Hooked On Fishing Video and Update

Our first annual Hooked On Fishing fundraising dinner last saturday night went GREAT! We sold out completely with over 250 people in attendance and raised about $40,000 for the upcoming fishing season. The food was great, the silent auction items were all world class, and I didnt faint while giving my speech.

Next year we hope to tweak a few things to make the dinner even better, and hopefully will be able to accomodate a couple hundred more guests! Here is a short informational video for those of you who still dont know what the hooked on fishing park is. Also we have a brand new website that is really awesome: hookedonfishingpark.org We plan on having several fishing derbies and new events like grandparents day and such this coming season, so make sure to check the website for more information as we get closer to summer.

Winter Camping on the Mackinaw

I have absolutely nothing to do with the making of this video, but for some reason can relate to the simple stupidity of being young and dumb.

Hybrid Striped Bass Fishing at Lake Norris Video

We are starting to put together some of our underwater and fishing footage from this summer. Here is a video about raising and fishing for hybrid striped bass at 33 acre Lake Norris, an HB Featured Property. Chef Todd and Larry Harper catch monster stripers while filming a fishing show for Bill Dance Porcupine Fish Attractors.

Spendin' time with gma: Must See Video!

After church we headed out to the lake to spend time with friends and family and celebrate a birthday party for Ariya. My grandma is 77 years old and decided to go for the grand slam of activities that the lake has to offer! My aunt Judy Sceggel happened to have a video camera to film the afternoon activities- seining bait, feeding fish, kissing fish, fishing, water slide, rope swing, high dive, and mule ridin' were all on the agenda and grandma conquered them all. The video is fairly long at 8 minutes, but let me just say that if you have 8 minutes available, watch the video now. If you dont have 8 minutes available, save the link and watch the video when you get the time. You will laugh at some point. At 3:39 of the video she gets bit by a smallmouth bass and the impact leaves a nice smallmouth lips imprint as a souvenir on her face!!!

Tribute to The Hybrid Striped Bass

I stocked my first hybrid striped bass on May 5th 2007. I was very skeptical mainly because I had never heard of anyone in my area stocking them and really knew absolutely nothing about them except that some pond boss guys were growing them really big in small ponds. I could not believe how fast these fish grew that first summer and was even more shocked at how fast they grew the next summer and still am blown away with how fast them things have grown this summer!!!

The original HSB that I have left in the lake are 6-9 lbs and just BEASTS! We typically use 6 lb test on medium/light fishing gear for open water fishing, but the big boys have spooled 5 rigs completely this summer and easily broken off another dozen. People I take fishing typically arent very experienced anglers, but they typically have no problems landing catfish, smb, and lmb on this same gear. The big stripers are only just 3 years old and in a whole nother league! Here are some pics documenting the HSB growth!

2007 class pics:



2008 class pics:



2009 class pic:


Anyhow, I have since stocked about 20,000 hsb in lakes and ponds around the area and they are definitely growing faster in the lakes that artificially feed, but they are still growing really good even in the lakes without the additional supplements!

Here is a video of the girls feeding the 2009 year class of stripers on the beach:
Striper Feeding Video

Girls Feeding Hybrid Stripers on The Beach

My daughters and her cousins absolutely love helping me with the chores at the lake. Feeding the fish is one of their favorite activities and this school of hybrid striped bass has learned over the course of the summer that its dinner time when the girls hit the beach! 

Fishing Trip Video with Larry Harper the Fish Attractor King

A video from earlier this summer when we took Larry Harper the Bill Dance Fish Attractor guy fishing at a few places. We hope to be able to upgrade the quality our filming camera, we just need to sell a few more porcupine attractors though!

Underwater Scuba Diving Footage

Video of some underwater fishing reefs at some of our featured properties.

Filming, Fishing, Weed Cutting, Electro Shocking, and Stocking

This week we compacted about 10 days worth of work into just 6 days. We delivered 100's of Hybrid Striped Bass to clients starting at about 4:30 am a couple days this week, and still ended up working until well after 6 pm every night. We cut down tons of cattails for a client with a 1/3 acre pond on a natural preservation site. They cannot use chemicals on the property, so we will need to set that pond up to prevent and deter aquatic vegetation from taking over! We also treated a handful of lakes, did some on-site consultations, took some people fishing, filmed a couple shows, and finished up Saturday evening with a Full Lake Audit and Electrofishing Survey for Indian Point Campground and Fishing Club- More on that Later! 

I did happen to have a few hours of free time from 8 pm to 11 pm a few nights this week and spent those hours working on and getting my house for sale. I got er listed and now will spend every spare minute I have just finishing up odds and ends projects I should have finished 3 years ago before I moved in! I am actually getting kind of used to sleeping for 6 hours and working for 18 hours per day, but I am also looking forward to September and a much less demanding schedule for the fall and winter! 

Funny Yet Informative Porcupine Fish Attractor Video!

A couple weeks ago we made a whole bunch of fishing videos with Larry Harper the inventor of the porcupine fish attractors. We went around to several of our featured properties filming and catching fish over the porcupine fish attractors we placed.

This is the first video we have completed and by far the most fun. Hope you enjoy and stick through to the end!

Waibels Illinois Guided Fishing Trip Video

You can read a full account of this trip at: Waibels Guided Fishing Trip

Underwater Scuba Diving Footage at HB's Trophy Fishing Lake

This video was taken at our 30 acre lake in Fulton County. We offer fully guided fishing trips at this and many other Herman Brothers Featured Properties. Justin, Allen, and Josh have been having way too much fun taking and making these videos!



We have been creating specialized trophy lakes for many clients over the last few years, and have been having GREAT results growing Hybrid Striped Bass, Yellow Perch, Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, Muskie, and even Rainbow Trout right here in Central Illinois!!!! Most pond owners think they have to live up North or have a super deep lake to grow these northern species of fish, but we can grow them right here in Central Illinois in one acre ponds that are 12 feet deep!!!

Riding Horses in the Water

Saturday we had 300 or so High School Girls, Counselors, and Helpers out to the lake for some swimming activities and horseback riding. My aunts and uncles have lots of horses and love teaching people how to ride. They even teach youngsters how to do gymnastics on moving horses! Anyhow before camp they decided to take a new trail for the campers- through the water - and they needed some volunteers to help get the horses familiar with the new trail.

After some minor resistance I was nominated as a volunteer and jumped on a horse. I am much to big to be riding a horse in the first place, but they assured me that the horse was capable of carrying a 400 lb rider! When I hopped on that beast I quickly realized it was not quite as easy as it looks on TV, especially without a saddle. Both of my hands were glued to that horse at all times, and my feet were locked around it, and I still came waaaay too close to falling several times. Despite what appears to be a smile on my face in the video, I was actually pretty petrified the entire time and I am still a bit sore from the ride, but actually I might be getting back on a horse again in the future. Definitely will be with a saddle next time though.

High School Boys Camp Video and Pics

June 18-21 we had high school boys camp at the my uncles place in Farmington and my lake in Norris.



Will post more pics soon, check out the video for now.

Smallmouth Bass Spawning Video

We took quite a bit of video footage of Smallmouth Bass Spawning and Hatching from June 4 to June 11 at our lake. We had TONS of footage of this Smallmouth Bass guarding the nest and eggs, the eggs hatching, and the male guarding the fry. Due to a couple camera malfunctions and random acts of dumbness on our parts we lost 90% of the footage, but were still able to put together this video of what we salvaged. Its pretty cool!

High School Boys Camp

I spent Friday at our Church's High School Boys Camp at the Old School Center in Farmington.
We played Football, Basketball, Soccer, Bombardment, Ultimate Frisbee, Long Jump and had a 2x4 chucking competition. Let me just say that it is late monday night and I can still barely walk! Bruised some ribs, tweaked an ankle, bumped a shoulder, and pulled a muscle in my lower back that has me doubled over and moving in ultra slow motion while in constant fear of that sharp needle like feeling piercing through my spine with every move I make.

Anyhow, we followed up fridays grueling schedule with a trip up to our lake for some water activities: Water slide, Rope Swing, High Dive, Volleyball, Golf Driving Range, Jet Skiing, Canoeing, Pontoon Boating, King of the Mountain Tires, and just plain swimming. 100 MPH nonstop with over 200 high school boys and counselors will take me over a week to recover from!

There were several photographers at the events, and I will post pictures here as they come in: Video and Pictures from Camp

Trapnetting Video and Pictures From The Hooked on Fishing Park

This video and pictures were taken at the Hooked On Fishing Park last week.



We are getting set to open up and were just making sure the fish were doing fine! They Are!!! Nice channel catfish, flathead catfish, carp, bass, crappie, and bluegill are ready to be caught!