Three at the Zoo

 

Stationed at my favorite Zoo spot & couldn't bring up a bite. Went upstream a bit & detected the subtlest of takes. Egg gone. A few casts later, an obvious take, but no hook set. A few more casts and I was ready to position further downstream. A guy and gal had sat there, casting rigs with tiny BB split shots, getting no hits. 

I soon felt an almost undetectable blip. Egg gone. I was using one-pound test, a tiny size 18 snap, a size 14 hook. Able to cast an egg wherever I wanted it to go. And I found a few trout in a little belly of the current. Identical casts yielded three trout. 

I released each of them. They swam off as if unaffected. Then some guy stopped by to watch me finish my last two casts; we talked variously about fishing for  10 minutes, and I then I went home. 

Word form Laurie

Laurie Murphy:

The Knee Deep Club will be holding their next contest on May 14th & 15th for walleye. Several nice fish made their way to the scales this past week with the season having opened up again on May 1st. Dylan Cole’s walleye weighed in at 5 lb 6 oz and Vinnie Canfield Jr with a 5 lb 11 oz. Herring , stick baits or jigs will work well to target most species.  Jake Bozik was able to break the Knee Deep Junior Club record with his 5 lb 12 oz pickerel , also catching himself a 5 lb 11 oz Hybrid. Speaking of Hybrid Striped Bass, Kevin Cool landed himself a 12 lb 4 oz Hybrid fishing with cut bait in Great Cove. With some warmer temps and less wind we are also seeing some trout caught trolling phoebes or small rapalas in the shallower water. Have a great week...

Afternoon on the Lake: Pickerel, Bass, Crappie, Panfish

A new guest went to the lake with Brian Cronk and I, Joe Santiago. The day began with Brian and I patching a hole in the squareback canoe, then loading my tippy Great Canadian onto my Honda Civic. Joe and Brian would go out in Brian's friend Sam's canoe. In the wind, I would have trouble pointing mine where to go, since the bow lifted and acted like a sail. Brian hollered out for me to relax, and while in the heat of my frustration it seemed futile advice, a better part of me was telling me he's probably right. Of course he was. I got back against the wind OK, but it took some strategy. 

Brian caught the nice pickerel in the photo. Joe caught a lot of crappie and panfish on a jig, a bass, and a nice pickerel. The 10-inch sunfish was an especially nice catch. Brian also caught a bass, a 13 1/2-inch crappie, and a yellow perch on a Chatterbait.

I used a Chatterbait until I was tired of it. It's a big, heavy lure that puts a demand on muscle from the moment you go into the swing of a cast. It caught me a 21-inch pickerel, 18-inch bass, 16-inch bass. But my favorite way to bass fish is wormin'. I switched to an eight-inch Chompers and caught a 19- or 19 1/2-inch bass from under the overhang of a tree. Also lost a crappie of 13 or 14 inches at the side of the canoe. That fish took the big (unweighted) worm a moment after I let it touch down softly next to one of the twigs of brush in maybe five feet of water. That's crappie style.

I had started out by casting the shoreline, and all of my fish came from within four or five yards of the bank. I did miss a terrific hit well out from shore but over a flat only a couple of feet deep. I also lost a very nice fish a few yards from shore while fishing the Chatterbait.

We were out there not four hours. Brian had said we'd fish only a couple. The tippy canoe has never capsized. Knock wood for me.