Holidays

 

The Time has finally come to head East to Wexford and Jim Hendrick's award winning guiding service. I am under no illusion that its going to be tough tough tough and Jim, being the professional that he is, has all but cancelled me. 

I couldn’t imagine a summer of fishing without a trip to Jim’s as I have done for a few years now and despite the grim conditions due to the continued unsettled weather I’m well up for it and will relish the increased challenge. Stay tuned for the full story over the next few days folks... 

The Walleye Pattern Continues To Pay Off

 A few weeks ago a good friend of mine Ron came out to my home lake of Candlewick. The walleye pattern has continued to pay off for the last few months. This guy measured in at 16 1/4". Not to shabby for a night on the water.

Walking the Dog.....Eh, I Mean the Fish

A crisp shot that shows Abrahn Castro, leadering a striped marlin at Destiladeras, aboard Rebecca. One of four released this day for Kathryn Gomez and her daughter Crystal with her husband.

Stylish Anglers

Not only did these girls look good in their fashionable hats, they caught a LOT  of fish aboard Adriana: six yellow fin tuna on cedar plugs and green lures, six dorado between 15 and 40 lbs and a Galapagos shark. A busy day for Rachael Ocain and Melissa Vancoest from Las Vegas, 35 miles offshore.

Hatrel Boys Make Good on Yellowtail

Show here are Byron (dad) Evan and Davis Hatrel who fished on the panga Gloria and caught these beautiful yellowtail. They caught a total of five of these beauties on Rapalas up to 25 lbs. Well done guys.

Who is our Best Looking Deckhand?

Well according to all the crews it is Ernesto, shown here on the right....the guys tease him because he only has a few teeth, they keep promising to club together to buy him false teeth and they say they will donate any tournament winnings to buy Ernesto a set of pearly whites. Teeth or not, Ernesto is a lot of fun and is always a gentleman when we have ladies aboard and he can catch fish! Shown here with Captain Orlando of the Andrea and Diana Morris from Austin, Texas, who caught five yellow fin tuna and this 26 lb dorado.

Todays Sunrise, thanks for the photo Mario

340 undecillion

THAT'S A BIG NUMBER

So What?

we're all involved

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.. Just so you know that your cell phone will still ring on the Firehole River; the implementation of IPv6 is underway. Soon your new $1,900.00 composite fly rod will have it's own address. So too will your favorite fishing location. Nothing is sacred.

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 -- NEW YORK (CNN Money) -- One of the crucial mechanisms powering the Internet got a giant, years-in-the-making overhaul on Wednesday. When we say "giant," we're not kidding. Silly-sounding huge number alert: The Internet's address book grew from "just" 4.3 billion unique addresses to 340 undecillion (that's 340 trillion trillion trillion). That's a growth factor of 79 octillion (billion billion billion).

-- If it all goes right, you won't notice a thing. And that's the point. The Internet is running out of addresses, and if nothing were done, you certainly would notice. New devices simply wouldn't be able to connect. To prevent that from happening, the Internet Society, a global standards-setting organization with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland; and Reston, Va., has been working for years to launch a new Internet Protocol (IP) standard called IPv6. IP is a global communications standard used for linking connected devices together. Every networked device -- your PC, smartphone, laptop, tablet and other gizmos -- needs a unique IP address.

-- With IPv6, there are now enough IP combinations for everyone in the world to have a billion billion IP addresses for every second of their life. That sounds unimaginably vast, but it's necessary, because the number of connected devices is exploding.
-- By 2016, Cisco (CSCO, Fortune 500) predicts there will be three networked devices per person on earth. We're not just talking about your smartphone and tablet; your washing machine, wristwatch and car will be connected too. Each of those connected things needs an IP address. Then there's all the items that won't necessarily connect to the Internet themselves, but will be communicating with other wired gadgets.
-- Developers are putting chips into eyeglasses, clothes and pill bottles. Each one of those items needs an IP address as well. The current IP standard, IPv4, was structured like this: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, with each "xxx" able to go from 0 to 255. IPv6 expands that so each "x" can be a 0 through 9 or "a" through "f," and it's structured like this: xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx. (Yes, there was an IPv5, but it was a streaming multimedia standard developed in the late 1970s that never really caught on). The changeover is akin to when the U.S. telephone system handled soaring growth by increasing the digits in each telephone number -- except for one crucial difference.

-- While the entire telephone system was upgraded in the 1990s, the Internet will be upgraded gradually. IPv4 will continue to exist alongside IPv6 for quite some time, just as digital and analog TV were broadcast side-by-side for years. Though most of the major Internet players will be IPv6 compliant going forward, many routers, devices and operating systems won't be. For instance, Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) Windows XP, the world's most-used PC operating system, is not IPv6-compliant. Just 1% of end users are expected to now be reaching websites using the IPv6 standard. The Internet Society expects that to gradually grow as users update their software and hardware. Most of the major websites and networks are already participating.
-- More than 2,000 websites, including Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Facebook (FB), Bing, Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500), AOL (AOL) and Netflix (NFLX), as well as a number of network operators such as AT&T (T, Fortune 500), Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500), Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (TWC, Fortune 500), have begun enabling IPv6. But they'll all need to continue to support IPv4 until the entire world upgrades. That will take years.
-- There have been some grumblings about cyberattackers getting ready to pounce on Wednesday, taking advantage of potential holes in a new technology. But a year ago, on June 8, 2011, all those participating networks and sites turned on IPv6 for a day-long test run without a hitch. They reverted to IPv4 the next day. This time, the change is permanent. It'll be a slow transition, but it's a crucial one that will support the Internet's current rate of expansion far into the future.

-- First Published: June 6, 2012: 5:13 AM ET

P.S. Learn to say "BIG BUGS" "HENRY'S FORK" "NOT TOO SECRET"

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Exploring the Kish

Summer has finally rolled in at full force, and brought a heat wave with it. I have been over consumed with the summer activities. Kids baseball and softball games, Deer food plots, fall hunting scouting, fishing, little miss beauty pageant for my daughter, and so on and so on.  I have only fished a handful of times in the past few weeks but have had some success.

I finally made my way back down to the Kishwaukee River in Boone CO. this past week. The river is starving for some rain just like the row crops that lined the rivers edge. I only found an hour of time to explore and try to hook into something. I brought with my 8wt. fly rod to try for pike and a spinning rod with a twister tail attached to try and hook whatever would bite. I ended up empty handed with the fly rod, but  I did however manage to hook into one fish and miss two others with the twister tail. I was hoping it was a smallmouth , but in fact it was the exact opposite, Largemouth. He wasn't monstrous, but it was a hook and land.

This little guy may have been pushing 6 inches if that. It was nice to see a largemouth in the river system though. I still have more to explore, and feel that I will find a good pike sooner than later. It will take some more trekking through the thick brush and fallen over trees, but it should turn out in my favor once I come across a nice deep pool.

Gonna Be a Long Hot Summer!

Ponds all over the state are starting to dry up! The corn is thirsty....I am thirsty! It was just plain hot today and it looks like its gonna be a long hot summer! For some reason that song by I believe Keith Urban is just stuck in my head every place I go. I almost sing it out as I talking about the weather with clients and what to do with their lakes and ponds going into a summer such as this.

Ok so its 1:57 am Friday morning. I am still sugared up from a midnight energy drink as we drove home from Carbondale. Also I am jacked up for Tuna fishing in Venice Louisiana this weekend, so sleep isnt gonna come easy tonight, might as well write...

Just finished up a marathon two weeks that saw mucho miles put on the red chevy and electrofishing boat. Last week we spent a good portion of the week in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area. Consulted with 4 seperate lake and land owners there and finished up at perhaps one of the coolest estates in the whole state of Iowa. It has it all- fish, deer, golf, swimming, tennis, basketball, horses, streams, waterfalls, etc etc etc. Simply amazing and now the fish there are gonna be amazing too....

Seems like alot of folks in that area are big into fishing and hunting and managing their lakes and land! I ship more lake supply orders and get more phone calls and emails from Cedar Rapids area each year than I do the whole rest of the state of Iowa! Already got several people from that area lined up for next road trip there this fall- very cool!

Here are some pics from Marks very cool sand pit lake just outside of Cedar Rapids. Looks like a fun place to fish eh? Big and little walleye everywhere!!!




Then on Saturday we hosted a couple hundred high school boys and co up at the lake on Saturday. Shew boy is that ever an action packed day. We picked up a used ice cream maching on Ebay earlier this year and went through like 500 cones on girls camp weekend, but went through over 1300 on boys camp day!!! We stocked up.

Also on Saturday we sent the boys out striper fishing and we cleaned and cooked up the fish as they were catching them. Probably 30 fish in all!!
 



They were gobbling up that stuff so fast they were burning their hands grabbing it instantly once the basket flopped onto the paper towel.

Then Sunday we rested. Me and the kids just hung out together peacefully all day long and after church we rented a movie about a family who bought a zoo. Someday we will probably have a zoo too. Noah for some reason wants a blue lion from Africa. Been talking about that for over a year....

This week we put way more miles on the truck! Built a couple nice docks on Tuesday. Here is a pic of the big swim dock for Chris's lake:



Then we loaded up truck and boat to the max and headed south Wednesday. 3500 feet of weighted tubing, 3 aeration compressors and cabinets, 11 membrane diffusers, 1000 lbs high protein fish food, 6 texas hunter fish feeders, couple cases of HB brand lake dye and algaecides, 50 lbs HB Bacteria, tools, clothes, and 3 guys. Not an inch of space left-



Electrofished and installed aeration near Taylorville for good client Al. Visited his place in 2010 and his pond has been hopping since then!!

Then dropped up some feeders near Hillsboro for a Pond Boss guy and headed down to the Double Tree Hotel in Collinsville for the night. Mexican for dinner and then lights out. Installed aeration in Belleville for an awesome pond in the AM and then headed for the big job near Carbondale. We had so much stuff jampacked in the truck and boat, it would take 20 minutes to unload the boat and truck each time we had to use it and then repack it up again to head to the next place!

Finally near Carbondale we installed the motherload of all aeration systems. Jason is literally growing a pond full of double digit largemouth bass and I am not exaggerating. He has the perfect storm brewing and we are monitoring it very closely!!!!! There are not many bass, but rather HUGE bass... So anyhow we custom designed this aeration system, we call it the ROCK STAR system! Here is a peek inside of the insulated weatherproof cabinet!



We did some work on the other ponds on his property, designed a couple sweet docks for him and headed out around 8:30 pm for home. Oh yeah, it was 106 degrees today near Carbondale and that was actual temp, not heat index. Oh yeah again, our air conditioning did not work in the red chevy for the entire road trip and it was more than 90 degrees in the truck as we drove around the dry thirsty hot southern portion of the state. WOW was that ever an experience. Even at 10 pm it was still 88 degrees in the truck.....serious stink.....

So that brings me up to right now this very moment. Well let me back up, Jared and Tate were with me in Southern Illinois and Justin, Allen and Phil had the privilege of cutting trees and clearing Dr. Dave's lake front lot. Hottest day of the decade and they were out plugging away with skid steer, chipper, and chainsaws!







So now here we are on the heel of an epic deep sea fishing trip to Venice! One for the ages: 12 guys, 4 days, 8 coolers, and supposedly the tuna are on fire 70 miles offshore!!!!!! You wanna know whats crazy, the forecast for Venice is 10 degrees cooler than the forecast for Peoria baby!!!

So we get back July 3rd and the rest of the summer should be back to normal. The camps are done, the busy season should be behind us and we got a couple fun close to home projects to take us through this long hot summer!!! Lots of swimming will be on the agenda! And hopefully eating a summers worth of yellowfin tuna!

Last Bass session of June

Another dank night last night so I hope July is better. The Met Office and Windguru got both the strength and direction wrong but Jamie and I dodged on anyway. With the wind almost off my back I started off with a weightless Sluggo and them moved to an Xlayer which produced a couple of hits but nothing solid. Jamie tried a variety of lures with one half hearted splash to show for his efforts. The tide was dropping fast and with only a three hour session on the cards time was running out. As we looked out sea we could see Gannets moving fast, diving covering ground at an incredible rate as they did so moving towards us with tide emptying out the bay. Just at that we got a double hook...

Jamie with the better of the two fish on a baby Patchinko

Me with my fish on a Komomo in joker plate. As well as being happy to see the fish we were pissing ourselves as the rip in my waders at the backside had filled them almost to the waistband. You can see them in the picture below.

The two fish hit the beach at the same time

These are my spare pair.For a laugh I got Jamie to cut them at the bottom to let the water out.

Simple things make you laugh....this was one of them.

I arrived home today to find a new pair of waders replaced under warranty happy days!

Hopefully have some better pictures next time as phone cameras dont cut it in this light. I just got a new Lumix FT20 as you can see with summer here its defo got to be waterproof.

clinton lake summer bass fishing report

clinton lake largemouth bass

My buddy is an avid local tournament angler from the Clinton Lake area. From time to time he likes to drop me a report on the bite and conditions. Here it is...

I caught this fish on Saturday. What I'm finding out, the water temps are in the high 80s down here. There are an abundance of fish down about 8 feet of water. For the last couple of weeks it seems like that's where they are hiding out. The fish don't seem to have moved far just to the deep end of whatever cover they were on before.  Catching multiples in one area is very realistic right now. When you do find a bass, he was there for a reason so soak that area in search of others.

Thanks Santa, your reports are always appreciated.

Z Fish Report (6/28/12)

Heading out in the morning

The heavy rains from last week are gone and we are now back into a decent weather pattern, with a bit of rain at night, warm and clear days. However, last week’s rain did push the blue water out to about the 15 mile mark, and cooled down the inshore areas a bit with the heavy flow of water from the rivers. But, the blue water current is strong again this year, as it was last year, and quickly corrected itself to being just a couple of hundred yards off the beach.

Rick Gandy and Adolfo with one of 20 roosters last week

Weed lines are developing well, and the dorado are starting to move in. But, many of the dorado are being taken by the inshore fishermen, working less than a half mile off the beach. The sailfish, tuna, and marlin bite still remains slow. When the smaller yellowfin tuna do show, they breeze in, and are soon gone. It is more or less of being in the right place at the right time thing.

Even Adrea got in on the action with Rick and Adolfo
with her first rooster

Adolfo, on the panga Dos Hermanos, with his French clients, has fished every day this week for roosters. They are doing well on roosters, jack crevalle and even a few dorado.

Ed Kunze (IGFA Representative)

To get a better understanding of what fishing is best and at what time of the year click on the link: http://calendarforfishing.blogspot.mx/

 

debby be gone

Tropical Storm Debby really ruffled some feathers this week. All attention has been focused on the storm squatting in the Big Bend of Florida as it pushed nasty weather across the state all week. But, Debby didn’t stop our Mogan Maniacs from coming out to the Season Finale shoot at Dick’s Sporting Goods. Debby didn’t stop our fans from watching hours of footage on YouTube. She did manage to keep us all off the water, though. As we escort this lady of misfortune out, let’s regroup and get back to our fishing holes!

Mogan of the Week - Steve Meyer's 7lb trout.

That’s a wrap

“Thank you” to the Mogan Maniacs that braved the storm to come out to DSG Clearwater for the Season Finale shoot. Torrential down pour, stiff winds and the threat of being put on a television show seen around the world couldn’t stop our fans from showing up for the live shoot. You guys rock! After filming was done, Capt. Blair mingled with the crowd to sign autographs, pose for pictures and hand over another Flats Blues Traveler to Chris Bean. Chris is a traveler in his own rights as he traveled all the way from Orlando to take part in the live shoot. The Season Finale will air in September. See if you can guess which Mogan Lounge member made it on camera.

Mogan Tour

So, you couldn’t make it to the shooting of the Season Finale because you live in Wilmington, North Carolina? Luck would have it that this Saturday the Mogan Man will be bringing the tour to Dick’s Sporting Goods at the Mayfaire Town Center. Come out between 11am-4pm to meet Capt. Blair Wiggins. While you’re there, grab a money save coupon that can be used when you purchase a Flats Blue rod, FINS situational braid, Seaguar Fluorocarbon and whatever else you can fit into your buggy. Don’t forget Get signed up for the Minn Kota/Humminbird Giveaway.

Stick it

Stick some cash in your pocket when you stick a MinnKota Talon on the back of your boat. Minn Kota is offering up rebates on the purchase of a new Talon thru August 1^st. After you lock down the deal, be sure to lock down the Talon with a NEW Talon security kit. Still not anchored on the idea of putting a Humminbird Talon on your boat? Check out what some of the pros are saying about this shallow water anchor at MinnKotaMotors.com.

Coming up on Addictive Fishing

“The Bimini Boys” set out on the 60’ Star brite sportfisher to get hung up down deep. With Capt. Peter Dornau (President of Star brite) at the helm and Capt. Kevin Cote from Bimini on the deck, it takes Blair no time at all to get hooked up. In 922 feet of water, it takes Blair longer to drop his bait to the snapper than it takes the snapper to eat his bait. Tune in for the first of this two part episode starting Friday @ 10:30am. Catch it again Sunday @ 9:30pm and Tuesday @ 6:00am on SunSports. Can’t get enough Addictive Fishing on the tube? Subscribe to the AFYouTube channel. It’s FREE and airs any episode at the click of a mouse 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As an added bonus, Mr. Producer will throw in this week’s episode in its entirety on Tuesday!

Mogan of the Week

We had to dig back to the pre-Debby era to find this week’s Mogan of the Week and found this guy. Steve Meyer used a DOA shrimp to subdue this Mogan trout. That “new penny” shrimp is an old time favorite and there’s proof in the pudding that it works. Good goin’, Steve!

Fighting back with a flood of news,

BillBird

June 16th - Lovely Chubbly!

Since returning from the World Catfish Classics, the weather seems to have been very unpredictable and it's made deciding when and where to fish quite difficult. Before that though, whilst I was away, England did have a great spell of hot weather, perfect for flyfishing for Carp. So my Dad took advantage of the conditions and had a couple of trips flyfishing for them locally. He did very well too, landing 18 Carp to 19lb - great fun on fly gear.

The day after I got back from Spain, I also had my first session of the year flyfishing for Carp. Although we came close to catching them on fly gear, unfortunately most of the fish were too far out to be able to reach with a fly rod. I did manage to hook one on the fly but it slipped the hook as I was about to net it. Luckily, we had a backup plan and took one of my Dad's old KM carp rods. The fish were a bit finicky, but in the end my Dad managed to land 3 and lost one of around 30lbs - which was a bit of a gutter! I managed to catch one - all the fish we caught were good doubles though.

About three weeks ago I wrote an article that was published in the Angling Times about a great spell my Dad and I had flyfishing for Carp last year, which I've pasted below:

 A week or so later we decided to flyfish for the Zander on Grafham. The weather looked great - nice and calm for a change and no rain - so we were really looking forward to it. About 20 minutes in to our journey to Grafham we were cut up by a van on a roundabout which resulted in a bad crash. We couldn't believe it - it happened so fast and left us very shook up. After all the swapping of the details with the driver and trying to calm down, we continued our journey to Grafham, determined not to let it spoil our day.

It was hard trying not to think about the state of the car, but we fished on, and caught 13 Zander to 9lb 1oz, plus a near double-figure Bream my Dad caught.

We saw quite a few trout rising whilst fishing for Zander which was a bit of a distraction! But you can't do it all...

I can't believe we're already 2 weeks in to the new river season - it's really caught us by surprise and because we've had so much going on, it's been hard to get out, which has been very frustrating! We did manage a session the day after June 16th and decided to take our jigging rods exploring some of our local rivers, hoping to catch a few Chub. My first fish of the season though was a Perch of around 1lb I caught on a crankbait. My Dad then frustratingly lost a very good Chub on a jig!

The rivers were still coloured after all the rain, but chopping and changing between jigs and plugs, we ended up having an action-packed trip. I love this type of fishing - exploring miles of riverbank that hasn't been touched for months.

By the end of the day, although we were completely cream crackered, we had banked over 40 fish between us - a mixture of Chub, Pike, and Perch. The biggest surprise though was catching a lovely Perch from a tiny river, which weighed 3lb 6oz!

The best Chub was just over 4lbs - these fight really well on a 7ft lure rod!

Apart from that trip we've only managed to have a couple of hours here and there locally, which haven't been as productive as that first day. We've still caught quite a few Pike and Perch though, as well as 2 Chub around the 4lb mark - plus a couple of Dace, believe it or not, caught on tiny Crickhopper plugs fished across the surface!

 

That could be it now for a couple of weeks on the rivers for us, as we've got a fishing trip to France planned with a group of friends - that's if we get our car back from being repaired!

Time To Fish? Time To Catch!

ENJOY THE MORNING

Learn To Saunter

explore some tributaries

AFTER 7:00 PM WOULD BE BETTER

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Stiff Hackle

.. It's about time for the Firehole River to enter it's "TOOHOTTOFISH" phase.
.. We take this opportunity to remind you that the fish are still in the water. They don't plunk down under a tree and wait out the mid-day heat in the shade.
.. They find the shade under the banks. They move around with the sun and shade and the temperature. They find the spring holes in the river. They know where the cooler tributaries are, (or they soon learn.)

Little Mite

.. Morning is a perfect time to tickle a fish or two.
.. Grandma would always say: "Fish where the fish are." Wise woman, eh? For the time being most action will be subsurface and with the ever-present soft hackle, (or stiff hackle.)
.. The neighbors are now using a bit of nothing called "The Little Mite," or another silly creation called "The Little Wing." (LINK)

.. Of course they are fishing Nez Perce Creek, Iron Spring Creek, and the Little Firehole River.

Little Wing

.. Some have even headed up to the Gallatin River despite sage advice to the contrary from seasonal clerks at the feather merchants' counters.
.. Just so you know: some of the second molt hoppers are turning colors and there are reports of a few with wings near Black Butte, (some near Indian Creek too.)
..So, spend some time with your terrestrial fly box. Quickly now, get the hottest new imitations from your favorite retailer.
.. Gather up the Stupifindeously Majesticas imitations and you can give your colleagues fits. After all, the clerk said that they were the latest thing.

.. OR: big ratty caddis imitations, a few foam beetles, and some ants should do the trick.
.. We're still using the fly we got from a visitor from Hawaii. He called it "The Crinkled Leg Ant." It's a bit on the small side for our eyes - but it works.
.. Surprisingly, against all sane and rational fishing behavior we still enjoy the sights and sounds of Yellowstone National Park.
.. We pause frequently and take side trips to view the geyser basins, lush meadows, secluded tributaries, and other places in the park. Sometimes we do it without a rod or camera. But never without bear spray!
.. Enjoy the sights!

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