Fishing in Minnesota, and a few more photos

That's right - actual fishing.  A rare occurrence these days in my life.  I had to go to Minneapolis/ St. Paul area for business and had all morning before leaving for the next flight. My rep and I decided we'd try to get out in the morning for a few hours with a local guide.  Ken did the arranging, and he did it well!  Our guide on Lake Minnetonka was Shane Raveling.  Shane and Dean Capra have, over the years, teamed up to win just about every noteworthy tournament in the upper Midwest.  So, I knew we were in the hands of a guy who knows the lake and knows how to fish.

I just didn't realize we'd have so much fun!  Shane was a blast to fish with!  He knew the water intimately, and showed us the pattern to use to catch fish.  It has been a couple years since I actually fished for Largemouth, but it came back to me pretty quickly.  We used a technique that I believe was developed on Minnetonka - fishing a Senko on a jig head with an exposed hook in 10-15' deep weed beds.  The idea is that the fish either hit on the drop, or when you RIP the worm free from the wed and it falls back.  It took some getting used to, but I ended up boating about 9-10 largemouth over the morning.  Shane was fishing to try to locate fish and establish a pattern, which he did.  He also caught a 5 pound LM - beautiful fish for MN.  He got a few pike, too.

Great day, great fun.

 Here are the couple of pictures I took.

So - there you have it - I have NOT forgotten how to fish!!

But I'm still pretty enamored with the camera thing.  Here's a few more for your viewing pleasure

Ponds, ponds, ponds

Sunday evening at around 6:30 - after spending a full doing whatever it is we all do on the weekends - I asked my wife "So - what do you want to do? It IS Mother's Day, after all" I was tired and really didn't feel like doing much of anything. Until ... her response - let's go to the ponds.

It's amazing how quickly I can spring into high gear when it involves something I want to do.

Within minutes we were driving to the ponds to get in an hour of fishing. The evening was beautiful and the ponds were calm. I had decided, even before we got out of the car, that I would spend the evening trying to entice bass on topwaters, even though I hadn't had a topwater hit this spring. Well, sometimes your intuition is just right. Sunday was one of those nights.

I started out with a 1/4 oz. white buzzbait and started fan casting an area of 2 to 2-1/2' deep. Had one blow up on the bait on the second cast but missed him. I'll spare you the play-by-play, but suffice it to say that the fish were ON. I landed 12 bass in an hour, from 7 pm to 8 pm. White buzzbait, Sammy, and a Lucky Craft wakebait - not sure of the model - that runs just subsurface and throws out a big V-wake. Its really close to a topwater because the visual strikes are just like a topwater - the bass blow them out of the water. The fish were a combination of egg-laden females and smaller , aggressive males. They were not quite up on the banks yet but, with yesterday's 90 degree temps, I wouldn't be surprised to see them tight to the bedding areas this week. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

And, yes Howard - it IS a nice shirt!!







I also tried something I had never done before - I tried to get some topwater strike video. Results were mediocre but i think I got a few good hits captured. I'll play around with those tonite and post them as a separate posting if they're worth watching.

The next 2 weeks should be gangbusters - get out and get after those fish! Here is a poor, low light shot of the field full of deer we passed on our way out.

FINALLY the ponds turn on

The ponds I frequent have been slow to give up their treasures this Spring. With the very late warming trend and a lot of cold rain, the spring seems to be compressed into a very short window this year. Which means - you better hit it hard when it gets good.

And I think it is poised to get good in northern Illinois.

My wife, son and I went to the ponds at 4:30 this afternoon. We fished the lower pond for about an hour and upper one for maybe 45 minutes. It was good - real good.

The lower pond is the one with the mixed bag of fish - rainbow trout, walleye, largemouth bass, bluegill, crappie, channel cat. The upper pond has bass, gills, and cats. Joey hung out and explored stuff on the lower pond, while Stacy and I threw UL spin gear with 1/32 oz. jigheads with 2" Lindy Munchies grubs. In the hour we fished, we landed 7 trout, 4 walleye, 1 crappie, a pile of gills. Hits were frequent and you never knew what was on the end of the line. Stacy suggested we try the upper pond to see if the bass were biting up there. Even though all we had along was UL gear, we went up to try the upper pond.

Well, the fish were ON up there, too. I threw a small (1/8 oz.) spinnerbait while Stacy and Joey threw 1/16 oz. Beetle Spins. the gills and pumpkinseeds were bigger than I have seen recently, and the bass were holding about 10'-15' off of the rock edges that they use to spawn. Most of the bass caught were smaller males, but I got a few nice ones, including one BIG egg-loaded female. An absolute blast on an UL spin outfit!! We probably landed 30 panfish and 12-15 bass.



(Sorry for the picture quality (or lack thereof) - its from my son's phone)

If you have ponds nearby, get out as often ans you can over the next month. It's FINALLY time to capitalize on the pond fish!

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!

A quick walk around my ponds

On Saturday, we finished up the list of things to do around 3 pm. the day was markedly cooler than any other recent days - high was only 61. Heavy overcast clouds, and a persistent slight drizzle. A perfect day to stay inside. But...

I had not been on the ponds across the street since I fished during the high water period of August 8th. In fact, I haven't even picked up anything but a fly rod since then. So I figured I'd walk across the street and see what I could find.

My lure selection consisted of: 2 - 1/4 oz. swim jigs, a bag of trailers, 1 buzzbait, 2 small (3/16 oz.) spinnerbaits, 1 2/0 worm hook, and a bag of Strike King Ochos. I started out in the pond I fished during the high water . Nothing. I expected to get some action on the swim jig, or the worm, but struck out on both. I decided to try to lower pond.

Now, this may seem absurd, since I fish all over the country, but in the 7 years I have lived in this house, I have never fished this pond further than 1/4 of the way down the north bank, and not at all on the south side. I don't really know why, but I haven't. I worked this pond down along the north bank, still getting no response to my worm. tried the buzzbait - nada. Finally put on the spinnerbait. Got a short hit casting tight to the bank and parallel to shore. there was not much of a drop off, and the weeds were scattered, so the spinnerbait seemed like a logical search bait. Over the next 45 minutes, I got 6 hits and landed 4 more small largemouth. Nothing over 12". I guess you can't always catch big fish. It seemed like it should be a good day, with the lack of clouds and the drizzle, but it was sporadic at best. i saw what appeared to be a few swirls from (possibly) big bass chasing something, but they showed no interest in anything I had.












It seems like my Fall bass fishing goes like that most of the time. I've had some stellar big fish days, but a lot of skunks, too. Do you find any consistency in Fall bass fishing, particularly in ponds??

And then - PPOOOFFF - they were gone

I went out for the third day in a row on my subdivision pond. The water coming in has now been reduced to a normal trickle. I went out with my son at 1:00 pm today. Overcast, a light drizzle - perfect. Instead of the usual bass gear, I took an ultralight spin rod and a few grubs, Cubby jigs, and 1 UL spinnerbait. i wanted to see if I could get any of the ponds (sometimes) big bluegills to bite.

Well, they didn't.

So I worked my way toward the inflow. over a span of 20 minutes, I caught 5 largemouth on the Cubby, and 1 on the spinnerbait.

The largest was 10" long.

The bass have moved back to their summer haunts. the good news for the trip - the fish in the picture below. At least they are spawning successfully!




A hungry baby bass

This is why you ALWAYS fish when the opportunity presents itself!

I took a vacation day today. No real plans - just relax and do whatever we feel like doing. My wife and I went to our local coffee shop, ran some chores, ... Around 3:30, she was watching something on TV, so I walked over to the ponds in our subdivision. The water was high but just the right clarity, so I decided to go over and make a few casts.

These ponds are not the ones I write about and fish on over lunch. These ponds are right across the street from my house. In the 7 years I've lived here, they have gone from being occasionally good, to great, to mediocre, to absolutely sucking. Not really sure why. I fished them ONCE in 2009 (not even a hit) and not at all this year. Talking to the other guys in the neighborhood who fish, the word is that the pond on our side - the east side - stinks, and the west pond is OK.

Before I go on, a little background. Over the past 2 weeks, we've had in excess of 9" of rain here, and have been under flood advisories for most of that time. We had a HUGE surge of water pour into the ponds last week. The tiny creek that feeds the ponds - a rivulet, really - was up 5' and breached the roads. It is still flowing fast, but the water is pretty clear. so I gave it a try. On the way out the door, my wife asked why I was going - isn't it usually bad in the middle of the afternoon? My son wouldn't go either.

You can see my vast assortment of lures I l took along in my pockets - 1 trick worm, 2 swim jigs, a bag of trailers, a bag of Yum Dingers, and 1 spinnerbait. Fished the worm and spnnnerbait for 15 minutes as I worked toward the inlet - nothing. But, on the last cast with the spinnerbait, I made an inadvertent cast into the junk at the inlet and, as I was ripping it across the vegetation - BOOM - a blowup!. Hmmmmm...

I put on a 1/4 oz. swim jig and a Strike King trailer, and immediately got into fish. they were tight to the trash, on current breaks. To make a long story short, in the next 25 minutes I landed 8 largemouth, had 3 shake off, and missed about 5-6 hits. All were decent fish, with 1 being a REALLY nice bass.

And - THAT is why you always go when the opportunity presents itself. You just never know what will happen!




My Tackle pack



The inflow at the East Pond




1st bass




2nd Bass



3rd Bass




4th Bass




Best Bass - sorry fo the goofy picture - I had to do a self-timed and the grass is high!




These current breaks are where the fish were holding. Click on the picture to see it in better detail

The Cure to what Ails You

I needed to run a few errands today over lunch and, since I ALWAYS have a rod (or 3) in the trunk along with some tackle, figured I might as well try a few casts at the pond.

I hadn't been fishing for over a month. Usually, the pond slows down considerably over the summer as the water heats up and often turns the color of pea soup with the algae blooms. Catfish get fairly active, but bass are quite tough to find, especially without a boat. There are really only 1 or 2 spots to fish from shore.

But - I'd rather get skunked trying for a fish or 2 over lunch than do the usual eat-and-run lunch. So - off to the ponds.

My game plan before I got there was to tie on a Cubby and try to get a few 'gills. At least I can usually get a couple of them to bite. When I opened the tackle bag, an old (at least 20 years old) Rebel Teeny Pop-R caught my eye. I have not fished with one of these for eons, even though they used to be one of my favorite lures, especially when wading for smallmouth bass. So - I tied it on and tried to make a largemouth or 2 come to the top at noon.

The action of his particular lure was perfect. Nothing really replicates a perfectly tuned Pop-R. I have dozens of other popping lures but none sound quite like the old Pop-R's. I was having a ball simply casting and making the lure do different things - make it dive a little, slow pop it, run it across the water, ... Well, apparently a few little largemouth found it enticing, because I fished for 30 minutes and got 5 hits, landing 4 fish. 1 was tiny - 6". 2 were around a foot. The next was maybe 13-14" - a nice fish, especially on my 4-1/2' ultralite rod! And, my last one was a solid , chunky 16" bass, which surprised the hell out of me!

I feel rejuvenated, like I received a shot of adrenaline. Just being out there was great - saw a few really nice butterflies that I hadn't seen yet this year, and saw a buck in velvet. The fish were just icing on the cake.

Sorry - no pics - didn't plan on fishing so I didn't bring a camera.

Get out there and go fishing -it does a body (and soul) good.

Why you need to "strike while the iron is hot"

Over the past few weeks I've tried to detail the progression of fish activity on the local ponds as the largemouth get ready to spawn. I'm sure it gets a little boring and repetitious to read about catching 10 nice bass over lunch, getting a bunch with my son and his friends, ... It actually can get a little monotonous catching all these fish (Well, not too monotonous, but the suspense is missing from these jaunts, and that is a big part of the unknown). So, why do I continue to go out so often and catch what may be the same fish on the same patterns?

2 reasons: 1) Because I simply love to fish and don't care what I'm catching, and 2) because, inevitably in nature, weeks occur like last week, and put an end to your patterns and teh behavior of the fish.

Last week we got 2+ inches of cold rain overnight on Wednesday. Our local rivers and creeks flooded. The ponds, which are spring fed, turned the color of chocolate milk. And the fishing came to an abrupt and complete stop.

That's right - the ponds shut down. On Friday, over lunch, I spent the better part of an hour on the upper pond (the one full of largemouth and 'gills) throwing spinnerbaits and Senkos. There was about 3" of visibility and the water was cold. I got - NOTHING. No hits, no swirls, nothing. I didn't really expect much, but I had to try.

This is why you have to strike when the iron is hot. The weather can change everything overnight. And, in my experience, the weather changes in the Spring of the year are more dramatic and have a greater effect on the fish than any other time of year. So, when it is good, and the water temp is stable, and the natural progression of spring is moving along nicely - get out there as often as you can. You never know when Mother Nature will deal you a hand that will put any successful fishing on hold.

I'll be interested to see how long it takes for the bass in the ponds to return to their previous level of ferocity. I'll keep you posted, as I should be able to get out a few times this coming week.

A Day to Remember at the ponds

I decided that I needed to get out to the Old Reliable ponds over lunch today. Even though there was a lot of sunshine, it was pretty chilly, with a stiff wind stopping the suns rays from feeling very warm. I went with the usual lures - a 1/24 oz. jighead and 2" grub, and the old reliable Cubby under a small weighted bobber. My tally after 40 minutes of casting:




NOTHING

NADA

ZIP




I hooked one nice largemouth but didn't bring it to hand. No bluegills. No crappie. No walleye. No trout. No catfish.

The weather here has been very cold over night, but I figured something would bite. Something ALWAYS bites here. Not today. Remember - this is the place that I go to over lunch and often bring 10-20 fish of mixed species to hand. I crimp down the barbs on my hooks just so I can shake off the trout and not have to land them and have them thrash around.

Maybe I was getting a little too cocky with these fish - the fishing gods have a way of getting even with us when we do. Or maybe, as I look back on it, it's just the way fishing is. And it's why we keep coming back - to try to figure these critters with the pea-sized brains. Well, today the pea brains kicked my butt.

But I'm planning on going back after them as the water warms.

And I WILL remember this day, because I din't like to get blanked!

I did remember my camera today, and got a few pictures. One I like one in particular. I hope you enjoy them.





Emerging may apples - spring is here!




A sapling gnawed off by a beaver




Great contrasting color

Friday in Alabama - a different lake, and still more bass.

I think that when you see an egret in a tree in the fog, it's a sign of good fishing to come!


On Friday we tried to continue the success we enjoyed on Thursday, but headed out to a different lake. This one was a touch smaller than the lake on Thursday, and had not been fished at all in 2010 to this point. This is also the lake that I had previously caught my biggest largemouth ever in 2006. This particular piece of water is also full of big brim - which I love - and we had our ultralight spinning gear along in case we found some of them.



Foggy morning on Lake #2

There was a pretty dense fog as we drove along some deeply rutted dirt roads to get to the launch. The road would have been completely impassable if it was muddy. When we finally got to small launch, I could see multiple places where shad were being pushed into the banks by the bass and were being attacked. This shad pattern held all morning. Early in the morning, when we started, it was a bank pattern. As the sun rose and the fog burned off, the shad moved offshore and the bass followed them. We would take the boat out to the center of the lake and let the wind push us a cross the open water, casting at boils when we saw them, and just covering water when there was no surface action. But the bass were there, and we caught a lot of them. Lucky Craft crankbaits (Fat CB's) and LVR's ruled the day on Friday. Joey and I didn't count the fish on Friday morning, but I'd estimate we landed about 60 bass. We also found some brim. They were nice sized, but the really big ones eluded us. We primarily used Roadrunner Turbo Tails for the brim on the ultralights. the really fun part is, if we caught 15 brim, we got about 10 bass on the UL gear while fishing for the brim. Nothing over 3 pounds, but on UL spinning gear, it was all we could handle. And, the neatest occurrence of the day happened while we were catching brim. I had a typical brim on - 9" - 10" - and , as it got to the surface, I saw a HUGE bass chasing it. It never caught the brim, but gave a few quick lunges. This bass had to be in the 10-12 pound range - it was HUGE. We cast in the general area for a while, but never saw it again.



A typical sized brim from Friday




Joey with a nice bass from Friday




A bass caught on a crankbait on Friday. Crankbaits were the key on this day.




Another Friday bass for Joey


The size of the fish on this lake was very good, but not as big as the bass from the day before. With one exception. I hooked and landed a giant largemouth about a half hour into the morning. I'd put it in the same league as my biggest fish the day before. Again - no scale, so size is an estimate. 8#? 10#? 11#? Don't know . Just know it was very big. And I'm glad I caught it.



My big bass from Friday

We had to get washed up and leave for our return flight right after noon. I could have stayed there for a month, but am grateful for any time I get to spend on this property. We landed somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 largemouth in a day and a half, and some of them were truly trophy class fish. Now it's back to reality in Illinois. Our ponds will really heat up in the next 3 weeks. I'll get out to the ponds over lunch and after work, and I have plans to take some of Joeys friends out with us. Probably a newcomer or two from work as well. there should be no shortage of fishing adventures to write about in the coming months. Come along for the ride!





How do you determine if a bass trip has been a good one? A bad case of BASS THUMB!!!

Back from 'Bama - Thursday's recap

Another lake resident swim aways


My son and I returned home from our trip to Alabama on Friday nite. I wrote about our trip last year, so my readers may be familiar with the lakes from a prior post. This marks the 8th time I've been on the property fishing for bass and brim, and it is truly astonishing at times. But, it is fishing (rather than simply catching) That was played out to the extreme this past February. The BassMaster Classic was held in Alabama on Lay Lake. Extreme cold and muddy water made it a challenging tournament, but KVD ended up winning again. The same time as the Classic was going on, some co-workers who were working the Classic fished the property I was just on. These are GOOD bass anglers - I would rate them as considerably better than me. On the lake we fished on Thursday, 4 people fished it hard in Feb. and caught, as I understand it, 4 bass. All day. So, it is NOT like shooting fish in a barrel. Last year we were here for 2 - half days of fishing and we landed 24 bass between us. Not bad fishing, but not great number-wise, either.

Alabama just came off its coldest winter ever. The water temp at the surface is just now approaching 70 degrees. But 6 feet down it is still in the 50's. In the past 2 weeks, they have had the longest sustained warm spell of the year, and it has turned on the fish. Timing can be everything, and we were fortunate enough to have GOOD timing on our sides this time.




The islands that were loaded with fish


The large pond / small lake we fished on Thursday is about 40 acres in size (I'm terrible at estimating acreage, so that might be close, or maybe not). There are a coupe of extended points, 2 small islands, and a bunch of shoreline. I believe the lake is about 15 feet deep at the deepest. We generally cruise the bank about a cast away from shore, and pepper the shoreline. The usual go-to baits are Lucky Craft LVR's, big Culprit worms, and spinnerbaits. I like to try different stuff - baits the fish may never have seen. On this trip, I brought along a bunch of swimbaits, some Strike King Red Eye Shad, Strike King Ocho's, tubes, and some other favorites. This was also the first trip for Joey since he broke his arm last week, and we weren't sure how he's be able to do with regard to hook setting, reeling, or landing fish. It took some adjustments, but overall he did great!



Joey does pretty well for a kid with a recently broken arm!



Another NICE bass for Joey

To make a long story short, we slayed the bass. While I was launching the boat, Joey was hooked up from the dock. And, the average size of these fish was the best I've ever seen here (or anywhere else, for that matter). Last year's average size was good; this year's was better. I lost track of how many 4-5 pound fish we caught. I got 4 that were over 7 pounds, and 1 on Thursday that was pushing my biggest ever.

Here is the tough part - I brought along a Weigh-In scale, and it died before it weighed a fish. Completely pissed me off, because I like to know the REAL size of the fish I catch. For personal edification only. I had to estimate weight on all the fish on the trip. Now, understand, I've caught a lot of bass in my life, and I think I'm a pretty honest judge of weight. A lot of "10 pounders" are really 6-1/2 - 7 pound fish. If you are accustomed to judging the weights of fish and think my estimates are off - tell me! I won't be offended. Someone like Tami Curtis, who fishes professionally for bass, may be able to glance at my pictures and say "That fish you think is a 7 pounder is actually closer to 6" Let me know!! On another note, I have NO tolerance for gear that doesn't work, so I'm getting a Boga Grip for the next trip. Nothing electronic to fail.



Another nice bass on Thursday


In the morning we got our fish casting toward the banks. LVR's and plastics ruled. While experimenting with a big Optima Line-Thru swimbait I got a big bass. LOVE that swimbait! When we fished around the islands in the morning, I put on a flipping jig and Brush Hog. It caught bass on every obvious piece of wood I threw at!



Jig-n-Brush Hog fish


After a break for lunch, we returned to this lake for the afternoon/ evening. Joey and I figured we got around 35 bass in the morning, and we decided to try to keep count in the afternoon. That proved more difficult than we thought. The bass were beginning to bust shad against the banks, or out in the open water, and the shad bite intensified as the day went on. I got another BIG fish on a 4.5" Strike King Bleeding Tube. We caught fish everywhere. When we got back to the islands in the afternoon, I decided the throw a spinnerbait and bang it off the wood. The results were amazing - I believe I got 15 bass by throwing into the wood on the small islands. As the sun starting dropping, the fish starting blasting isolated schools of shad all over the lake, as well as pushing them up on the bank. My last fish of the day came at dusk and inhaled a Lucky Craft Fat CB shallow crankbait. I believe this bass broke the 10 pound barrier.

The count at the end of the afternoon - 35 in the AM, 78 in the afternoon - a total of 112 bass. And we still had Friday morning to fish! Enjoy the pictures.



This bass fell to the Optima Line-thru swimbait




This bass thought a Bleeding Tube was a shad - WRONG




This may be my biggest bass ever - 10? smaller? bigger?




The end of the day




Wiped out after a long day on the water

Even a little fishing is better than no fishing at all

One of the "cookie-cutter" bass we caught



I spent Monday - Thursday in Pinehurst NC this past week. There was an industry fundraiser for the NSSF (National Shooting Sports Foundation) and the ASA (American Sportfishing Association). I actually got to play golf on Pineurst #2, one of the most highly rated courses in the country. BTW - I stink at golf, but periodically get to play some pretty good courses.

Anyway, an old friend of mine retired about 10 years ago and lives in Pinehurst. I hadn't seen him for years, and we managed to spend an afternoon together. That meant we went fishing on Pinehurst Lake for an hour and a half.

The lake is about 200 acres and is rarely fished on any serious level. It really exists to hold the pontoon boats of the residents and host parties. But there are some BIG largemouth bass in the lake - Roger has caught them over 10 pounds, and he (admittedly) isn't a bass fisherman.

To make a long story short - we got out, and caught a few bass. I believe we got 14 between us. All but one were the same size as the one in the photo. Roger got one about 2-1/2 pounds. We found them in 10-12' of water and covered the water with 1/8 oz. jigheads and 3" grub tails. The bass were very light / silver colored - the lake is spring fed and very clear.

The most interesting part of the trip - I asked Roger to bring a camera. His wife was on a trip with her sisters and had taken the digital camera, so all we could find was a Polaroid. I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a Polaroid camera. But it served it's purpose - he took a picture, I scanned it, cropped it, and fixed it, and here it is!