Johhny Mac

Last Wednesday Jamie and I did a group trip. We knew we had water coming at us around mid day, so we started fishing down river trying to stay in front of the water for as long as possible. We fished until about noon and then the water hit. We decided these Medtronic guys and doctors would rather go fish the low water instead of fighting the current, so we pulled out and went to the dam. It took us a minute to find out bite, but once we did it was on. This is one of the nice rainbows John McLaughlin caught.

Trout Pond was a Hit!

I had a couple sleepless nights scratching my head and just wondering how in the world we were going to make this happen. The trout pond at the Elmwood All Outdoors Show was something that seemed so easy in theory to do and setup last fall and over the winter, but all of a sudden out of nowhere it was already March 6th and showtime: now how in the world do we pull this off???

Just filling up the pond with 6,000 gallons of water was no easy task and would have been impossible without the help of the Elmwood Fire Department. We got er filled wednesday evening with a couple fire trucks and a deep well. Then on Thursday morning we found out that condensation and a couple hairpin leaks just wasnt going to work out inside the school building (I bet the school administration was a bit more freaked out than I was though). Anyhow, we drained the pond and then set er back up just outside the gym and filled er back up again, this time from a fire hydrant. The problem with city water is the chlorine and other stuff they use to treat it, so we had to dechlorinate the water.

Doesnt sound like that big of a deal, but in all honesty I was scrambling this whole time and not too confident we were going to pull this off. Then Friday morning at 5 am Justin and I headed up to Wisconsin to pick up the trout. We got em loaded up and were back to Elmwood by 4 pm and crossed our fingers as we plopped em into the city water. The DNR also brought some really cool fish for the kids to see in the pond as well! I didnt sleep too well that night and rushed over to the pond at the crack of dawn with my fingers crossed hoping I wouldnt raise the tarp and see a whole bunch of belly up fish.

We infused the water with pure oxygen all night long in order to help the fish recover from their transportation and stress. When I got to the pond and all the fish were doing great, I could finally breathe a nice sigh of relief. I knew it was all gonna be good from hear on out. I figured we would have about 40-50 kids come down and have the time of their life catching some awesome fish, but what happened today just blew my expectations out of the water! From 9 am to 4 pm we had a steady flow of literally thousands of people gathered around the pond watching their kids and grandkids catch the fish of their lifetime! The local taxidermists at the show actually got some business today, that was so awesome. We had several hundred kids all catch fish today with the help from Chef Todd, Kevin Curless, Justin Herman, myself, and a volunteer who I never caught his name, but need to do so tomorrow because he did an amazing job with the kids.

Anyhow, here are some pics from today. I would have to rank this trout pond as probably the best I have ever seen at a show! We actually let the kids take the fish home to eat if they wanted to and about 75 kids did!!

I estimate that we had 30-40 kids catch fish every hour, and about once per hour we hooked into one of the 5 monster blue catfish in the pond! Those lucky kids had the battle of their life! There was never less than 10 kids in line from the moment the show started! Not only was the trout pond a complete hit, but the whole show was just awesome. The deer measuring and Buck contest sold out completely with well over 100 monster deer on display, and all the vendors did alot of business today. We sold out of just about everything that we brought to our booth! I have never sold this much stuff at any other show I have ever been to. Tomorrow we do it all again, its great and fun, but I am glad this is just a 2 day show: I am going to sleep good tonight.

Z Fish Report (3/6/10)

Shelby Unger

        The blue water fishing has been slow this week, with the inshore action being the best bet. The full moon period caused the normal slow down in the blue water, but with the earthquake down in Chile, it really shut down. It was way to far for us to feel the quake here, but the small tsunami which came through acted like several major shock waves to the sailfish.

        The recorded tsunami was only about 3 feet high, and did not go much higher than our normal high tide line. When the tsunami came through, I was guiding with Cheva on the panga Dos Hermanos II, and fly fisherman Steve Mara of Seattle. We were in touch with the Port Captain's office, which was in touch with the entire coast on Mexico. We didn't feel or see a thing, but we didn't get any fish either.
        The sensitive lateral lines on a sailfish can pick up a school of bait fish a half mile away. The tsunami comes in by a series of shock waves, and it must really put a scare into the fish.
        A couple of days after the quake, Adolfo on the panga Dos Hermanos was doing so well he called me on his cell phone. He was into a very large school of jack crevalle, and they were huge. He was down at the Valentine river mouth, with the hard fighting jacks being an astonishing the 25 to 30 pound average.
  On Wed, Ken Unger of Calgary, Canada fished with Santiago on the panga Gitana. They didn't get a strike on a sailfish, but found a floating grass patch. They managed to pull a couple of smaller dorado and one nice dorado of about 30 pounds off it. Ken's 13 year old daughter, Shelby, had the honors to bring in the dinner. They had it cooked up at Lety's, which is probably the best seafood restaurant here, and very economical.
         Then, Ken and Shelby fished with Cheva and I on the panga Dos Hermanos II up on the Buena Vista Beach area. Ken was fly fishing, with Cheva throwing a surface popper or lure out 75 to 100 yards, and then handing off the caught fish to Shelby. She darned near got worn out. We did manage to raise a few roosters, and caught a jack crevalle. Plus, we found our own dorado hotel in the form of a huge patch of floating grass. We pulled 8 dorado off it. Nothing was big, but it was a fun. And, I got to take dorado home tonight for my wife Rebecca to cook up.

Ed Kunze

Couldnt get this bass through the hole!

I set up the portable 6,000 gallon trout pond yesterday for the Elmwood All Outdoors Show this coming weekend, and then had about an hour of unaccounted for time left and decided to try to catch a trout to use as a guinea pig overnight. The reason I am up so early this morning is because we are headed up north to a trout hatchery to pick up a load of trout for stocking the pond for the show. This trout pond is going to be different than most, because you actually can take the trout home for dinner when you catch one! Also will have some tagged fish for prizes, etc.

Anyhow, I was out trying to catch a trout and all I could catch was bluegill, yellow perch, and this monster bass! Literally I could barely get it through the hole and was just praying it wouldnt break my line the whole time I was fighting it. This bass is just way too fat to be coming out of one of the hardest longest winters in our history! Many ponds and lakes have had terrible fish kills this winter and this gal is not merely surviving, she is thriving! She looks like an alabama deputy sherriff if you know what I mean?


Whenever I go ice fishing for bluegill I can catch tons of trout, but when I want to catch trout, it seems impossible??? Anyhow, I used some fatheads, bluegill and perch as guinea pigs in the trout pond overnight. They probably will die because the water is from the city hydrant and is full of chlorine that we are going to treat for later today, but hey you never know?

This week has been crazy busy! I love it, Brook and the kids not so much (I dont love missing that part). Life is a balancing act that just seems so hard to keep everything in perfect balance. Always so much to do and not enough time to get er all done. Anyhow, you have to check out this advertisement in this months Pond Boss magazine! It is for Outdoor Water Solutions, they manufacture windmill aeration systems and other lake and pond products to improve water quality. If you can believe this, over the last two years, HB Pond Management has been one of their top distributors in the nation and that is competing agains the likes of Farm King and other big chain stores!!!

Windmill Aeration Ad Featuring HB Pond Management

2lb 8oz male @ 46cm Male beauty blasts my PB!!

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

My World on the Fly: White River Feb. 2010: Part I

My World on the Fly: White River Feb. 2010: Part I

Guesting on a unfished Derbyshire river bags me a 2lb brace!!!

Had a quick hour today and guested a part of a river totally unfished in Derbyshire, i had to pull the right strings to get a session and my God was it worth it!!
I had seen this river for years and it had all the looks of a proper trout run, i cannot mention the river at the moment, now this is not my style but i would not be able to fish it again...
The run is a 100metres rifle tailing off with a single scum lane slowing off at the end, i rigged up a 3 nymph set up and slid into the river at the bottom end, the run had a shallow slow run one side and on one side of the river it had a deep long glide that shallowed up slowly right to the top of the stretch..It looked as good as any i had fished and my heart was pounding knowing what this river might hold...
I started fishing the back end of the rifle, the river bed was sweet and i could trickle my point fly over the flat smooth stones with no snags, i just knew that i would find the Ladies as i moved further up the run, i love fishing new water but with this being unfished it had a extra buzz and i was mad for it....
I soon got the short sharp stop in the line and hooked into a fish, a run downstream revealed a Female Grayling which come to hand and weighed bang on 2lb, now i have been lucky to catch 6 Grayling over the two pound mark this year but this one was in a condition i have never seen, it was absolutley perfect in ever way a grayling should be...I let her drift off and then went looking for partner and after 2 casts i hit into another fish, after a good scrap i landed the male weighing in at 2lb 3oz!!!
Well i was now buzzing, i had only been in the river for half hour and had taken a cracking brace, but what happened next proper did my head in.....
I moved up the pool and my JT indicator stuck dead, i struck hard to feel a snag on the bottom, but then the drag started to click slowly take line off downstream, i was in no major flow and this fish was just hugging bottom and pulling line off the reel, i knew this was a very big fish from the plodding, i thought trout at first but the fight was controlled and slow,my ten foot streamflex was hooped all the way over!! the fish had taken my JT flashback point fly as i saw the other two droppers come towards me as i got some control, i guided the fish out of the flow and this is where it all went wrong, the fish came upto the surface, rolled over and the hook pinged!!! the fish was as long as my arm and i just stood there froze realizing what i had just lost, i had just lost a fish that i would not even dare guess the weight but thats fishing and i will get my chance again...
The best hours fishing to date....
Nice one
Glen