Ultimate Bass Fishing assortment

Again, I'll start by thanking everyone for checking out or, in some cases, bidding on my auctions on eBay. I still have a few to go. That's the reason for this blog post.

After seeing the positive reaction to the auctions, and the Susan Komen 3-Day event, I decided I should do a little more. After all, I was merely selling baits that were given to me, and donating the proceeds. So - I decided to dig into my own ridiculously large collection of baits and donate MY stuff as an assortment, with the auction proceeds again going to Mollie's efforts in the Tampa 3-day.

This new listing is described (by me) as the ULTIMATE BASS FISHING ASSORTMENT. It is 52 pcs of new, in-the-box bass lures. It has everything from hooks to crankbaits, spinnerbaits to plastics. Feel free to click on the following link to see the auction on eBay. And, if you you have a blog that appeals to bass fishermen, feel free to let people know about the auction.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320519250817

(You may need to copy and paste the url - I'm having my usual bout of uncooperative hyperlink issues)

This will be my last post on this subject - except for the final tally next weekend. I'll get back to fishing from this point on. I actually had crappie for dinner tonite, compliments of 13 crappie I got at the ponds yesterday. Outstanding evening fishing, and great subsequent eating!!

Wolfy

An auction for the Smallmouth Bass guys, too

First of all, I have to say I am flattered by the attention that the auctions are getting. Thank you to all who have checked them out, or commented.

I started thinking after I put the auctions up (aren't you really supposed to start thinking BEFORE you do something??) - every auction was geared toward basically the same group of fishermen. So, tonite I posted a Lucky Craft auction targeting the smallmouth bass guys (and gals). I certainly didn't want to make them feel slighted.

The link for the smallmouth auction is http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320516561738 )

And, I will make an offer to my Followers - if any of you win an auction I am running, I will throw in an additional Lucky Craft lure free! Thanks again for supporting a great cause and being a part of the solution

I actually caught a few fish, and doing something that really DOES matter.

I made it out to the ponds this evening. Yesterday was beautiful and windy, with highs reaching the lower 70's. today was cooler and windy - low 60's I figured the ponds had a chance to heat up since my skunking on Friday, and I was after revenge. I started off on the upper pond, and immediately got into smallish bluegills on 2" grubs. Even though they weren't very big, they meant that the skunk would stay away. Any fish is good fish.



Even the little bluegills are good ones!


We went to the lower pond, and I figured the crappie and walleye might be receptive to the grub. I was half right. I got 5 small walleye, but never saw a crappie. Rounded out the evening with a coupe of gills from the lower pond, and 2 VERY small bass. The sunset was especially nice this evening, too.




****************

As you read in the blog post title, I AM trying to do something that actually matters to someone other than myself. I recently got a box of baits in the mail from a friend. Details aren't important. They were primarily Lucky Craft's. Now, I love fishing LC's, but I already have a lot of them. then, a phone conversation on Friday made up my mind for me.

I was talking to Mollie Simpkins on Friday. She is a friend from the D.C. area, and she was telling me about her commitment to participate in, and raise money for, her 4th consecutive 3-Day walk for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Her personal fundraising goal is a mind-boggling (to me) $30,000!!! Feel free to see her story on the following link: http://www.the3day.org/site/TR?px=1298634&fr_id=1472&pg=personal So, while I donate to her cause personally, I decided to do something else - I am running 5 auctions this week on eBay. ALL the proceeds from these auctions will be donated to support Mollie's efforts.

4 of these auctions are for bass / walleye lures, and the 5th is for saltwater big game lures. So I am going to ask all of you reading this for a favor - if you know anyone who may be interested, have them use the following link to view the first eBay auction. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320516045124&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT Anyone viewing the auction can click on the link that shows Seller's Other Auctions to see the others that are running. I'll post the results on here, and anyone who wants to can see the donation after it has been sent to Mollie can see it on her page.

It's only a small gesture, but together all the small gestures can make a difference in this world.

Thanks for your help

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

The pheasant revealed, and the panfish are biting

In my previous post, I challenged people to find the pheasant being pointed by the English Setter in the photo. When I took the picture, I didn't see the bird! Well, a few of you did see it, some did not, and a few weren't sure. Here you go:


The original photo



The hen pheasant was sitting tight on the other side of the tree! Click the photo for a better view


I made it back to the ponds over lunch again today, and the bluegills were fairly active, even though it is still pretty cold. Cubby jigs about 2 feet under a weighted bobber were the key. If there was wood in the water, there were usually panfish around it. The wood will absorb heat more quickly than the water and the panfish flock to dark wood early in the season. No real big ones today, but a good lunch. Totaled 8 'gils - all released.

I will be in Alabama on Thursday and Friday, trying to put my hands on some BIG bass. Last year, my son got one a little over 8#. It looks like we might hit it PERFECT this year. You'll get a full report over the weekend. My son is going back with me, but he has a handicap this year - he broke his arm on Friday. Luckily it was the left arm, so he can still cast and set hooks. We'll see how it goes. He'll undoubtedly catch a 12 pounder while I won't break 5!

More pheasants, and the fishing heats up

This pheasant thinks he's hidden

I had the opportunity to take a few customers to our hunt Club last week for pheasants. It's a great situation when your customers are also friends, and you look forward to getting to spend time outdoors together. We hunted Thursday and Friday. We all stayed at the club on Thursday nite and I cooked, so on Wed I thought I'd try to catch our hors d'oerves for the next night. I hit the pond over lunch. And, of course, I forgot my camera.

I fished for about 45 minutes and landed 9 nice (7" - 8-1/2") bluegills, 3 crappies , including one pretty big one for the pond (about 12"), and 2 walleye - small ones. Order of the day was the usual combination of Cubby jig and weighted bobber on an ultralight rod and 4# test. I filleted the panfish for the next evening.

We had a great time hunting both days. And - the fresh fillets of 'gills and crappie were GREAT! We also had thin strips of fried nilgai and bacon-wrapped pheasant breasts. (A co-worker had been in Texas a week or so ago and bagged a nilgai. I was the happy recipient of some cutlets) A little wine and snacks, and we were good to go.

The reason for the post is 2 fold - to let you know that the ponds in N. Illinois are picking up, at least with the panfish bite. And, I happened to get a picture on the hunt that I really like. It shows the manager of the club in the background, a pointing bird dog, and the pheasant. Can you find the pheasant?? Click on the picture to see it full sized.


Find the pheasant!


I plan to be out and on the water almost constantly from now on. My posts will try to be informative, and will try to keep you all posted on the progression of the fish activity in my area. It's not a blog to boast about the fish I catch, or where I go - I'm much more interested in helping others try to understand their waters.

And - don't forget - springtime is one of the best times to catch fish from the shores and shallows of any water, and is, IMHO, the BEST time to introduce newcomers to the sport. It is the "time of plenty".

Finally, not everything you see in the woods is BEAUTIFUL or PRETTY. On our club, there are always a lot of pheasants roaming free. And, free roaming pheasants attract hngry raptors. There are a LOT of hawks in the area, and they kill and eat a lot of pheasants. How do you know that a pheasant has been killed by a hawk? The hawks eat only the breast meat. So carcasses like this are fairly common sites throughout the property:




The hawks need to eat, too, and they capitalize on the relatively easy pickings of the plentiful pheasants.

Let the Games Begin!

I couldn't stand it anymore - the forecast was for 70 degree + weather today. No snow. I HAD to get out and fish. But, I have very vivid recollections of getting shut out and completely frustrated on days similar to this in the past. You know the days - the unseasonable warmth after a long winter. The sun's rays belie the frigid water temps - ice out was only 2 weeks ago. But I HAD to give it a try. So I hit the ponds over lunch.



A picture of the best fish I've ever caught - the first one of 2010


Well, the weathermen were wrong. It was a nice day, but the wind was howling out the SW, and the temp never scared the 70 degree mark. But the SW wind was blowing the water from the very shallow end of the pond toward the deeper water around the dam. I figured the fish might be along the dam as well. They weren't, but I found willing bluegills in about 3' -4' of water. A Cubby mini-mite suspended about 18" below a bobber worked it's usual magic. The waves imparted all the action you needed. 10 minutes yielded a hit per cast, and 5 small-ish gills brought to hand. I have never been so happy to see small bluegills.

I decided to try the lower pond for the next 20 minutes. This is the pond that holds trout, crappie, and walleye as well as the usual 'gils and bass. It took a few minutes to find the fish, but I did figure them out, and ended this part of the afternoon with 6 nice bluegills, 1 crappie, 2 trout (about 16" each) and a surprise largemouth that was heavy and between 16" and 18". The hook slipped out just as I was ready to lip him (her?) and get a picture, so you have to take my word for the largemouth.



Crappie




Trout

It looks like there will be plenty of posts to come from the ponds this spring and summer. I want to follow Butch's lead and try to incorporate at least 2 non-fish pics into the posts as well.

Looks like the summer of 2010 has begun!



I'll leave you with a few pheasants I saw on the way out. Remember to click on the photos to enlarge them.

Four Points to Ponder

The following all happened this past weekend, and I believe it is a sign:

1) I saw a robin.

2) I saw a red-winged blackbird.

3) I heard frogs that, thanks to Wandering Owl, I identified as Chorus Frogs.

4) There was still daylight at 7 PM


I THINK, for the first time since November, that Spring might actually make it this year!!

Woo-Hoo!!!

Fishing Ban??

[I try not to get on too much of a rant in these posts, but fear I might have failed with this one. Sorry in advance]



I was scanning the updates on my blog list and saw the title of Lizzy's new post at "From The Fisherbabe" - click on her site on my Blog List to read. I went to her site and read it, and I encourage everyone else to do the same. It is a well written and well researched piece. There is some background info that is not available in her post, so I'll try to fill you in on my understanding of some of the history involved.

The Task Force that Lizzy explains is absolutely stated correctly. The President is going to have the Task Force's recommendations for Ocean, Coastal, and Great Lakes Management in the next 30 - 60 days. The part we all need to be concerned about is : How much will the task force include the interests of the sportfishing and boating communities into the National Policy Plan?

To us, it seems simple - a no-brainer, if you will. We all pay for our licenses, have the taxes on our purchases earmarked for continued well-being of our resources (Wallop- Breaux funds), and many of us actively seek to improve the environment itself, through donations, education, ... Pretty simple, huh?

Nope.

There are contingents of people out there who envision ANY use of a natural resource as "too much". In the past few years, a number of Saltwater MPA's were established. MPA is a Marine Protection Area, and NO fishing is allowed. The rhetoric says these areas are overfished and need to be protected. If we could ever take the governments word as the truth, many of us would agree that, under those circumstances, the designated MPA's should be protected. The problem is that sport fishing is not separated from the commercial fishing interests. So, the sport fisherman who releases some of his catch, and is governed by ever tighter catch limits, is grouped in with the people who operate longlines, kill their by-catch, and historically rape an area of its fish until it is devoid of life before the set off to find a new area to kill. Areas off Hawaii, the FLA Keys, and California now have off-limits MPAs.

The cynical person thinks "Hmm - they already got through some MPA's in other areas - will they try in this new Task Force recommendation?" Color me cynical, because I don't believe that the sport fisherman's best interest is being taking into account. I believe the government reacts to the lobbyists with the deepest pockets, and the deepest pockets in this match are clearly those of the commercial fishing interests, followed closely by the tree-hugger types who think no one should ever fish.


Without seperating the sport fisherman from the commercial fishing operation, you clearly have an "apples - to - oranges" comparison. Every viable piece of scientific research has shown that the sport fishery has NEVER had a noticeable impact on a species survival. Where sportfishing has had impacts, the sportsman have embraced the actions needed to rectify the situation. I would point to the almost universal catch-and-release regulations imposed on many lakes in the far north country as prime examples. these areas have very short growing seasons, and any fish that reaches trophy size is a truly old, magnificent specimen that needs to be returned to the water. Whether the rules are decreed by the lodge, province, or self imposed by the fisherman, very few trophy sized fish are killed anymore in northern Canada. It has kept the trophy populations high, and people have shown they are willing to pay top dollar for the experience of the trip without having to kill the fish. It seems that none of this type of behavior is taken into account when the government creates a new rule that resticts sport fishing.

Recreational fishermen actually have a history of spearheading the imposition of limits on themselves, and their favorite species, as is evidenced by the striped bass laws that allowed the stripers to rebound from historic lows. (Do yourself a favor and read "Striper Wars" by Dick Russell. OUTSTANDING book about the striper situation.) We will do what needs to be done to protect our beloved ecosystems and resources.

The voice of the US Recreational Fishing Industry in Washington DC is the ASA - the American Sportfishing Association. they have provided the link that follows to allow you to email your congressmen, senators, and the President. Please take a moment to do so and make sure our collective voices are heard. The 3/9 update will link you to the appropriate page.
[I'm having trouble with the hyperlink - please paste the address below into the url]

www.keepamericafishing.org

Thanks for your help

A visit to Brookfield Zoo

(Remember - click on any photo to enlarge the image)


Zoo Entrance

We continued our excursions to Chicagoland's attractions by going to Brookfield Zoo on Saturday. It was a beautiful day, and a LOT of people figured the zoo was the place to be.

We have been members of the local zoo wherever we have lived. Brookfield, even though it is 30 miles away, is the closest to us now. Whenever there is a nice day and we don't have other plans - we go to the zoo. Its a great place to get a day's exercise while taking in the sites.

(Actually, my comment about going there on nice days is a misnomer. The BEST days are drizzly, cool, maybe some snow. It keeps the crowds down and you can have exhibits to yourself)

Saturday was a special day at the zoo. National Pig Day is March 1, and the zoo celebrates on the first Saturday after March 1. We have a standing joke in our house that I missed my National Day by one measly day (my birthday is March 2). I think I got the well earned reputation by being less-than neat and orderly around the house!

I also needed some more practice with my camera. So, I took a lot of pictures. Some of them actually came out OK. I hope you enjoy.



Our less than enthusiastic son at the National Pig Day sign. He was much less amused than we were.




Leopard




Bactrian Camels. These animals are HUGE!




free flying fruit bats in the Australia House. Tough to get a photo with low light and no flash, but I tried! Click on image to see a few bats



Chinese newt




Dwarf crocodile




Macaw closeup




African Wild Dogs




African Porcupine




Lion statues at the South Entrance