Electro Fishing Lake Audits and Pics

Here are some pics from shocking some lakes and ponds the last few days. We will be doing a lot of traveling over the next few weeks performing Full Lake Audits and Electrofishing for BIG lakes and pond across the state of Illinois.

We are pretty much booked solid for the rest of this season, but get your favorite fishing lake, club, campground, etc signed up for next spring!!

John Sauders Pond Pics:




Lake Wildwood Fish Pics:

Wilmington Recreation Club pics:

Redear Sunfish Stocking program to combat zebra mussel infestation has been working!

Doug Oberhelmans Fish Pictures. This is a lake we have been stocking heavy with northern pike, tiger musky, and walleye in order to combat the infestation of carp, gizzard shad, and yellow bass. It is working, and the LMB are getting fatter and larger (albeit not quite as many of 'em):

Leisure Times Pictures:

That is definitely the end to a very eventful week! I am stuck in the office all day today trying to catch up on voice and emails and write up some reports before our next round of electrofishing kicks off at 5am Monday morning. Next week we are headed to Shelbina, Mo; Fiatt, IL; Lisle, IL; and the Quad Cities for electrofishing surveys and also gonna squeeze in a Sonogram for our little bun in the oven as well as attend the Lyle Finch Memorial Clay Pigeon Shoot that benefits the Easter Seals. Then on Saturday we are taking a family guided fishing out at the lake that they purchased from the PCS benefit auction. About next sunday I will have another round of really cool fish pics for sure!

Senior Citizen Fishing Trip at The Fishing Park

Before heading off to the Pond Boss Conference at Big Cedar Lodge, we took some residents at the Skyline Drive Nursing Home out for a fishing trip at the Hooked on Fishing Park

Everyone had a BLAST! We are looking forward to our next fishing trip with these guys for sure!!! I will let these couple pics finish off the rest of the story.

Pond Boss Conference Update

We headed down to Branson, Missouri on Wed morning for the Pond Boss Conference and Expo. When we got to Branson we checked into our log cabin and then headed for the Bass Pro Shops on the white river!

Over the next few days we listened to some incredible fish and pond experiments and case studies, hung out with a lot of good friends from all over the country, ate tons of food, did a seining demonstration on the Big Cedar Pond, Fished a tournament on table rock lake, and hit up the Bass Pro Shops in Springfield on the way home.

A more detailed account of the conference along with many pics can be found at http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=183880#Post183880

OH yeah, let me just say that the Big Cedar Lodge in Branson is quite simply AMAZING!

Islay Day 2

After our excellent day previously i was buzzing to get up early and fish the Laggan for the Salmon, waking Woody up at 5 oclock was no good as he had been dramming, we had a quick 'you ready for it youth' and we fell back asleep..

We woke up around seven and chucked the gear in the van, 7 weight line ect and heavy tackle.. Peter had more gear than you could ever imagine, a rod for every situation.

We drove across to the other side of the island in 30 mins and arrived at the Estate, we took a stroll down to the rivers edge and our hearts sank, with the dry spell the river had come down even lower than the day before and was looking down to bare bones, we had to decide weather to flog it all day or leave it until later in the week if we had rain.. its probably the first time i prayed for any rain..

Thats the problem with Salmon fishing, you need to catch it right and your in a good chance of a fish but today was a no go...

We decided to head off to loch Gorm where i had loved it the previous day, i was no bothered about the river Laggan as these wild lochs had got a hold on me.

We arrived at Gorm and fished in different spots than the day before, the weather was overcast with a slight ripple which looked top conditions, we struggled on the dry and the wets, it was early in the day and it was obvious that these fish were not on the feed and a evening session on these lochs is the way forward.

Waterford

I'm in Waterford, South East, Ireland with work for the week and looking forward to fishing later in the week.

The weather is calm after a big blow so it could produce some good fishing.

Will let you know how it goes.....

Fun with Dad

So if you guys don't know, I have my dad to thank for my passion of trout and the river. I caught my first fish when I was two years old. We have fished together my whole life. Yesterday afternoon the river was running two units and the sun was shining. Not ideal streamer conditions, but we wanted to give them a whirl. I convinced dad to take his boat. I think that within our first five casts, we both had Fish On! We fished for a couple of hours and caught several nice browns. We both missed several as well. I brought in this 26 inch toad! It was such a rush to have this monster come up out of the water 4 times! He was like a baby tarpon. It was awesome! It was a real treat to get to do what I love most with my dad, catch big browns on streamers.

Islay 'Day 1 continued'

After reading Woody's blog i realised that i had missed the session after we had a few hours on Finlaagen..

At this place, times stands still, i remember asking Woody the time and what day it was most of the time? he described to me that its known as 'Islay time' people who visit this Island get in a relaxed state of mind, time does not matter anymore, i had this feeling and it felt great!!

After Finlaagen we decided to go over to the also well know Loch Gorm, i was still looking forward to my first Scottish wild brown to the dry, this Loch was huge and i had that daunting feeling when you pull up to a massive Loch 'where are the fish?'
We walked down to this Loch and the scenery was top draw, its overlooked the sea front in the distance with mountains beyond the sea.
It was around five o'clock and as we walked around the bank edges we started to disturb my favorite invertebrate, THE SEDGE, nice big Cinnamon sedges all getting ready to return to lay there eggs!!
Now it was time to select my LTD sedge, i have a confidence in this fly and it will pick a fish out with no hatch, but the signs were all there.. I shouted on the Walkie Talkie to Woody and Pete, lads it time for the dry!! also with a bit of banter at the end, calling them both Wet fly Wa"kers...
These walkie talkies were a great piece of kit, Woody and i use them back home to chat on, Peter had to get used to them but we were all soon having the crack with some tips and abusive comments now and again!!
I waded thirty feet out, the bottom was a bit dodgy and you had to have your wits about you, i looked all around me for five mins and there it was, a nice slashing rise!! if you love the dry you will know the feeling you get when this happens, your heart beat steps up the pace and you become ''switched on', I cast to this fish and waited..... nothing.....re cast..... nothing.... re cast with a heavy drop and a two inch vibro twitch, Smash!! full tail walking brown hits the fly and comes flying towards me, my line goes slack as i retrieve to keep in touch but the fish is too quick, the fish sees me and darts off at full speed... The fish was so angry, it was a hook virgin brown and it went mental, i soon got the better of him and landed my first true wild brown to hand..perfect in every way and a whisky coloured stain matching it living conditions..i returned the fish as we had Pollock waiting at home for the nights tea..
Below is the fish showing my LTD hooked well in the scissors 'Quality'



From there on in i started to have the best dry fly fishing i have ever had, not very easy, but i found that casting to rising fish and a 4 inch twitch of the sedge would tempt the trout to hit them with no caution, i missed quite a few and realized i needed to strike fast and down to my side, this hooked all the fish and for a half hour i was having a fish a cast, all around half a pound and fighting fit..





Woody was fishing very relaxed and you could see he was just enjoying watching me and Peter buzzing our heads off, i stood and watched him fish the sedge and missing take after take, we soon realised that he was using the larger LTD and the trout were just a bit on the cautious side and hitting them with tails trying to sink them, a quick change to a size 16 and it was 'bag up Woody'





There are times in my life when i have had moments that stay with me forever, i suppose everyone has these feelings, they only last for a few minutes but you get a overwhelming feeling, like when i scored a winning goal playing football in front of 1500 supporters, feeling the hook set on my first salmon....Well i was standing in this Loch and the sun was setting over the sea causing the most deep orange glow all over the loch, mountains in the distance were disappearing, i had just landed a brown in the glowing loch, i turned to Woody and we just watched this magnificent sight in complete silence for a few Min's, a moment that i will always talk about, its hard for me to put this scene into words but it only a fisherman who would know what it felt like.. a true special moment......





The pictures below show just part of the view......