Boone and Crocket Bluegills!

Today we were on the ice just as the sun started rising. We were going after some big bluegills for a taxidermist to mount for the new Bass Pro Shops store in East Peoria. Also we were fishing with a Berkeley representative who wanted to try to catch his first trout through the ice. Chef Todd, Chris Rock and his boy Marcus, Jonn Graham and his father in law Richard, and my brother Justing rounded out the crew this morning.

We accomplished our mission by catching 8 bluegills over 10 inches for the taxidermist and some of them were pushing 12 inches long! We didn't catch very many fish, but we caught some really big fish.

Mission accomplished with the trout too. Here is one really nice first trout to catch through the ice eh?

This big hen (female trout) was super fat and busting full of eggs, here is another pic of her and you can see the eggs spewing out if you look real close!

I didn't take a close up pic for some dumb reason, but this trout had a pretty good muskie bit scar on it that looked pretty recent. The jaw marks were pretty BIG........

Jonn stroked the biggest trout of the year through the ice, but his lake record didnt hold up for very long......

How about this monster rainbow to finish off the day! He barely fit through the hole!! This guy we didn't get too good of pics of because we got him right back into the hole, he was too big and beautiful to take home for dinner.


We were off the water by 11 am and we headed into Kersch Cafe in Farmington to eat lunch. I then went into the office for the rest of the afternoon and worked on dreaded paperwork, but I was super tempted to lay down on the floor to take a nap after getting up early and then eating a double bacon cheeseburger!