We've all read and/or posted fishing blog entries showing amazing postcard-like pictures of the beautiful fish or beautiful environment around some of our favorite fishing spots.
THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE POSTS! In fact, if you just ate, you might want to view the rest of this blog post AFTER you've had a chance to digest that food.
Here's a brief report from fishing over the weekend. And a few CHOICE pictures, of course.
First...Saturday, August 18, 2012:
Fished a spot on Saylorville that sported a bit of current. Shad were thick. Its one of those situations where there are so many baitfish, you can't hardly work a lure through them without snagging them, and your lure doesn't have the right action because its bouncing off shad bodies all the time, and you can't hardly get a sinking lure to the bottom, even though it was only maybe 5' deep max. And so many baitfish that the fish have little reason to attack an artificial. The shoreline looks like this...by the way, you have my permission if you want to use this as your new computer desktop screensaver! :laughing7:
And then there's piles of "less fresh" carcasses, mixed with a healthy dose of mother nature's vacuum cleaners:
Speaking of maggots...I came upon this large mass of a favorite ICE-FISHING bait:
I vertical jigged with a slab spoon for a bit. Jay (Flipper) joined me for awhile. Switched to a 3" Berkley Ripple Shad on a 1/8oz jighead. Vertical jigged that. Caught 5 nice Carp...one fair-hooked, 4 accidentally snagged. The Ripple Shad was kind of torn up, so I pinched the head off and threaded it back on the hook. I started casting it out parallel to one shoreline, and brought it slowly through the masses of baitfish. Caught 3 fat White Bass that way, but they were only 11-inchers. Also noticed some carp working certain areas near shore. I'd cast out beyond those areas, swim the lure into the area, then let it drop and sit. Maybe a twitch or hop occasionally. I caught 3 more nice carp that way that ALL ate the jig! Great fights! I'd had enough and called it quits.
Next...Sunday, August 19, 2012:
Jay was headed out to chase fish with stripes, so I joined him. Jay got there first. Action died pretty much as soon as I showed up (sound familiar, Anderson?). The Turkey Vultures were an indication of just how dead it was.
Actually, there were small busts around, and we both caught fish, but they were mostly the smaller white bass, and the occasional < 15" Wiper. I did snag a nice carp, and also snagged one of the biggest shad I've seen this year. It measured 13"!!
Didn't take any pictures of the Whites, Wipers or Carp that I caught this weekend.
I used to conventional fish. While I lived in Alaska I ice fished as well. One day while splitting wood, we lived with wood heat and no running water, I saw all those unfrozen spruce bark beetle larva at -20F and it occurred to me; perfect ice fishing bait! So I took those inch long fat maggot looking larva and packed them in sawdust for a 3 day expedition we used to do by snowshoe to remote lakes. They were the ONLY thing that caught fish. They also come out of dormancy inside and we'd hear them eating, "munch, munch, munch" all night long.
ReplyDeleteGregg