Easter Bass

Just a short note about a couple of bass from this afternoon.

The weather stabilized and it looks like another week of washouts ahead, so I walked across the street at 4:30 this afternoon to fish the subdivision pond. This is the pond that usually frustrates me but holds some good fish. I've finally figured out one pretty sure thing about the pond - when the water pours into it, the bass move to the inflow. Its really the only time I can consistently catch anything here.

The water wasn't at a high point today but it was still moving in pretty good. The fish I caught were tight to the inflow. Both came on a small swim jig, and I missed another one. OK for a half hour. Both the bass were nice and chunky - around 15-16".





Meow the cat says "I can't stand anymore of these fish pictures"

Some days you're the pigeon - today, I was the statue

Today was a beautiful Fall day. Actually, it was a little warm - almost 80 - but very little wind, and not a cloud in the sky. My plan actually came to fruition, and I carved out 2 whole hours to fish , from 1:15 to 3:15.




A beautiful Fall day on the pond


My mind raced - stick with the original plan of crankbait / swim jig? Spinnerbaits always do pretty well here - maybe I'll go with one of those. Based on previous Fall excursions here, I figured I'd fish faster rather than at a slow, deliberate pace. I lowered the trolling motor and started on my long awaited 2 hours of solitude and fish un-hooking.

Well, at least the solitude part held true.



A turtle sunning itself



Total tally - 3 hits, no fish hooked and, obviously, no fish landed. A total skunk. And I just don't get it. The first time around the pond - it takes about an hour - yielded nothing for the sunny half. I missed one hit on a 1/24 oz. jig w/ a white grub on the shaded half. I slowed down on the second go-around, and got 1 hit on a 5" Senko. Whiffed on the hit. Finished up by getting a half-assed hit on a Cubby just before I left. Only 2 days before, Jesse - a co-worker at work, and a really good fisherman - put his boat in the pond and fished for an hour. He got about 9-10 bass up to a pound and a half. And a nice walleye. He planned to come out this evening to use the boat for an hour or so. I really didn't feel like calling him with such a pathetic report, but I did. I knew the beating I'd take at work for getting blanked, while he would put a bunch of fish in the boat, would be relentless. He was stunned that it was that bad for me. [I texted him at dark and asked how he did - 2 hits, 1 - 5" bass! It stayed bad] At least I can show my face tomorrow at work.

I just don't know why there was such a marked difference over the past 2 days. Weather conditions have been stable and warming - usually good in the Fall. I threw: crankbaits, spinnerbaits, Chatterbaits, Senkos, grubs - both 3" and 2", Cubbies, buzzbait, swim jig, Sammy. Nothing.

Thank God I wasn't being relied upon to provide for the family, or we would have eating Stone Soup.

"Pre" fishing, sort of

Tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to get a chance to get out on the ponds for a few hours and sample a little Fall largemouth bass fishing. (Barring some unforeseen work crisis)

My "pre-fishing" consists of thinking about what I will use for the bass tomorrow. I figured I would share those thoughts, then post tomorrow nite with photos of my successful, or unsuccessful, outing.

The day was chosen because it was the only one I had that I could possibly get out, and I think it will end up being a good one. We had frost over the weekend, with highs in the 50's. It is now gradually getting warmer, and will be sunny tomorrow. I've had fairly good success on days like this in the past.

My plan going in is to do what I've done with some success in the past - square-lipped crankbaits on the main body of water, and spinnerbaits and swim jigs along the wood. The pond doesn't have much weed to speak of. I'll take one baitcast and one spinning outfit along.

I expect it to be pretty good, and will be a little disappointed if I don't bring a few bass over 2 pounds to hand. But - we'll see.

I'll let you know tomorrow what actually happens!

The "Traveling Dark Cloud of Doom" remains firmly in place, over my head.

Last week I was in Louisiana for a day and a half on business. Our plans were to stay at the house of an older gentleman who is a FANATIC bass fisherman, and possibly (probably?) sneak out and catch some fall bass. The most astute of you will realize that Louisiana is one of the states in which I have NOT caught a fish (the list is on the right hand side of this blog, following the Blog List), so it had a little more importance to me. But, before I proceed with this tale, let me take you back a few months . . .

1) The first failed mission was the Minnesota smallmouth bass adventure in October. First, there was the early snowfall. I wavered about fishing, but was convinced to give it a shot. Until the morning of our scheduled trip, when the boat was blocked in by a couple of Winnebago's. Part bad weather, part bad luck.

2) I had plane tickets to fly to Arkansas the second week of November to try my hand at tailrace trout fishing, Arkansas-style. Never fished Arkansas before, so that would have been another state to check off of my list. 2 weeks before my departure, torrential rains hit Arkansas, and the Little Red River rose somewhere around 20 FEET. Another trip dashed by the weather gods.

Which brings us back to last week. You may have noticed that the upper Midwest garnered most of the attention for it's crappy weather - snow in Chicago, bitter cold temps across heartland. Well, that cold front ranged FAR to the South. When we arrived in Monroe LA on the afternoon of the 9th, it was 35 degrees with a strong NW wind. The previous afternoon, it was 72 degrees and the front was moving through, with the requisite storms that accompany these strong cold fronts. The next morning dawned with a temp of 27.

Being from the Chicago area now, and previously from Syracuse, I would classify the 27 and windy weather as "Chilly". In LA, on the rare occasion that the temp falls to these depths, they hunker down and wait for spring. Needless to say, there were NO fish caught during the short attempt we made to get a few.

Three trips planned, three trips un-done due to weather.

Can't wait for 2010 - it HAS TO be better than the past 3 months!

Fall smallmouth on the Mississippi

The jonboat is ready to take us to the smallies

I had a chance to get in a day on the upper Mississippi River, between Minneapolis and St. Cloud, on Wed. October 15. It's among my favorite trips to make, and one I get to do woefully few times. While all fishing trips are good in some way or another, this one is special - it's with a friend, former co-worker, and truly great guy to fish with - Gregg Thorne. Musky anglers will recognize the Thorne name from the shop Gregg and his brother, Paul, started many years ago in Minneapolis - Thorne Bros. Gregg and I worked together at Cortland Line a number of years ago, and remained close friends after I left. In addition to being a terrific fisherman, Gregg's just one of the guys I enjoy spending time with. Our fall trips for smallmouth have also exposed me to a type of fishing I never do any other time - bait fishing for bass.

Gregg Thorne with a tiger striped smallmouth


Author with typical smallie

We launched Gregg's jonboat at a dirt ramp and went upstream to see if the bass were on their winter spots yet. We soon found out that, indeed, they were. Each spot we tried held a number of smallmouth that pounced on our sucker minnows. Since I'm not usually a practitioner of bait fishing, it takes me a little while to get the feel for the timing of setting the hook, especially with minnows as large as we were using (Some were over 6") But, I came around, and didn't deep hook any fish. All the bass were released alive to fight again, but both the walleyes we got "volunteered" to be dinner at the Thorne residence that nite!

More smallies from MN

As I look back on the day, one recurring theme to my trips jumps out at me - I have no idea how many fish we caught! I'm just not a fish counter. I know we had 2 full buckets of big minnows when we started, and only a handful of minnows left when we quit, and we didn't lose much bait, so, if I had to guess, I'd say we caught 40-50 bass, the 2 'eyes, and one nice channel cat that I got, pushing me over the edge in our hotly contested battle to see who caught the most species. When I go fishing, and someone asks how it was, I answer honestly with "It sucked", "It was pretty good", or "It was great". I usually know how few fish were caught when it sucks, but on the other days, I really don't know . My brother is a fish counter. He was with me on my recent trip flyfishing in Rocky Mtn. National Park. On the day we caught all the brookies, he asked me how many I had caught. I just looked at him - "I don't know - a lot". On last Wednesday, on the Mississippi, I had a good case of "Bass Thumb" at the end of the day, so I know I caught a lot!

Buckets full of sucker minnows

This section of the Mississippi, between St. Cloud and Minneapolis, is a terrific section of water. According to Gregg, a number of years ago, the river experienced very successful spawns a number of years in a row. Those year classes of fish are now in the 16-20" range, and there are a lot of them. We caught 3 fish smaller than 16" on our trip. I've fished here with Gregg in the summer as well and, while the areas and patterns are different, the average size of the bass found here is, to me, amazing. I've fished a lot of rivers for smallmouth in my life, and the best average size I've ever found has come from these waters. In addition to the great bass fishing, we saw an osprey and 6 bald eagles. The leaves were changing, a stiff NW wind was cutting down the river, and it was a perfect fall day to be chasing smallmouth!

One final thing about the river - I consider my self to be an excellent reader of water on a river - any river. I can usually be put a river I have never seen and figure out where the fish should be. Not here though. Without the direction from a person with a lifelong history of the fish and their patterns, I would flounder desperately on these waters. The winter holding areass are small and very subtle - most of the time not showing any indication on the surfac that this is where you want to fish. Local knowledge rules on these waters, and I love going with Gregg!