you all had a good Halloween and weekend. Tight Lines!

Hey guys been a while since the last report. I’ve been real busy lately and trying to squeeze in some hunting when free time is available. So I have not been able to fish much. I do plan on doing some more fall fishing trips and more updates to this website in the upcoming weeks if all goes well. So check back often. And as always don’t be shy yourselves send us your reports and pics or if you just want to share some favorite catches of the big ones that didn’t get away, send those pics our way and I’ll post them up.

I finally got out again and boy it felt good. Me and my friend Ray decided last minute to take a small road trip to CT. A little windy but comfortable and the autumn leaves were in full bloom adding a incredible and spectacular visual back drop of fall colors to our day. The plan was to check out one of the lakes in CT that contain kokanee salmon. I wanted to see if they were in spawning mode and try to catch some in full spawning colors. If the kokanee were not present we were going to go with plan B. Which was to grab our fly rods and fish the fabled Farmington River for some trout action. Well we got to the pond and I started to feel slightly less optimistic when I saw no salmon spawning activity near the boat ramp, it did not help matters further when a couple of boats came in from trolling the deep water off the the lake claiming the fish bite was off and very slow. Not what I wanted to hear but I have had days that I have heard these same type of stories and still had some great success. So we launched my canoe in search of Kokanee. We checked out the spots I thought we would more likely come across them but no luck. What we did find however was an abundant number of brown tout displaying spawning like behavior. These fish were concentrated in shallow water especially beaches and gravel areas. I guess there was no need for plan B with all these trout visually in sight. As the saying goes never leave fish to find fish. Me and Ray worked the shore line, which consisted of anchoring and sight casting to the brown trout. We used our fly rods and ultra light rods and threw out a variety of flies and spinners at them. On this day the fish seemed to prefer the spinners over the flies. Generally when our baits were not getting hit we were getting followers near the boat, what a blast it was to sight fish on a still water. I’m not sure how many browns we got but we caught enough to loose count. I also ended up with a bonus rainbow trout and if you count it a decent largemouth that I caught clowning around with my net. Near the end of the trip we finally did come across a small school of bright red kokanee (they really do look like little sockeye’s) that we spooked up when we got near them with the canoe, They rapidly just bolted bolted. We took a cast or two but they were too fast for us and already long gone. Regardless it was a spectacle to see these little red hump backs that just stuck out like a soar thumb, no wonder they were extremely skittish. Going to try and squeeze another trip there before the end of fall for another crack at them. What a fun day on the water. Tight Lines (and to the hunters straight shooting) All!

Bill came by and we decided to test out my outboard. It had crapped out on us a couple of weeks ago or so. Bill’s brother Steve was kind enough to fix it for me. So I wanted to test the motor and make a few casts with Bill and since there was not allot of time I wanted to do it more locally but due to the new Quabbin regulations (and that damn chain on my boat and trailer) we were forced to do it at the Quabbin Reservoir. Normally I would want to fish the Quabbin over other waters but it was a bit longer of a ride and not much time. We ended up going and I got even more disappointed when I found out after getting to the launch facility that end of fishing time was an additional hour earlier than the last time I was there. The spot that I thought we would find fish was about 15-20 minute boat ride add that time to come back to the launch and that left us with around 40 minutes. Hardly worth the trip. To make matters worse the salmon were not at the spot I’d hope they would be at and there was no further time to look for them. On the positive side I landed a decent smallmouth bass and the outboard now runs better than ever. Thanks a million again Steve (looking forward to hitting the ice with you this upcoming winter season). This trip was a little bit frustrating but looking forward to much better trips at the Quabbin next season, that is if the Boston bureaucrats don’t have their way and close it. Tight Lines All!

(Here's a report I got from Mike.) Ok so we decided to make 1 more trip to try for these native jewels. Along with my 3 boys  Mike, Skylar and Sam. We started the morning off warm water fishing hoping for bass but got shut down. Skylar caught 4 perch so it was not a total waste of time. Around 1:00 we switched gears and went looking for those  brookies we caught a couple weeks back. Well they were still there and we got into them. Between us we caught 8 beautiful brookies again ranging from 3-9" most were fingerling size but still very colorful. We did spot a half dozen that just would not bite. I think they were spawning, the way they lined up and were moving I would bet on it. Hope to get out a few more times this year for trout. Take a kid fishing Mike Deloia

Yesterday evening I happen to have my rod in my truck and I happened to be in a area that had a couple drainage ponds I had not fished in about 7-10 years. I’m not much into shore fishing anymore but remember the action that these very well overlooked ponds used to provide me. They were always good for action and numbers. Allot of small fish but I also used to get at least one bass or two anywhere from 2-4 lbs on just about every trip, with the rare but occasional 5 lb largemouth. These are very small ponds that you wouldn’t think would hold such fish if you looked at them but they do. Since I was in the area and had my rod I had wondered if there were any of those big fish left in the ponds or if the bass still even continued to thrive. One pond was disappointing the numbers were not there like they once were nor did I catch or see any decent size largemouth as in the past but some bass were still there, I sporadically pulled out about 4-5 dinks and then headed to the other drainage pond. The 2nd pond was still pretty good. I was catching bass after bass but all the fish were between dink size to 1.50 lbs. I wondered what happen to the larger fish, especially after noticing more bluegills than I ever noticed before. If there forage exists then there has to be some good sized fish still left I thought. After landing somewhere between around 25 mostly dink bass. I started to believe they stunted themselves. As I’m getting ready to call it quits I then saw a pack of 5 larger bass swimming together and cruising the shore line. I rushed to reel my line up and cast at them. They tucked into a isolated patch of weeds and I could no longer see them. I remember sizing up the larger of the 5 fish and was hoping to hook it. I casted to the edge of that patch of weeds and I hoped they were still there and for some luck. Within a second my rubber worm got snatched and my slack line was tightening up quick. I set the hook and soon realized I had hooked the largest one of the pack. All the fish in this little pond were scrappy and hard fighters, this larger fish was no exception and was just peeling drag out of my reel. For a short little trip it was fun and brought back old memories of past trips. The little shrubs I remember easily stepping over are now taller than me and almost impenetrable, There is a bit more chocked out sections of the pond due to invasive weed growth but the fishing hasn’t changed. Tight Lines!

Bill met up with me again, this time early and we hit the road and headed to a favorite kettle pond of mine for some trout action and smallmouth. We wanted some numbers as well as a shot at some quality fish. So off we went on a road trip with high hopes of a action packed day. Being the end of summer and allot of the spring stocked trout having been plucked out by now. The pond remarkably still carries enough holdover trout to keep things interesting, as well as a bonus smallmouth bass fishery. The action was not fast and furious but was consistent and enough to rack up some numbers with enough time and lure experimentation put into it. The trip started off very disappointing when I hooked up with a big trout, the fish leaped and cleared the water at about a 100 yards behind the boat. Even at that distance away the trout looked enormous but my disappointment came after the fishes leap, when he shook the fly out of his mouth. No way to tell exactly how big the trout was but if I had to guess I’d say 5+ lbs. Me and Bill were both beside ourselves after witnessing that. At the very least it kept us into it and optimistic that the next strike could be another giant. Unfortunately no other giant trout were hooked but we did get into a bunch of them. Some were decent size and others a bit on the small side but fun none the less. Me and Bill even had a double at one point. Most of the fish caught were rainbow trout but in the mix were other species, Yellow Perch, Brook Trout and Smallmouth Bass. Though I hate (really hate) loosing big fish it was still a very fun day. I think we landed around 10 trout (give or take a fish or two). Another highlight of mine was a 3.5 lb (or so, didn’t weigh it) Smallmouth Bass I caught on my fly rod. The fish fought incredibly and it took sometime to wear it down enough to bring in. For most of the battle I did not know what I had on and was leaning on assuming that it was a big trout and I thought perhaps I had gotten a second shot at a big trout but not the case. I would have rather gotten a trophy trout but I wasn’t to disappointed, it was still an impressive and scrappy smallie caught on a fly rod. It gave me a hell of a rush and battle. The smallmouth was a very fat female that looked like she was ready to spawn and pop her eggs. Odd since they don’t generally spawn until around May/June. Over all a good trip for both of us and well worth the drive and I’ll be back another time. 

I should have gotten up earlier but it had been an exhausting week and I needed some sleep. When I got up I gave Bill a call and told him to meet me at one of my favorite local ponds. I got there first and while waiting for Bill I unloaded the canoe and gear and then started fly casting to the bluegills and small bass hanging around shore. Those small fish all eagerly took to the fly and kept me entertained while I waited for Bill to show. When he arrived we both jumped in the canoe and started seeking some trout. We worked some deep water, but it was slow fishing. I had a couple of trout on but they both came loose when my electric motor on it’s own turned the opposite direction I wanted it too, while I was fighting the fish. Which caused some slack for a second or two but enough time for the trout to come unbuttoned. Bill also had a hit or two, talk about bad luck on both of us. The sun was now up at full force and it was getting warm, I knew this wasn’t going to help matters any. My patience was starting to wear thin and I was no longer picky as to what I wanted to tug the end of my line. So we switched to some easier targets and went after some bass and bluegills and it was a blast. We both got into plenty of largemouth bass and got a few decent sized ones along with lots of smaller ones but action none the less. I even fooled around some more with the fly rod and sight fished and fly casted for some bigger bluegills. I had to cut the trip short to attend a Birthday party. So we ended the trip at 2 PM. The highlight of this trip was a estimated 3.5-4 lb fat largemouth I got on the fly rod. 

Me and Bill were hoping to hit the Quabbin Reservoir for some action but unfortunately last week when we made the attempt to do so. After going through all the effort of getting down there and unloading the boat and gear (don’t even get me started with the inspection process I had to go thru the day before) the gas motor decides after we launch that it does not want to start. What a way to kill our day. Anyway we had hoped the motor could have been repaired on time for this long weekend but not all the parts needed for repair had come in yet. So we were limited to an electric motor for the weekend but decided we were not going to let that prevent us from trying to get into some fish. We decided to get a early weekend start and do a short little trip Friday evening in search of big largemouth bass. We fished the last hour of light and 2 hours into the dark, in hopes of nocturnal hog bass. During the last bit of daylight I worked a spinner bait and some rubber worms and Bill worked some large Texas rigged black power worms. Steve was also out in his crawdad, fishing the same pond. Between the three of us we couldn't land a fish during light. Talk about a slow bite. Me and Bill hoped the night fall would turn them on. Come night fall I throughout a bunch of large swim baits and musky sized jitterbugs looking to connect with something of bragging size. I ended up with a fish blowing up the surface and missing the bait (it sounded like a large fish?). That was it for a while and then later on I connected with a bass around 2 lbs off the musky jitterbug. Bill was using a smaller jointed jitterbug and got into a small bass, a couple of crappies and a bluegill. It was clear that the bite was not on even with the full moon. We decided to cut it short and head home and try elsewhere in the morning. Kind of disappointing when we know there are large fish in the pond but that’s fishing, at least neither of us got the skunk.

Ok so my son Michael told me he saw brookies in the nearby stream (which does not get stocked). I had my doubts but he really knows his trout. So off we went just a half mile from our home. He was right we caught four brookies and lost two. We saw at least that many swimming around. They ranged in size from three inches to about nine inches. The nine inch one being a Monster by comparison to its surroundings. We took a few shots of the more colorful ones. All this just a skip from home. Take your kids fishing! - Michael Deloia

Here's a report from Steve: Bill and I fished our favorite pond in Sudbury again. Things started out kinda slow. Before sunset we were both using 10 in power worms and getting lots of hits from little fish. Bill got one small Bass in the boat and I got a small Hornpout. A first for me on a 10 in worm. After sunset Bill switched to the Jitterbug and I started throwing a Terminator night spinnerbait with half of a black powerworm for a tail. The tail was Bill's brilliant idea. The Bass seemed to like it. A nice 21 in 5 pounder grabbed it when I was running it slow and deep next to a patch of lilly pads. My first fish on my new night spinnerbait. Money well spent for sure. About 15 minutes later I got hit again running it slow in about 8 feet of water. This time a 20 in 4 lbs 3 oz Bass. My wife Angela was nice enough to meet us at the dock with a camera because I forgot to charge my battery. Shortly before she showed up Bill got a 2 lbs 9 oz Bass on the topwater. We called it quits after the photos and healthy releases of all the Bass. Work in the morning.

Bill reported that fishing the other night the bite was real slow but he still managed to land this four pound largemouth bass off a jointed jitterbug. Nice job Bill.

Here's a report from Steve: Fished one of my favorite ponds this weekend. Caught a couple of good ones. Saturday night got one almost 4 1/2 lbs. Sunday I caught my new personal best largemouth on rod and reel. I have only caught bigger through the ice. 22in 5lbs 1oz according to my scale. A real monster was also caught and released Saturday night by a guy I saw fishing in a bass tracker. About a 6 1/2 pounder. My wife happened to be at the docks getting something out of my truck when he was leaving. She took the pic for him and he released it at the docks. Sorry I don't have a pic of that one. I will when I catch it. I know where he lives.

Chris reports he finally got out and managed to land 5 nice fish. Nothing huge, but all decent.

Bill reports landing this smallmouth Bass during pre-dawn with a jitterbug. The fish was caught in Marlborough at Fort Meadow and was Bills first Smallmouth Bass in a few seasons.

Bill hooked up with me Friday night for some night bassing. We hit a very local pond, where last year we caught some nice chunkers and I had lost a beast. But unfortunately this time around (our first time back this year) the trip just provided dink largemouth. Hook ups were instant from the moment I started and good numbers of fish were caught right until dark. Come night fall though the bite slowed down, even after we switched to top water baits. The top water bite seems to be off this year, especially when compared to last year but we continued in hopes of a hawg. Bill threw out his jitter bugs and I went through a assortment of large swim baits hoping for a trophy. All that was caught during the night shift where a few more additional dinks. I found this to be strange for the body of water I was on, in fact it almost seemed like an entirety different lake than last year, that’s fishing though. Since we stayed out pretty late Friday night we decided to do a late morning trip the following day so we could catch up on some Z’s. So Saturday we got out to another pond and it was nice to have a almost full day to wet a line, been a while for me. We ended up catching plenty of fish, which included Rainbow trout, bluegills and largemouth bass but unfortunately again we ran into the same problem as the night before, all dink sized fish with the exception of a semi-decent chunker rainbow that Bill caught. I thought about leaving and maybe trying another spot but I said screw it and just enjoyed catching a bunch of numbers of fish, though all small always a nice feeling getting a bend in the rod and I know soon enough it will be winter again and when it feels like a frozen tundra again I’ll be wishing I could haul in a bunch of fish in shorts on a warm summer afternoon, even if there all small. I’ll be back out again next weekend, hopefully you will too. Tight Lines!

Once again it’s been a while since my last post, what a summer of unexpected events popping up what seems like every weekend. I’ve spent about two weekends shopping around for new wheels. Ironically my old pickup broke down on the highway while I was making my way to another dealership to truck shop.....LOL. On a brighter note and to make a long story short I got new wheels and just when I was planning on hitching my little boat onto my new truck for a upcoming weekend of casting I get a call from a family member wanting me to help build a shed. I couldn’t say no and the next thing I know the whole weekend disappeared working on it (but it did come out nice). Knowing fully well that my weekend was going to be full with the project I decided to slip away for a quick multi-species early morning trip with my friend Bill, before meeting up with the guys to work on the shed project. Me and Bill did not have long and slid a canoe into one of my favorite near home spots and managed to hook up with some bass, trout and bluegills. We trolled a bit for trout in the morning and Bill got into his first trout of the season (glad I could assist with that Billy). We then casted and worked the shoreline a bit for largemouth bass. Of course after we switched over to fish largemouth by the time we found the hot spot where the bass were all hanging out and pounding our baits it was just about time for me to leave to meet up with the guys at the designated time and start working on the shed project......figures! But we managed to get a good bite on them for a little bit. We ran out of time before we could haul in a lunker but there is always next time. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to get out for a full day at least. Hope you all have been able to wet a line more than me lately at least and catch a few.....Tight lines all!  

It’s been a while since I headed out to wet a line, seems like lately something unexpected pops up every weekend. But I finally made it out and had a half day to scratch my angling itch. The plan was to toss out large slammer swim baits for pike and bass. I realize we have gotten allot of rain so far this summer but it really sunk in when I got to the river and saw how high the water was up and how far less vegetation there was poking through the surface, suddenly those deep channels I like to fish adjacent to vegetation where suddenly not as relevant with the high water. Cast after cast I experimented fishing weed lines, points, blow downs, shallow and deep water. I also tried working the baits slow to fast erratic retrieves. The pike did not cooperate but what seemed like was going to be a skunk ended with a couple of nice quality slammer bass. Cranking them down hard was the ticket and it rewarded me with a couple of largemouth bass explosions. Both fish that assaulting my perch slammer were landed and were of good quality size. I don’t know exactly what it is but there’s something about throwing striper sized plugs for freshwater largemouth bass and being successful that gets my juices flowing a bit. Maybe it’s the big baits equals big fish philosophy. Perhaps knowing that most of the little rat bass I normally catch with smaller and more traditional bass baits will be to intimidated to hit the larger baits and that most of the fish that do bite are of quality size. It’s hardly a numbers game fishing these plugs but always exciting to see what’s on the other end of the line when you feel some hard pulls. Tight Lines All!

Here’s a report from Steve (Bills brother) who landed a nocturnal hawg, nice job Steve! Keep those reports coming: On Sunday night my wife Angela and I went hunting for that monster Bass again. Didn't get the 9 pounder but it was a pretty busy night. Had several hits on the 10 inch worm between 7 and 8:30. Boated 2 bass less than 2 lbs. Lost one that nearly ripped the rod out of my hand when it hit and lost a good size Pickerel about 10 feet from the boat. After 8:30 I went top water with a large jointed jitterbug. Had a few hits and between 9 and 9:30 landed 2 nice bass one 19" almost 4 lbs and the other was just over 20". My scale read 4 lbs 6 oz. Not sure how accurate it is. I thought it could have been closer to 5. Angela didn't have any luck. She's kinda new to this. She has only done live bait fishing before. She had a couple of hits on a jitterbug but missed the hook set. She enjoyed herself though and wants to go again soon.

Sunday me and my friend Bill hooked up and decided to chase Largemouth Bass. This was my first trip of the season targeting them. Bill and his friend the previous day had a monster on that came off at boat-side. The fish was so big, that Bill was still sick over it, even though it wasn't even lost on his rod. Bill estimated the bass between 8-9 lbs. Needless to say trying to decide where me and Bill were going to fish was easy. Though we got into some bass we had to work for them and it wasn't until the evening that things started to liven up. The two best fish hooked was a largemouth of about 4 lbs or so (didn't weigh it). I guess technically I also got a catfish, if you count the bullhead that was still stuck in the throat of my 4 pounder, with tail hanging out and all. It amazed me that it still took my rubber worm. I also had another largemouth bass come off at boat side around 4-5 lbs with a slammer swim bait. Bill's best of the day was a 2 pounder or so. Funny enough we ran into his friend in a crawdad looking for redemption and another shot at his lost trophy bass. Don't worry Bill, we know where he lives and we'll get him next time.