Weight – 26lb 11oz
Catch – 18 Carp, 13 Roach, 8 Bream, 3 Rudd, 1 Perch
Weather – Mostly cloudy, light rain later.
Match – Lands End Winter League – Rd 8 - 24th overall, 5th in section
With what was likely to be a very tight finish in the league, there were a few nerves at the draw, because we all knew the importance of a good draw.
Pegs 72 & 94 were the ideal draws to virtually guarantee good points, but by the time I drew most of the decent pegs had already gone. Initially I wasn't too disappointed with peg 81, however this really was the section of death. Andy France on peg 72, who I fancied to win due to the wind blowing that way, Mike West (75), Tony Rixon (78), Anton Page (79) & Matt Tomes (83). Also past results from this peg has been very mixed and overall my peg has been the 2nd worst peg on the section over the series. So it wasn't going to be too hard to get points!
Martin Pettifer also in the top 7 drew peg 84 opposite, so together with Matt we could at least keep an eye on each other.
The problem with my peg was the sunken tree, weed (which I discovered later) and uneven bottom by the island. I decided the best approach was to attack the peg and try and pull carp into the area. At the end of the day I needed a decent points score and being negative wasn't going to help.
At the start micro pellet & maggot went at 6m and I started to catapult 4mm towards the island right of the tree and 14.5m at 11 o'clock to the left of the island.
Like everyone in the section I started on the short line, but could only pick up small roach & skimmers, whilst everyone else also had carp. I wasn't overly worried because this lake can go like that, I just hoped I would have a strong finish. As the day progressed everyone was getting ahead of me and come the half way point, I had 4 carp, plus some silvers and was probably last in section.
Throughout I had kept the 4-6 pellets going in to the island and noticed carp starting to move around. Initially started on a conventional 4x10 float, but the weedy bottom was proving to be pain, so I quickly set up a poly ball rig, so I could fish really tight to the island, which improved things I started to catch on double maggot or pellet. I wasn't catching quickly, but at least I was catching.
A couple of looks down the margin only produced a single carp and a perch, whilst the short line was a waste of time, because I could only get small fish. The 14.5m had only produced the odd fish, until the last hour when I started to catch nearly every put in, but deep down I felt it was to little to late.
As expected Andy won the section and the lake with 71-5, whilst Tony had 45-12 and Anton 33-9. Matt reckoned he had 14 carp, which seemed right, but ultimately he had 2 proper carp for this lake of 3½lb and he beat me by 2oz. I'm not bitter – honest.
Martin opposite had 16-15 for last in his section, so it was obvious we were at the wrong of the lake today – for the 2nd time! Really, not bitter & twisted at all.
To cap my day off my missus, Sue called 2 hours into the match, she has been visiting family in Bournemouth for a couple days. She was parked outside her cousins when some nutter in a transit van crashed into her car, pushing it 3 feet into a lamppost. Needless to say the car is a right off. The driver was arrested, because the coppers reckon he must have been doing 50-60mph down a residential road, although he tried to say his brakes had failed, which the police proved to be a lie.
As for the league I'm really disappointed to finished 9th particularly since I was 3rd after 6 rounds, but drawing the wrong end of the lake in the last 2 matches has proved my undoing.
1st Nick Collier 46pts
2nd Vince Shipp 42
3rd Rod Wootton 39
4th Garry Wall 36
5th Matt Tomes 34 (308-9)
6th Dave Hodgson 34 (214-4)
7th Nick Duckett 33
8th Mark Poppeton 32 (286-13)
9th Ken Rayner 32 (202-2)
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Multiple Species!
Jamie and I did a group trip today. Eddie Drilling, who has fished with me many times and Danny, whom I just met, were in my boat. Jamie and I laid out a few options for them for the morning and they chose to chase a big fish! So this morning we geared it up for big trout and big trout was what we got! Ed landed several really nice fish, but the last one he caught was probably 6 1/2 pounds! It was a monster! At lunch we decided we would be grateful for the big boys we caught, but go try another avenue of fun. We headed over to one of our favorite white bass spots and slipped in on those bad boys! We got on them instantly and it was a freaking blast!
AHH SUN!
Sunday morning I fished with Andy Rainer for the morning. The temps got warm and the wind wasn't blowing, so it was a nice change from the past few days. The Corps still had a little over one generator running around the clock. I think the fish had stabilized some since the front had moved through and we took a ride up river. Bam, our first drift we were hooked into fish. Our first few drifts it was non stop action! With each drift our bite slowed a little so we decided instead of banging the same water, we would search out some more fish. We stopped at a few other places with little success. After a rig change and some minor adjustments, we found our bite and ended strong. It was a great morning on the river with Andy and we had some good conversation about the public school systems in Memphis.
There she Blow's
Sunday was a second half of the day trip. It was a nice change of pace. The wind still continued to blow like it did Saturday. I took Paul Ridell. The last time Paul fished it was with Jamie about a year ago and the water was low... Boy did he have a change of pace with 1 generator and wind. I rigged him up a high water rig and we set out after them. We got into some fish pretty quick and managed to stay on a pretty consistent bite all afternoon. Paul flys crop duster's and after working in Alaska, I have a fascination with small aircraft. We really had alot to talk about. We caught probably 7 browns that were all a few years old. It is always so refreshing to see those guys in the water!
Clint "lacey"
Saturday I took Clint Lucy fishing. We had received a good bit of rain the night before and I was hoping the Corps would give us a window of low water. They didn't. A little over one generator ran around the clock and on top of that, we had 25 mile per hour gusts blowing us around. We tried a few different spots and picked up a few fish in all of them, but it sure was hard. That seemed to be the common theme when we talked to people. Clint did manage to catch his first chain pickerel, which he was pretty excited about. We ended up having lunch and a cream soda, calling it quits at a half day. The last fish Clint caught, we both got super excited about. Clint looked at me and said "some days, size just doesn't matter." It was a good day on the water none the less.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The John Tyzack Spring Ldo masterclass
I am having probs with my pc so here is one pic from my phone to get started, will be updating later this week when I am back online..
Also purchased some fly materials that is going to be the bollox so will be doing a review on it very soon..
Nice one
Glen
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange
Monday, March 29, 2010
After the storm with Yuki
After way too much bad weather, tsunami warning one weekend, cyclone Tomas the next and then blowing at 30knots with driving rain, we finally got out for a fish. Not the greatest weather, but it was fishable none the less.
Lucky he was a fast learner and was casting like a pro in no time.
The same goes for Jose who is quite the angler. It is not long before he has a nice Bluefin in the boat.
Needless to say this fish did not make it on board for a photo session. It was released in good shape if only for a sore nose.
The shark was followed by a massive strike that led to Yuki losing his popper and leader.
The GT gave a good accounting of itself and was eventually boated in good shape. After the photo session it was released.
Unfortunately the bite time was rather short as we are upon the full moon and bad weather. Things slowed down from there and only a small Bluefin Trevally was landed in the last hour. That is not to say we did not have a few laughs with the giant sunglasses we keep on board.
Our time was short together but we had a good time and made the most of rather tough fishing. Yuki is a great guy to fish with and he knows what he is doing. That always makes things a bit easier.
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| From Yuki take two |
We went out with Yuki again and he brought two friends, Jose, who has been out with us and Hanochin, who has never fished before.
First order of business is to teach Hanochin how to fish.
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| From Yuki take two |
Yuki is a seasoned pro so he just moved out to the bow and started casting away.
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| From Yuki take two |
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| From Yuki take two |
The sea is a bit rough with an Easterly blowing and a Southerly swell. A bit lumpy to say the least.
Yuki has a few strikes but they are missed. He finally gets a solid strike and hook up. The fight is on but it is not acting like a GT. Soon the question is answered. A Bronze Whaler shark.
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| From Yuki take two |
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| From Yuki take two |
After a quick change of gear he finally hooked a GT.
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| From Yuki take two |
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| From Yuki take two |
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| From Yuki take two |
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| From Yuki take two |
I am sure we will fish together again.
Tight lines
Sunday, March 28, 2010
First Bass trip of the year....skunked !
Yesterday was my first attempt to target Bass this year. The water temperature was 7/8 and being March it was never going to be easy. To be fair I have never caught a Bass on lures or bait this side of May, but then again I’ve never tried.
Fished three hours late morning into the afternoon then had a break for a few hours then fished till dusk…..nada. I guess I put in around six hours in total.
To be fair I just felt I needed a day out and a trial run with some of the new gear I have bought since last year. The breathable waders were spot on cheapo’s from Bass Pro in the states. The Scierra Dynatrack studded wading boots Lynne gave me for Christmas were great and provided me with a massive improvement in grip. In terms of the lures the Komomo II and Z Claw look tip top. If the Komomo does not do the business for me as the year moves on I will be very surprised.
When I took a break from fishing in the afternoon I travelled a few miles and took a walk down a dirt track of some west facing cliffs. Never been here before but it looks great in terms of bait fishing opportunities. Bass will be a certainty and I would be surprised if I could not pick up a small Turbot or two. The picture is pretty naff but there was nice surf, plenty of tide and a number of features which are out of the shot.
Fished three hours late morning into the afternoon then had a break for a few hours then fished till dusk…..nada. I guess I put in around six hours in total.
To be fair I just felt I needed a day out and a trial run with some of the new gear I have bought since last year. The breathable waders were spot on cheapo’s from Bass Pro in the states. The Scierra Dynatrack studded wading boots Lynne gave me for Christmas were great and provided me with a massive improvement in grip. In terms of the lures the Komomo II and Z Claw look tip top. If the Komomo does not do the business for me as the year moves on I will be very surprised.
When I took a break from fishing in the afternoon I travelled a few miles and took a walk down a dirt track of some west facing cliffs. Never been here before but it looks great in terms of bait fishing opportunities. Bass will be a certainty and I would be surprised if I could not pick up a small Turbot or two. The picture is pretty naff but there was nice surf, plenty of tide and a number of features which are out of the shot.
Sandeels
I was excited to see the first Sandeels in the eastuary yesterday, a sure sign that things are warming up and that the fish will be here soon. I also noted many casualties from the big surf of the last few days, many small shore crabs and bait fish, all food sources for the fish. Will be keeping an eye out for the arrival of the Arctic Terns that love to noisely dive on the Sandeels all summer long.
fly fishing steelhead (root river, wi)
The weather was really starting to warm up the entire week leading up to the weekend. No rain all week and all the snow had been long gone for some time. River flows were very low on the Pike and Oak. The Milwaukee was running over 600cfs and didn’t sound like a very safe number to wade. Looked like the Root was the best based on the numbers.
Normal start time and was fishing island park as the sun rose around 6:40 am. Neal arrived just after me and we started working a nice bend and surrounding stretch river. Couple fingerling browns taken by Neal on a grey leach pattern. Ran into another nice angler who said fish were being taken above the weir but it was shoulder to shoulder fishing. We gave it about an hour and a half, with no fish spotted, before we decided to push north.
Colonial park was packed. Lot was almost full and just barely found parking. We fished till just after lunch with only one hook-up. It was a steelie that threw my hook on his first jump. Talk about disappointing… my only hook-up for the day and it lasted all of 4 seconds.
Yes, there were defiantly people landing fish north of Lincoln park, I helped land 5 for strangers. My problem with the day was that it didn't seem peaceful fishing so jam packed on every run, riffle, and bend. It wasn’t just people concentrated in certain spots, they were everywhere. Just when you would carve out a nice little spot for yourself, here comes Billy Bob and his wife. They sidle up close to you and cast slip bobbers into the tail end of your drift. How many fish can you help them net before you start to feel just a tad upset? Well I’ll tell you... the answer is 2.
Saw no fish released. People must be hungry for steelhead stew. WHAT A SHAME!
Normal start time and was fishing island park as the sun rose around 6:40 am. Neal arrived just after me and we started working a nice bend and surrounding stretch river. Couple fingerling browns taken by Neal on a grey leach pattern. Ran into another nice angler who said fish were being taken above the weir but it was shoulder to shoulder fishing. We gave it about an hour and a half, with no fish spotted, before we decided to push north.
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| small enough to be bait! |
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| tiny brown |
Saw no fish released. People must be hungry for steelhead stew. WHAT A SHAME!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
26/03/10 - K&A Canal - Prison Pound
Weight – 16lb 11oz
Catch – 28 Skimmers, 8 Roach, 6 Perch, 3 Tench.
Weather – Mostly cloudy, windy & light showers
Another day off down the canal with Mark. With the recent mild weather we fancied a crack at some early spring tench fishing.
Because Mark had to be home by 3pm, it meant and early start, so by 8am we were both set up on Curry's Pound, but after 2 hours it wasn't exactly going according to plan. We had both potted 3 balls of groundbait with micros & caster at 11.5m, but only had a handful of small skimmers.
Since it didn't appear to be improving, we made the decision to move up on to the Prison Pound. I potted 1 ball of groundbait, plus a pot of loose groundbait. After a fruitless 30mins on the feeder it was time to try the pole.
Initially sport was slow, but started to get mostly bottle top skimmers, plus the odd hand sized one on single maggot. However it wasn't quite what was expected, but at least we were getting bites, although it was difficult to work out, because the fish seemed to be spooked whenever I topped up. Eventually found catapulted caster worked best.
With time pressing on, neither of us had anything bigger than 8oz, but in the quest to beat each our I reckoned I was slightly ahead. With 45mins to go, Mark hooks what was obviously a decent fish and 5mins later a 3lb Tench was in the net. With the year to date score between us being 4-2 to Mark, that Tench would take the score with to 5-2 and Mr Poppleton was loving it. With 30mins to go I pulled out of a decent fish, which Mark loved even more.
5 minutes later, I struck into a tench, which gave a good account of itself and at 3½lb was a decent repost. It went strangely quite to my left! 15mins later I had another of similar size. Ha ha - let that be a lesson to you!
After Mark left I stayed on for an hour, but struggled to get the fish back, although I managed another Tench, a decent perch and a couple of small roach.
Catch – 28 Skimmers, 8 Roach, 6 Perch, 3 Tench.
Weather – Mostly cloudy, windy & light showers
Another day off down the canal with Mark. With the recent mild weather we fancied a crack at some early spring tench fishing.
Because Mark had to be home by 3pm, it meant and early start, so by 8am we were both set up on Curry's Pound, but after 2 hours it wasn't exactly going according to plan. We had both potted 3 balls of groundbait with micros & caster at 11.5m, but only had a handful of small skimmers.
Since it didn't appear to be improving, we made the decision to move up on to the Prison Pound. I potted 1 ball of groundbait, plus a pot of loose groundbait. After a fruitless 30mins on the feeder it was time to try the pole.
Initially sport was slow, but started to get mostly bottle top skimmers, plus the odd hand sized one on single maggot. However it wasn't quite what was expected, but at least we were getting bites, although it was difficult to work out, because the fish seemed to be spooked whenever I topped up. Eventually found catapulted caster worked best.
With time pressing on, neither of us had anything bigger than 8oz, but in the quest to beat each our I reckoned I was slightly ahead. With 45mins to go, Mark hooks what was obviously a decent fish and 5mins later a 3lb Tench was in the net. With the year to date score between us being 4-2 to Mark, that Tench would take the score with to 5-2 and Mr Poppleton was loving it. With 30mins to go I pulled out of a decent fish, which Mark loved even more.
5 minutes later, I struck into a tench, which gave a good account of itself and at 3½lb was a decent repost. It went strangely quite to my left! 15mins later I had another of similar size. Ha ha - let that be a lesson to you!
After Mark left I stayed on for an hour, but struggled to get the fish back, although I managed another Tench, a decent perch and a couple of small roach.
Dr. Burnett's Big Boys
Today I took Dr. Burnett fishing. It was our first time to fish together. I gave Doc some options in the morning as to whether he wanted to go for some numbers or the possibility of catching a larger fish. He was all about the big boy! So our quest began. We worked really hard and were rewarded. Doc caught several nice fish this morning. These are the two nicest fish. The sun got up and it seemed to turn the big rainbows on. After we enjoyed a chicken sammy, we traveled to a different spot on the river in quest for some more numbers. The fishing was tough, but we caught a few more fish and ended the day satisfied!
Friday, March 26, 2010
Craziness begins and took a swim already
This week has been crazy awesome and busy too. I started out writing crazy busy first, but after thinking for a moment I realized I love the chaos. I just wish there was more time in a day and an extra day in the week and I didnt need to get any sleep. I am already millions of voice mails and emails behind, and simply can't keep up with them and still get out and work during the day. We packed a whole lot into this week. They say time flies when your having fun, but I need to figure out how to slow time down just a bit.
We started out filming a fly fishing show for trout monday morning early and caught a boatload! Heres the biggest one.
Then after our fishing trip, Justin and I raced over to an Ethanol plant out in Fulton County to install a Vertex aeration system and investigate a fish kill. The lake has been contaminated with some sort of corn sludge and fish are dying in other lakes of that watershed as well.
I'm very curious how things will turn out, we will be working out there at those lakes off and on this spring fulfilling EPA regulations for the lakes. We finished up late monday night and headed for home. Justin was late for Katy's birthday and I missed something too, but cant remember what it was at the moment? I made it home just in time to read a few bedtime books and get the kids to bed.
Tuesday we had to get to the office super early to ship out all of our online orders from the weekend. We had like 17 orders and it took forever to get all boxed up and shipped out. UPS and Fedex come daily to pick up, but usually just a couple packages a day for each. Lots of shipments came in to the office tuesday as well. We unloaded pallets of fish feeders, aeration equipment, barley straw and other supplies to get started for the year. Then we loaded an entire trailer full of material, tools, and floats to build a swim platform and floating dock with bench seats for a client out in Secor. We were supposed to head that way tuesday morning, but it took till 6pm just to get everything shipped out, loaded, organized, and also take care of a few local clients orders and catch up on emails and voice mails. We also set up a couple really cool fish tanks in our office to help keep us sane while we are stuck inside doing real work.
Wednesday we headed out early and built one of the coolest floating docks ever and also built a swim platform too. The dock has bench seats around 3 sides and is open out the front. Very cool. Anyhow about 9 am wednesday morning I was leaning over the railing of the old dock taking it apart when I took out the last screw the whole thing fell over and so did I right into the lake. I was over an hour from home, 50 degrees, and soaking wet.
Good thing Justin had some old stinky hunting clothes at the bottom of his truck! I wore them and just my socks the rest of the day. Note to self, dont unfasten a railing while leaning over it. Here are some pics of the docks we built. It doesnt take long to build em at all.
We started out filming a fly fishing show for trout monday morning early and caught a boatload! Heres the biggest one.
Then after our fishing trip, Justin and I raced over to an Ethanol plant out in Fulton County to install a Vertex aeration system and investigate a fish kill. The lake has been contaminated with some sort of corn sludge and fish are dying in other lakes of that watershed as well.
I'm very curious how things will turn out, we will be working out there at those lakes off and on this spring fulfilling EPA regulations for the lakes. We finished up late monday night and headed for home. Justin was late for Katy's birthday and I missed something too, but cant remember what it was at the moment? I made it home just in time to read a few bedtime books and get the kids to bed.
Tuesday we had to get to the office super early to ship out all of our online orders from the weekend. We had like 17 orders and it took forever to get all boxed up and shipped out. UPS and Fedex come daily to pick up, but usually just a couple packages a day for each. Lots of shipments came in to the office tuesday as well. We unloaded pallets of fish feeders, aeration equipment, barley straw and other supplies to get started for the year. Then we loaded an entire trailer full of material, tools, and floats to build a swim platform and floating dock with bench seats for a client out in Secor. We were supposed to head that way tuesday morning, but it took till 6pm just to get everything shipped out, loaded, organized, and also take care of a few local clients orders and catch up on emails and voice mails. We also set up a couple really cool fish tanks in our office to help keep us sane while we are stuck inside doing real work.
Wednesday we headed out early and built one of the coolest floating docks ever and also built a swim platform too. The dock has bench seats around 3 sides and is open out the front. Very cool. Anyhow about 9 am wednesday morning I was leaning over the railing of the old dock taking it apart when I took out the last screw the whole thing fell over and so did I right into the lake. I was over an hour from home, 50 degrees, and soaking wet.
Good thing Justin had some old stinky hunting clothes at the bottom of his truck! I wore them and just my socks the rest of the day. Note to self, dont unfasten a railing while leaning over it. Here are some pics of the docks we built. It doesnt take long to build em at all.
The floating swim platform will get a sliding board in a few weeks:
This dock will get bench seats wrapped around it.
Thursday Justin stayed back at the office to take care of a few local clients and other office stuff. We had a whole bunch more shipments to get out. I never in my wildest dreams every thought our online store would get this many sales at all. This blog actually comes up real good in search engines just by me writing about pond stuff, etc and I think that is where alot of online clients come from? Anyhow we sell way more stuff online to people across the country than we do here in Illinois. I have access to warehouses across the nation so alot of our large orders we ship from the closest warehouse. My father in law Lee came out and helped me finish the docks in Secor. I didnt have my camera so finished pictures will have to wait until we get back out there again in a couple weeks. Once the docks were done we then also rebuilt the 8 foot tall rope swing platform at that pond too. That will be alot of fun to try out this summer!
Friday we headed back out to the fish kill to put in some more aeration on another lake and help them formulate a game plan for this spring. The 20 acre lake that is now getting contaminated is losing huge fish too. 10 lb northern pike, tons of big hybrid striped bass, thousands of bluegill and crappie are all floating belly up. That would have been an awesome lake to fish!
Saturday was super windy and cold outside so I worked inside trying to finish up some bathrooms out at the lake. They are shaping up real nice! All wood on the inside. We are building a boys bathroom and girls bathroom each with a couple stalls and showers. One bathroom in the summer time with 100's of people at the lake just wasnt going to cut it for this summer.
About 3 pm we had enough of working for the week and decided to just go out fishing anyways, despite the 25 mph wind gusts. Here was our weapons of choice for the afternoon:
We threw 6 feet deep diving cranckbaits and number 3 silver fox spinners and caught a ton of rainbow trout and super fat largemouth bass! I love coming out of winter and catching fish with 130-140% relative weights!! Check out the bellies on these fish:
Yeah, Yeah how come there is no pic of me holding a fish? I can hear it now. I actually only caught one fish today, a 13 inch largemouth bass. The wind was blowing so hard, all I could do was run the motor just to keep us from blowing out to sea. When I would take my eyes off the motor for just a second to snap a pic, we would blow off course 100's of feet. Plus if running the motor wasnt enough, Chad's wife Julie kept catching fish right and left. We only fished for a little over an hour and drained 2 fully charged trolling motors just trying to get back to the beach!
Sunday I am gonna head to church and spend the afternoon playing with kids. (with the basketball games on in the background). Building dragon towers out of legos is on the agenda for sure. Pretty much every week until after the 4th of July is about booked up solid for us. Traveling to southern Illinois next week to install some aeration systems and squeeze in a handful of pond consulations. And after that we start electrofishing for the next two months solid. We have scheduled road trips to a few places in Indiana, Missouri, Southern Illinois, and Chicago and try to coordinate as much as possible going to and from each of those places. Then locally we have surveys and fish stockings for many local fishing clubs, private lakes, and even some huge lakes like Oak Run we will be sampling and helping devise longterm management plans for. This spring is going to be crazy awesomeness.
Thursday Justin stayed back at the office to take care of a few local clients and other office stuff. We had a whole bunch more shipments to get out. I never in my wildest dreams every thought our online store would get this many sales at all. This blog actually comes up real good in search engines just by me writing about pond stuff, etc and I think that is where alot of online clients come from? Anyhow we sell way more stuff online to people across the country than we do here in Illinois. I have access to warehouses across the nation so alot of our large orders we ship from the closest warehouse. My father in law Lee came out and helped me finish the docks in Secor. I didnt have my camera so finished pictures will have to wait until we get back out there again in a couple weeks. Once the docks were done we then also rebuilt the 8 foot tall rope swing platform at that pond too. That will be alot of fun to try out this summer!
Friday we headed back out to the fish kill to put in some more aeration on another lake and help them formulate a game plan for this spring. The 20 acre lake that is now getting contaminated is losing huge fish too. 10 lb northern pike, tons of big hybrid striped bass, thousands of bluegill and crappie are all floating belly up. That would have been an awesome lake to fish!
Saturday was super windy and cold outside so I worked inside trying to finish up some bathrooms out at the lake. They are shaping up real nice! All wood on the inside. We are building a boys bathroom and girls bathroom each with a couple stalls and showers. One bathroom in the summer time with 100's of people at the lake just wasnt going to cut it for this summer.
About 3 pm we had enough of working for the week and decided to just go out fishing anyways, despite the 25 mph wind gusts. Here was our weapons of choice for the afternoon:
We threw 6 feet deep diving cranckbaits and number 3 silver fox spinners and caught a ton of rainbow trout and super fat largemouth bass! I love coming out of winter and catching fish with 130-140% relative weights!! Check out the bellies on these fish:
Yeah, Yeah how come there is no pic of me holding a fish? I can hear it now. I actually only caught one fish today, a 13 inch largemouth bass. The wind was blowing so hard, all I could do was run the motor just to keep us from blowing out to sea. When I would take my eyes off the motor for just a second to snap a pic, we would blow off course 100's of feet. Plus if running the motor wasnt enough, Chad's wife Julie kept catching fish right and left. We only fished for a little over an hour and drained 2 fully charged trolling motors just trying to get back to the beach!
Sunday I am gonna head to church and spend the afternoon playing with kids. (with the basketball games on in the background). Building dragon towers out of legos is on the agenda for sure. Pretty much every week until after the 4th of July is about booked up solid for us. Traveling to southern Illinois next week to install some aeration systems and squeeze in a handful of pond consulations. And after that we start electrofishing for the next two months solid. We have scheduled road trips to a few places in Indiana, Missouri, Southern Illinois, and Chicago and try to coordinate as much as possible going to and from each of those places. Then locally we have surveys and fish stockings for many local fishing clubs, private lakes, and even some huge lakes like Oak Run we will be sampling and helping devise longterm management plans for. This spring is going to be crazy awesomeness.
Now that's a slab!
Today I took Brad and Dick out fishing. They were part of a group trip with Jamie. The weather didn't look like it was going to be in our favor, but it ended up holding off almost all day. During lunch we had to take refuge and get out of the storm, but other than that the sun tried to poke out all day! The water was high but the fish were on fire! We caught alot of great rainbows today. The largest was 6 1/2 pounds! The boys did good and turned many a slab today. It was the kind of day that just makes me so glad to call this river my home waters!
The Lee's
Yesterday,I took Rollin Lee and his son Jacob,fishing. I have taken them a few times before. The first time we fished together, I set my bar pretty high. They are both great fisherman, so the high water didn't scare us. We hit it head on and caught lots of rainbows. After a while the boys wanted to search for a big brown casting streamers. Unfortunately, the big fish just didn't want to come out to play. They hit'em hard though. It was just one of those days. We went back to the nymph rigs and caught quite a few more willing rainbows. It turned out to be a beautiful day on the water and its hard to complain about that!
Warm weather means hot fishing
Just as we figured, it only took a little warm weather to heat up the fishing action.
I had a couple of charters this week and we did extremely well.
On Wednesday, Ian Hill of Ontario caught a mess of pompano, spotted seatrout, Spanish mackerel and ladyfish. All of the fish were taken on D.O.A. CAL Jigs with gold paddle tails, D.O.A. night-glo shrimp and my Big Eye Baitfish Fly. Best action took place over deep grass patches in Sarasota Bay. We found fish on just about every cast.
On Thursday, I took Mark Fleischauer of Illinois and his son, Matt. Fishing was better than on the previous day.
We started catching fish right off the bat -- all on CAL Jigs with gold tails. Mark started things out with a fine Spanish mackerel. We caught at least a half dozen macks to 4 pounds on the day. In addition, we caught pompano to 2 pounds, spotted seatrout to 2, bluefish to 3, ladyfish and flounder.
Matt had the hot hand as far as big fish went.
We probably would have done better, but the wind picked up around 10 a.m., and kept us from fishing the productive spots.
The weather is definitely warming up and the fishing is pretty hot, too!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Dove wild fish is pure beauty......
Had a quick session this week and caught a wonderful wild fish that had spots like glowing LED's, got to be one of the best looking trout i have ever caught...
Z Fish Report (3/25/10)
Captain Francisco and Tim Apollo on the Huntress
Striped marlin, like last year, showed up again this year. Historically we rarely catch striped marlin here, but when they have shown up this last two years we have been getting more striped marlin than sailfish.
Most of the fish are being caught between 12 and 18 miles, with each boat in the fleet averaging 2 striped marlin and a sailfish a day. Naturally the better captains are doing better than that.
Some notable catches this last week were with Adolfo on the panga Dos Hermanos with 4 striped marlin and 5 sailfish in one day. All fish were released.
Mike Buckley, the owner of the super panga Huntress (with twin 85HP engines) emailed me this: Tim Apollo from Coatesville released two Striped Marlin and 1 Sailfish while fishing with Capt. Francisco on the Super Panga "Huntress" about 23 miles due south of Zihuatanejo. The Huntress also had 4 other Marlin strikes that day
Santiago, on the panga Gitana reported the following: Debbie Goggins from Alaska on released 2 Striped Marlin and 1 Sailfish fishing with Adan on the Gitana II. Dan Gaffney with his wife and Son from North Carolina, Released 3 Striped Marlin, 2 Sailfish and caught many Jacks & Bonitos, during 6 days of fishing over the past week. They fished with Santiago on the Gitana.
Also, Cheva on the panga Dos Hermanos II released three striped marlin yesterday, and Arturo on the panga Janeth released 3 striped marlin and two sailfish.
Ed Kunze
Fly Fishing Trout!
Monday morning I filmed a trout fly fishing show with Jon Graham, Curt Eber, Chef Todd, Casey Carey, and Justin down at the Hooked On Fishing Park. I have been raising rainbow trout in one of the springs for the last 3 years and have hundreds of 3-5 lb rainbows! They really are amazing fish and the fishing park is the perfect place for fly fishing for them! I am using the trophy trout springs to raise funds to help sponsor the free kids fishing instructions we provide all summer long, so if you know anyone who would like some flyfishing lessons or just needing to scratch the itch a bit closer to home you can give me a call or visit http://hbpondmanagement.com/exclusivetrout.htm
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