Week Review and Upcoming Schedule

Quarter till midnight and I am sitting here trying to make a game plan for the next 6 weeks. I just spent the week electrofishing and delivering Hybrid Striped Bass across the state of Illinois, all while trying to juggle about a million or two other things as well. I managed to squeeze in a Hooked on Fishing Park meeting, a house showing, an onsite consultation, 400 answered voice and emails, and two chiropractor appointments (I hurt my back playing football in June, lived with the pain for 4 months and finally went to the Dr. Bob Benningfield and am completely pain free after 2 weeks!!!!!) Also got the kids to bed every night before getting back to working on something and even managed a trip to the park with them on thursday night for a couple hours.

Looking ahead, I will be delivering Hybrid Striped Bass saturday morning, hopefully will be just sick enough to not be able to make it to Brook's friends wedding sat evening, but yet still able to watch a few football games! Then Sunday we are heading to church and then to Ariya's B-day party (its at the lake, so that will be a good time). And then Monday and Tuesday are going to be SWAMPED trying to get everything done before I leave for the National Pond Boss Convention in Branson, MO on Wed. Monday we are going to squeeze in a fishing trip with the skyline drive nursing home down at the fishing park, tuesday will be spent just getting everything ready for the convention. Thursday I am fishing in a "celebrity" fishing tournament so to speak on Table Rock Lake and then friday afternoon Justin and I are in charge of the seining demonstration at the Big Cedar Lodge Pond and also are setting up displays and talking about the Green Monster Fishing Lights, Bojo Buglights, and the Porcupine Fish Attractors!

When we get home from the conference I left monday open on the schedule, but then the rest of september is booked solid with lake audits, electrofishing surveys, and consultations in the Quad Cities, Wildwood, Champaign, Wilmington, Fiatt, Camelot, Middle Grove, and a big aeration install in Shelbina, Mo! All of our summer help is back to school and Justin and I are going to be working like madmen trying to get everything done, not to mention packaging up and shipping out online orders everyday. Oh yeah, one minor detail I forgot as well is that it looks like I hopefully will be signing some papers next week to sell my house and will probably be moving out in a month and still need to find a place to live! I have already seen everything that is available online in the peoria area, but just need to get out and start checking some places out. Life is definitely in the fast lane, but as long as I can stay somewhat sane over the next 6 weeks things will be shaping up pretty good for the winter!

Now I just need to stay up a bit longer, figure out a way to clog up my nose completely, get a little sore throat started, wake up super early in the morning without much sleep and then I just may be in a great position to get out of this wedding sat afternoon! Its a good thing Brook doesnt read my blog very often....hehe. If for some reason someone is still reading this far down the page without any pictures or videos to break up the monotony I will report back later this weekend with results from the operation wedding ditching project! There is not any single event that I dread more than a wedding and a reception.

Simply HUGE Trout and some other pics from the weekend

We spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at the lake last weekend for Labor Day. The weather was cold so we did more swimming in the hot tub than in the lake:


You may not believe me after looking at the pictures, but the fish really werent biting that well over the weekend. The cold front and east wind shut off the bluegill, crappie, and bass completely; but we were still able to muster up a few fish!

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

Myakka Minnow saves the day (again)

Sometimes you stumble upon something good. That's what happened when I created the Myakka Minnow. I came up with a fly that catches fish.

I entered the Myakka Minnow in a national fly-tying contest last year and it didn't place. I won third place with another fly. I discovered that flies that catch fish aren't necessarily the best flies to enter a contest. Many contest flies aren't functinoal and they don't catch fish.

The Myakka Minnow is and does.

This morning (9-11), I hit Lake Manatee, a favorite spot of mine. I got out on the water before daylight. I cast for bass with a black popper and caught one nice fish. The bite quickly ended and I switched to a nymph under a popping cork. I cast for 3o minutes without a strike.

Finally, I tied on a Myakka Minnow, a gold one. I immediately started catching fish. I caught at least 20 hand-size bluegill, another bass and a nice channel cat -- all on 1-weight fly rod.

I'm convinced had it not been for the Myakka Minnow, it would have been a really slow day.

This week I will be mostly catching.........Pollock !!

Been catching plenty of Pollock, yesterday it was five with a couple of Bass mixed in and today it was five in an hour, good fun in the glourious weather we are having.

Hope it continues for a while, we deserve some good weather with it having been the third awful summer in a row we've had here.

Crush'Em!

Ok, so today was unbelievable. I took two guys out. One of the guys Steve, had never been fly fishing and the other guy Bill, had been a few times. It was one of those days that the fish did everything but jump in the boat. After a long rainy, muddy weekend it was like fishing a completely different river. We had doubles going all day! It was out of control. It was a group trip with Jamie and his boat was exactly the same way. We fished several spots extremely hard and it just seemed like the fish never quit. Days like this on the Little Red River are awesome. It makes me proud to call this my home water. At one point a ten pound brown came up and tried to crush the rainbow Bill had on the end of his line! It was crazy cool. There just isn't much better than seeing those carnivores in true action!

My Greatest Enemy.....

No this is not a field, its a beach, a local Blue Flag Beach after a Spring Tide.

The green stuff is Lettuce Weed which is thriving due to an over enrichment of the estuary waters from farm run offs, poor sewage treatment etc, so I'm told.

It's a nightmare for fishing when its bad and also effects windsurfers, surfers, walkers, wildlife, etc . It stinks as it starts to decay so when it gets really bad the council are out with Diggers scooping it up into tractor drawn trailers for disposal at sea, which is also controversial.

Apparently there has been a public meeting about it recently, I will be attending any further meetings. We need a solution.......