Evie decided to ask grandpa, me, to take her and her dad fishing in the river behind our house.  Last week Evie and I went and she really enjoyed catching the drum and suckers.  We were hoping to catch some catfish or bass but they were not cooperating that day.  The top picture, left, shows Evie with a small drum and ,as you can see, she’s not afraid to hold the fish and she really enjoys letting them go.  Good “catch and release” fishergirl.  The picture on the top right shows her way of waiting for a bite, “Hey dad wake me when I get a bite, O.K.?”  And, sure enough, picture on lower left, shows her playing another fish with dad coming to help if necessary.  I wasn’t necessary but Dad helped her get the fish off the hook.  All in all, she caught 3 drum,1 bluegill, and 2 suckers.  Dad’s catch = 0.  Now who’s the real fisher person here?  Grandpa, who was taking the pictures, managed to catch a sucker and two drum.  Actually Dad was more interested in ensuring that Evie caught some fish so , we can’t hold that against him.  Good job Dad!

After fishing Evie decided to show her dad the progress she has made in learning to shoot pool.  I have a pool table in my downstairs den.  Her dad gave her a few more tips on how to line up her shots and she is improving. 

They had a lot of fun together.

As far as fishing in the pond, the fish are not cooperating.  Twice I’ve been out for about three hours and came up with only a single small bass each time.  The lake is much more shallow due to the drought and the fish are apparently not in the mood for feeding.  There goes the theory, “Fishing is best in the fall when they fatten up before winter”.  Except for the shallow water, I can’t think of any other reason that they’re not hitting except maybe, I’m not doing it right.  Or, maybe it’s the high pressure and the erratic changes in the temperature.  It’s been far too cold for me to go out this last week, hopefully we’ll have a few more warmer days before  I put my gear away for the winter.   Tight LInes

Jim

The fishing has picked up  at River Bend.  The bass (second down) I caught in the pond and again the only bites I got were on the Blue Fox  spinner along with the cats.  The lake committee decided to turn off the well on the pond and the water in now only about 3-4 feet deep…not good.  As a result the fish on the pond are not cooperating.  The crappie that I’ve caught there are small and not very numerous.  The fish in the pond just seem  to be lethargic due to the low water level. 

On River Bend, the bass ignore the spinner so, I revert back to the Shaw Grigsby paddle worm or the YUM stick worm.  The bass on River Bend seem a little larger than they were this spring but because of the fertile water their growth rate is slow.  The only natural food that I have discovered there is small minnows.  There is weed but the majority of the lake is a gravel bottom.  Of course the bass do feed on the larva and insect life there but it’s apparently not enough to sustain a good growth rate.

The last time I went out was about a little over a week ago as I had to under go surgery this week.  I am doing well in my recovery, thank God.  So, I will try again in a couple of weeks down the road weather permitting.

Tight  Lines

Jim

Today was a beautiful day, partly cloudy with a little breeze with a temperature of about 80 degrees.  My little 7 year old granddaughter, Evie, told me last week that she wanted to go fishing again and so Sunday, after church, here we are.  I asked Evie if she wanted to learn a new way to fish, like the way Grandpa fishes and she said that she would.  In the above picture, you can see some of the results, a nice crappie, but you can see some need for improvement as well; look at the line on the back of the reel.  Oh, well, that’s all part of the learning process and the important thing is; she was proud of her catch, and happy.  She also wanted me to give her the fish in her hand after I unhooked it so that she could personally let it go back in the water.  Many kids are afraid to handle a fish because of their spines, but I showed her how to hold the fish so she wouldn’t get a stuck finger; she did well.

Evie also tried fishing with one of those pre rigged worms that I had been catching some bass on.  I rigged up a different spin casting rod for her to fish with and after a while she got the hang of using it.  I was hoping that she would hook up with a bass but they were not cooperating at all today.  Well, maybe next time.

Evie also tried the old faithful worm and slip float and caught another crappie with that but, oddly, not a single bluegill. 

We fished for about two and a half hours, (about an hour longer then usual) until she said that she wanted to go home.

By the way , Evie also ran the boat to and from our fishing spot and really did a good job of that too.  She likes to steer the boat and make it go fast then slow…and so on.  She enjoys it.

All in all we caught 6 fish between us and enjoyed each others company.

Tight lines

Jim

The fishing has actually been a little slow for the past two weeks.  I’ve only managed to catch eleven bass at  River Bend on my last two outings fishing there in the last two weeks.  The top picture shows a typical bass at River Bend with some bass just a little larger.  I know that there must be bigger bass in that 90 acre lake but the largest that I’ve ever caught there in the last five years was 3 1/2 lbs.  I’ve tried just about every method that my arsenal will allow but just keep coming up with these small bass.  Fishing deep this summer got me nothing but fishing within 30 feet of shore will produce these smaller bass.

On the other hand the picture shown on the bottom is atypical bass caught on the pond.  An exceptional and rare bass of seven lbs I have caught here and one this summer (my second ever).  The bass population in the pond has been reduced and I have recommended to the “Lake Board” for our subdivision to restock with channel cats and bass but the board voted against it not believing that I was correct in my assessment, instead they had the lake evaluated by having it shocked.  The results of the survey were that the lake needs to be restocked with bass and channel catfish.  I have fished this pond for 32 years and I know it well.  I also know that spawn survival is minimal for both species. I was told that one of the board members said that he has been catching several bass near his area of the pond and didn’t think that the lake needed to be restocked based on that.  I could have told him that that particular area has always been the best for fishing; the bass just seem to be there most of the time, it is a little deeper there, some of the sediment was removed about two years ago, but the rest of the lake needs to be considered as well.

Since the lake is now completely surrounded with homes and most of the brush and fallen trees have been removed and replaced with lawns and small beach areas, in some cases, there is little forage area left for the fish to  survive or to replenish themselves with.  There is no running water and the pond is basically a long mud bottomed pool with sediment about 18” deep.  The depth above the sediment is about 5 1/2 feet deep on average and the water is always muddy now.  When We first moved here the water was much cleaner and more clear, we even went swimming in it with our kids.  The fishing was superb.  But, that’s progress for you.  I wish everyone cared as much as I do about the condition of the lake and some of us do in the subdivision, but…. 

Hopefully, now that the survey has been done we can have the lake restocked and Rob and Jim can convince the other board members to have it done.  Rob also  suggested that we could improve on the fish survival rate by installing artificial forage, “plastic spikes”   for the small fish to hide in and the DNR also recommended them .   Rob and Jim have done a lot on their own time to improve the lake lately and I appreciate their efforts.  They have both planted bull rushes and other plants on the shore and that helps too.  Steve let a fallen tree stay in the pond where it fell in the water and that has helped too, you can almost always catch crappies, cats, and bass there now.  Good job guys.

P.S.  The deer shown are two of this springs fawns along with their mother.  They frequent my back yard to eat the apples that fall from the tree.  They are beautiful.

Tight Lines

Jim

Unfortunately, it was my only bass this evening.  I  really haven’t been out that much for the last couple of weeks due to the heat and other matters that needed to be taken care of.  The only time that I have been out is on the pond, (our sub-division pond), for a couple of hours after supper.  Actually, after I load the car with my stuff, drive down to where I keep my boats, and load the boat, I have about an hour and fifteen minutes to fish.  And, as it seems, I have not picked the best places to fish.  I have managed to catch a few small bass and small crappie and I’ve gotten them just before dark, at the last moment.  I don’t fish in the dark.  But, I thought I’d keep you up to date anyway .  The weather will be cooling off starting in September and that should start the fish moving again trying to fatten up for winter.  The action should pick up again then.

As for you folks that don’t mind the heat I’ll say good luck and I wish you tight lines, and I don’t mean from snags!

Tight Lines

Jim

The day was exceptionally beautiful and a welcome relief from the hot, humid days that we’ve been having.  Ivan hadn’t fished for a while and it was good to get together with him again after a long absence. 

The fish were cooperating fairly well and this time I tried fishing the surface in the reeds and on top of the weeds.  My working deep lures, i.e., jigs and Texas rigged worms, spinners and cranks had not been doing the job in my search for the bigger bass in the lake (see recent postings).   Ivan wanted some action after a long layoff so, I provided him with some of my baits, ones that I had been successful with on previous trips to River Bend, the Strike King Caffeine Shad in white was doing the job.

Ivan was successful and began catching bass like the one shown and a little larger.  Again, I was searching for the bigger fish.  I decided to try the “Ribbit”, a floating frog by Stanley.  And I was doing alright getting hits but few hook ups.  It was the smaller bass hitting the lure but grabbing the frog by the leg but not engulfing the frog so that I could get a better hook up.

I thought that I should put on a stinger but the fish were small and I was still looking for the bigger fish .   I had recently read an article in ’Bassin’ magazine where this pro was catching monster bass in the weeds  (don’t they always?) so I stuck with the frog.

The frog floats and so I tried laying the frog in the reeds and slowly working the frog out and onto the weed beds.  Once I got the lure on top of the weeds I hopped the frog and then let it sit and then dragged it.  After it left the weeds I swam the frog back to the boat.  This got little results.

I then tried to work the frog a little faster.  The frog has paddle feet and stirs up the water like the “Rage” lures except  that it stays on top of the water. Letting it just sit and float and then swimming it fast got some action.  Pulling the frog faster along the surface got the most strikes but only five hook ups and three of them shook off the hook when they jumped near the boat.  I could see that the fish were barely hooked and putting the net under them was not an option; the fish were small.  I was not catching any big bass.  Then the action stopped.

We started out at about 4:00 pm and now it was getting close to 6:00 pm.  The score was Ivan 5 and Jim “0”.  Yes, Ivan had missed a few fish as well and he was having a good time.  I however, was going to be “skunked!!!”  I couldn’t let that happen so I used the Shad too for a while and caught two small bass.

We crossed the lake to the shady side.  The sun would be settling on the horizon and we hoped the bass would be coming nearer the shore in the shallows.  I tried the frog again but got nothing.  I switched to a crank bait that I had never used before even though it has been in my tackle box for a long time, an Excaliber  shallow runner. 

During the evening, the fish will sometimes come up to the surface chasing minnows or small fry. This got no results as well. I went to my deep diver and managed to catch a pair of small bass. I switched to the Shad again and caught two mere. Ivan managed to catch a couple more as well. We ended the day with Ivan catching seven bass and I caught four. Still, no big bass. Where are they? Tight lines Jim

As you can see the channel cats are still cooperating and so are the crappie to some extent, but the big ones are hard to find.  In fact I haven’t found any for a long time now…where do they go?  This cat hit on a pin spinner with a small Storm paddle tail minnow in perch green and black.  You can see it if you look closely.  In fact I barely hooked him right under his whisker.

My usual Blue Fox has not caught any of the bigger crappie  so I thought I’d switch to this style.  I managed to catch about a dozen crappie with it but none larger than 8”.

I haven’t been fishing much during this hot spell.  The temperature has been in the nineties with a heat index in the low 100’s but the real problem is the very high humidity.  So, I keep my fishing times to after 5:00 pm till 8:00 pm but only if the temps get down into the upper 80’s.

The temperature is supposed to be in the mid 80’ tomorrow, the 6h of Aug and Ivan and I are going to try River Bend again.  Ivan hasn’t been able to get out much this summer, so, I hope the fish will cooperate for him.  I will continue to try for the bigger fish, I’m determined to find one of at least 4 lbs to beat my very old record (5 years) of 3 1/2 lbs on that lake.  As I noted on a previous writing, “ a fisherman had told me that he caught  a 5 lb bass at about the same time that I caught the 3 1/2 lb bass.)  We’ll see.

Tight lines.

Jim

Last week on Thursday it was a truly beautiful day, the sky had a few broken clouds and the temperature was in the mid 80’s.  The wind was from the North West at about 10mph causing a cooling breeze and a slight ripple on the water.  You’d think the fish would be just jumping into the boat.  Well, they weren’t!  Roy was the first to score with this bass and he was the last to score as well with his seventh bass of the day which were mostly about the same size, (some were bigger but not by much).  We decided that the “hump” would be the best place to start.  It comes up to within three feet of the surface and drops down gradually to about 19 feet.  There are surface and subsurface weeds, mill foil and a kind of tall weed similar to hydrilla.  Out further the depth reaches nearly 40 feet with a weed less level bottom.  We were both using our fish locators and fish were mostly suspending at about 12 feet and just above the weeds.  The hump is fairly large and is about 100 yards long and 40 yards wide.  We were fishing the Eastern point which is about seventy feet from the main shore line.

Roy was using a brown/green  3”tube weighted with a 1/8 oz bullet weight jammed inside the tube and an offset worm hook and braided line with which he could cast a country mile.

I was using crank baits, a bronze Bass master deep diver, an Excaliber medium diver in red/chartreuse, a blue/ white Strike King two bladed spinner, a Senko stick worm, a Strike King pro model jig in brown/green with a green Yum twin tail grub, and a Berkley red watermelon ribbon tail worm rigged weightless.  They all hauled water.  My  line: 12lb Sufix clear.

Roy, during the same period, caught three more bass using his tube, but fishing the shoreline with very long casts.  So, the score was Roy 4, Jim 0. 

I had been searching for the bigger bass at the different levels of the hump and failed to get a single fish.  Roy offered me one of his tubes and I finally managed to catch a bass and I missed two more.  Thanks to Roy I managed to not get skunked.

We decided to move on after about an hour.  We were trolling across the lake when just after starting to leave the hump a crappie hit my Bass Master deep diver.

We fished the northwest side of the lake around some points where the water rapidly drops to 40 feet and is shaded by the high bluffs that surround the lake.  Roy was using his tube and I was using the tube for a short while, but I switched to the jig.  I did hook into a larger than usual fish but it got off in the weeds.  And I believe Roy caught another bass before switching to a surface lure, I don’t know what kind but it had a sputtering action.

I switched to my Excaliber crank and managed to catch two more small bass and Roy did the same with his top water bait.

It was getting close to dark so we decided to start in and hopefully catch the bass surfacing as they had two weeks earlier chasing bait fish near the dock area.

I tried my stick worm and Roy stayed with his surface lure but dragging a black/chartreuse ribbon tail worm and with that Roy caught the last bass of the day . 

Score: Roy 7,Jim 4.

I am determined to try to find the biggest bass in the lake even if I do get skunked, “Lord forbid”.  Well, the name of the game is “fishing” not “catching” and I’ll keep trying.  Remember, the biggest bass that I’ve seen come out of this lake is about 3 1/2 lbs and I caught it nearly five years ago.   Another fisherman told me that he had caught one weighing 5 lbs at about that same time.  So, there must be some big ones in there.  Can one of you readers give me a hint on how to do it?  I’d really appreciate your input>

Tight Lines

Jim

Last evening I decided to go out just for bass.  I took three bait casting outfits with me and my standby spinning rod and reel, the Cardinal, with the Blue Fox spinner.  I would not use the spinner until all else failed.  On my bait casters I tied on a Yum Craw in red speck brown, a Gary Yamamoto stick worm in green/white, and a Culprit 8” ribbon tail worm in red watermelon.  I stayed in one area the whole time, and area where I can usually count on catching something.  For two and one half hours I did not get a single hit.  I decided to go to the spinner.

I did not move the boat, I just got out the spinning rod and started casting in the exact same area.

On my second cast I caught a small bass, about 1  lb.  After a few more casts I caught three small crappie.  Then a second small bass of about the same size.  And one nice bluegill.

It was getting dark about this time so I decided to make a few more casts with the spinner on the way back.  I landed my spinner in a low hanging branch and that took me about five minutes to get it out of the branch and untwisted.  Another  reason why I don’t like night fishing especially when the fish are usually laying under low hanging branches near the shore.  And, the fish I did catch were no further than two or three feet from shore as was the seven pounder that I caught a few days before.

I got to where I keep my boat and tried one more cast.  I was just about to take my spinner out of the water when a big fish came up out of the water enough for me to see it was a large fish but I couldn’t be sure of what kind of fish it was as it was almost dark.

Well, just a few more casts…and Whammo!  it was the cat that you see here.  I estimate it to be about five pounds.  Of course I let him go right after taking the picture.

The moral of this story is don’t give up and use the lure that is paying off until it is no longer effective for whatever reason.

I like to experiment and sometimes it really pays dividends but if I’m not catching anything I will go back to my tried and true lures, i.e., the ones that are paying off at that particular time and place.

You’ll notice that I haven’t been using my fly rod lately.  That’s because the fly rod has just not been effective for me lately…but come fall and the fly rod will be out again.  I could be catching bluegill with it and maybe some cats but I really want to focus on big bass this time of year.  There are bass flies that work but it’s been too slow for me.

Tight lines.

Jim

I haven’t been fishing as much as I’d like this last couple of weeks due to the hot humid weather.  I do however, venture out on some evenings after supper.  Those evenings have also been limited due to thunderstorms that have also been prevalent during this period.

When I have gone out between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00 pm the fishing has been slow.  I know that I should stay out after dark but I don’t care for night fishing.  The fish at night will be close to the bank in the pond and I find more than my share of snags due to my limited visibility.  For example, I know where most snags are having fished the pond over a period of many years; I’ve even put many tree limbs and other brush into the pond to provide cover for the fish, but inevitability I’ll miss my mark and catch the snags that I’m trying to avoid.

Last evening I was making my last cast for the evening with Shaw’s paddle worm, I hooked onto a very large fish just as dark was settling in.  I cast right next to a bush that I had buried this spring and sure enough that fish went straight for it and got my line wrapped up in it.  My line broke.  That fish could have been a bass or another big cat, I’ll never know.  The point is that the fish was the only one of any size that I got bit by that evening from 5:00 until 8:00 pm.  I had only had six bites before my quitting time, three small crappie, a bluegill, and two small bass.  So, my quitting time should maybe be my starting my starting time if I want to be sure to catch fish. And, by the way, the River Bend  lake where I fish closes at 9:00 pm.

So, if you like night fishing, I have to concede that your chances of catching the “Big One” during the hot summer will be at night, close to the bank, and with lures that closely match the prey that they’re after.  Example, if crawdads are prevalent in the water that you’re fishing, use plastic or live crawdads.  I don’t use live bait so, I use Yum Craws, (but during daylight hours), and they’re probably more effective at night.  Or use whatever bait that is close to matching their regular diet and lures that move a lot of water and try to match the color of the prey that they are looking for, the fish are searching for what is normal to them.  Yes, I have fished at night when I was younger and have had success, but I still prefer the daylight hours.

Whenever you fish, I hope you have fun.

Tight LInes

Jim

PS:  To Wanda,

Thank you for your input about the older fishing equipment. 

The reason that I have so much older equipment in that because over the many years that I have owned these rods and reels, I have taken care of their maintenance.  I take my reels apart and clean them frequently and always before storing them.  I use a tip that I read in one of the fishing magazines,  “Using Pledge furniture polish helps keep the rod clean, the guides slipperier, and provides some waterproofing, helping to prevent rust or corrosion.”  This is true and I do it.

I was trying to tell my readers that using your old equipment, expensive or not, will only be as good as how well you take care of it.

I don’t buy expensive equipment even though many of the new rods, reels and etc., are far superior to my equipment.  It just doesn’t fit into my budget.  If you can afford expensive fishing gear, by all means buy it, but take care of it and it will last you perhaps a lifetime.  I  also read in an article from and article about fly fishing, “ When choosing a fly rod that is on sale due to closeouts or discontinued models, remember that that rod or reel was the “latest and best” a few years ago,”  I do buy these rods and reels when my budget allows.

New modern equipment is superior to the old rods and reels, lines and etc.  I wish that I could afford more.

I have accumulated some nice equipment over the years and when I pass I have asked my executor to give to the Boys and Girls Club whatever my grandkids don’t want.

Tight Lines

Jim