Category Archives: Fun Fishing

Fun Fishing

Back From Playa

It was a much needed break, relaxing with the wife and another couple at the beautiful Grand Mayan resort just North of Playa del Carmen in Mexico.  So that and the holidays is the reason for the lack of activity hear on the blog.

I did get out fishing for half of a morning, nothing special, but we did “Luck” into a sailfish right before the morning trip ended.  It was pretty cool to feel how hard a 40-50lb class sailfish pulls and that is not big by any means for a sailfish.  Check out the pics and the video.

On a positive note, feel pretty recharged and the warm weather definitely gave the fishing bug big time!



Fun Fishing

Quick Falcon Lake Trip

This past weekend I finally got down to see my Dad and fish with him on Lake Falcon.  A bit of a whirlwind trip and only two days of hard fishing.  The weather was about 15-20 degrees cooler then normal for Zapata, TX this time of year.  The cooler temperatures seemed to temper the fishes’ attitude a little but we still caught some good fish.

My Dad spent some time practicing before I got there and had one really good area identified and it didn’t take but about 10 minutes to get the first bite, it was only a 2 pounder on Brush Hog it felt good to swing back on a largemouth which feels good to a Minnesotan in December.  A few minutes later I got another fish on the Brush Hog, I then tried one of my new Kinky Beavers in Okeechobee Craw, quickly caught a bass and then got a pretty good fish on, turned out to be a good sized catfish.  Shortly after the cat, I got a nice 5 plus pound fish on the Kinky Beaver.  Just after I got my limit of fish by switching back to the big brush hog, my Dad loaded up on a good’un, soon I helped him scoop a 9lbr into the net that fell for a dark jig.

I worked hard throwing several baits, and I ended up catching around 15 bass and got a few 6lb class fish, but the 9lbr was the highlight of the day.  I caught some nice fish power shotting a Lake Fork Hyper Freak.  We caught quite a few 4-6 lb fish and our best 5 would have weighed over 34lbs.  The best area was a channel drop with hard wood on the top of a 4-6ft ledge dropping into 20-25ft.

We started in this area early on Sunday, but the water was 3 degrees cooler and there were 2 boats already there.  A few fish were being caught by the other boats and us included, but size seemed to be down, as I quickly caught a fish on a jig, but it was only about 2lbs.  After the other boats slid away from the sweet spot, my Dad bowed up on another dandy, it went 10-07 which fell for a Mag Fluke.  We fished hard the rest of the day and mixed in some other areas, ended up with 13 fish, good ones were tough to come by, but my dad got 7-10 just before dark of a rock pile in about 8ft of water on a Carolina Rigged Magnum Fluke.

Weather and short amount of time, limited the amount of video that I was able to shoot, but I will put together a few clips soon and probably embed it in here when it is done.  In the mean time, check out my photo album here.

For those of you that want to fish Falcon but are a little worried, after visiting I have no apprehension or worries about returning to do some more bass fishing.  You are more likely to get mugged at your local shopping mall then run into trouble down on Falcon Lake.  My only complaint, is that the trip was far too brief!



Fun Fishing, General, Multimedia

Making Lemonade

About 11 months ago, I had a whole pile of lemons and now I about to have glass of super sweet lemonade this weekend.  Early in January, you may have read this blog post about I how I justified to myself that it wasn’t so bad that a dream trip to fish in Mexico fell apart in the 11th hour.

It was a tough pill to swallow at the time, but my airline ticket was purchased in my name by the would be sponsor of the trip, so I had a nice credit with US Airways in my name, well this weekend I am using that credit for a flight to San Antonio and driving down to Lake Falcon to fish with my father.

Bummer that I don’t have some extra time off at work to fish more then Saturday & Sunday, but I’ll take my chances for two days on Falcon.  My dad has been dialing in on a deep bite lately.

I am going to pack the video cameras, so I hope to get some good footage of some Falcon monster to share with you in the near future!  Goals for this trip:
Exceed personal best of 8.3lbs
Double Digit Bass
Whack some Bass & Have FUN!

Here is a video of Tom Redington & Justin Rackley whacking some Falcon Bass from last week!

Leave a comment if you got any tips on the bite down there right now



Announcements, Bass Boat Corner, Fun Fishing, Multimedia

Got new boat out one last time

Last Sunday I got out for about 4 hours and we caught a few good smallmouth, it was more about getting the new boat out once in Minnesota before it was too late.  Now I get to stare at it every day for the rest of the winter, sigh
 

On the positive, with the help of a fishing buddy, I installed new lighting in my garage, I put 6 recessed can lights right above my boat.  So now I have great lighting for working on tackle and other boat projects, plus it makes it look like a show room in the third stall.  The lighting is good enough, I may do some video spots from there this winter to keep my YouTube Channel fresh.

Here is my latest video production.

Black Friday deals have already started at Bass Tackle Depot, time to score some sweat deals 20% off and more.

I listed some boat props on eBay tonight and I plan to list stuff on ebay on Black Friday while my wife spends at the stores, so I for sure have a G-Loomis GLX and a Shimano Chronarch B SF picked out for listing this week, plus baits and other stuff.  So keep a watch out for them! You can  find thermo lite board at Merritt Supply and other supplies from here.

Have a safe Holiday Week!



Announcements, Fun Fishing, General

Boat Week

Ever since my old boat died at end of August, I have been casually shopping for a boat, about a month ago, I found a deal that I felt that I shouldn’t pass up and now this weekend I am going to Missouri to go pick it up.  Pictured below will be my boat for next year, its a BassCat Pantera Classic with a 200 Merc.


Thanks to those that shopped my ebay auctions and clicked a few ads to help me get a few extra bucks in my boat fund!  I will be fishing Lake of the Ozarks on my trip this weekend as well.  Watch my facebook page to see more pics & vids from the trip and of boat all weekend long.

Hopefully weather will remain nice and I can get my new boat out when I get back and get some more smallies like this one that I recently caught.

I thought about getting an Alabama Rig for my trip to Lake of the Ozarks, but lead times are just too long after Dan Morehead won a tourney on Kentucky Lake and ebay seems a bit crazy to right now for the A-rigs.

So if any of my readers have fall fishing tips for Lake of the Ozarks, leave a comment or send me an email.  Or if you got good food or lodging recommendations around Warsaw, MO, comment on that as well!  I think the plan is to fish out of Brown’s Bend area this weekend.



Fun Fishing

Not Quite

Went fishing tonight, hoping the fall bass frenzy would be on like donkey kong, but it seemed things are a bit behind this year.  Think we need a little more cool nights to finish off the weeds that are still in process of dieing off.

Still a bunch of weeds in a weird state.  Fished for 3 hours with a buddy tonight on a metro lake.  We only managed 6 bass, 3 were scrawny rats, 2 were nice chunks flipping the pads and I got one jammer flipping a Yum Money Craw that went 5.3lbs.

That made it worth the trip, hope to get a bunch of these on the next trip!



Fun Fishing, Multimedia

Long hiatus from my boat

Because of a family vacation and being super busy, I had not been in my boat since my last tournament on Minnetonka (July 17).  So when I had a few hours free on Sunday morning, August 14th, I had to take the opportunity to get the boat out.

I debated where to go, but since I was fishing a river tournament on Pool 6 the next weekend, I thought my short window of time would be best spent on the  Mississippi River, so I headed to Pool 2 for a little fishing.  I figured I may see some tendencies or patterns that would give me some clues for the following weekend.

In less then 3 hours, I ended up with 10 smallmouth and 3 pretty nice white bass.  I got one fish on a tube, the others were an even split between a Yellow Magic Popper and a Chartreuse Shad Ima Square Bill crankbait.

Check out the video, explains it easier then writing a blog, besides I am behind on my blogging.  You may see a few rapid fire blogs to get caught up!

Enjoy the video, may be the last time you see that boat catch any fish…..

Fun Fishing, Sponsors

Evening on Lake Champlain

My travel schedule has been ridiculous lately, but on a recent trip to Burlington, VT I was able to get out on Lake Champlin.  Internet bass buddy & Virginia Tech Bass fishing team member, Jody White was a gracious host and went out of his way to help get me on Champlain for the first time.  If you go back in the blog archives, you will see an entry I wrote about must fish bass destinations, and Champlain has been  on my list for quite some time.

Time was limited, we had right around 4 hrs to fish so we stuck fairly close to spots Jody knew around the Burlington area.  It did not take long for Jody to boat a couple fish on a Gulp Leech on a drop shot.  After getting a rod setup and retying after losing a drop shot in the rocks, I finally got a nice smallmouth on the drop shot as well.

Soon I switched over to a back home smallie favorite of mine, which is a Fork Craw on a mojo rig.  I ended up catching 4 smallmouth on that and a drum, all but one of the fish was a very nice fish.

We also tested some of the new Top of the Line swimbaits from Optimum Baits, got a few smallies to follow but could not get them to commit on this evening.  Right before dark Jody converted on a few smallmouth throwing an Ima Skimmer topwater.  To see all the pics, check out this facebook album.

Jody does some guiding on the side in the summers, so if you are in the area, look him up!

Thanks Jody!



Fun Fishing

Mille Lacs Smallmouth Bass Fishing Action

Mille Lacs has been on my bass fishing bucket list for awhile, not sure what took so long.  Its only a little over 2 hours from my house and I have driven by it countless times to other tournaments and fishing trips.  Well Friday things finally aligned, when I had time available, the weather was tolerable and I had someone to show me the ropes of landings and general areas of good smallmouth fishing.  Mille Lacs is a big body of water and you can easily spin your wheels, so it was nice to have my buddy Bill to show my Dad & I around to get started and then we expanded on what Bill had fished before.

We launched out of Cove Bay a little after 8am, we fished a few reefs in this area.  I caught a 3lb fish pretty quick on a white fluke and then a chunky walleye on a Ima Flit jerkbait.  The next reef I caught 2 more smallmouth on a Chartreuse Blue Ima Rock N’ Vibe.  We then headed over near Izaty’s area, where my Dad caught his first smallmouth and I picked up a 2 more on a fluke and Bill lost one on a grub.  Winds got pretty gusty on the south side, so we tucked into Cove bay, where I had a couple smallmouth follows and caught 2 largemouth bass.

We trailed the boat over to Cedar Creek and relaunched because of the East wind.  It didn’t take long to get more consistent action on this side.  We each started catching fish pretty quickly.  Getting bites on a bone colored Ima Skimmer, DT4, and various soft plastics.  After a bit of pecking around on rock spots we finally hit a bit of a sweet area, where my Dad got a 5-06, Bill got a 4-06, I got a 4-01 and a few other nice fish.
   

After this spot went quiet, we stared looking at more new water and got on a pattern where we just wore them out on Soft Plastics.  Best soft plastics were Yum Dingers, Lake Fork Craw Tubes, & Tubes.  It got a little crazy after that.  We all caught several nice fish in the 3lb plus range.  Bill would have easily had 17lbs plus.  We were weighing most of the big ones, but my scale went dead.

My Dad’s best 5 = 5-06, 5-04, 20.5″, 20″, & 19.5: for about 24-25lbs
My Best 5 = 4-05, 4-01, 3-13, 19.5″, 19.25″ for about 21lbs

Over all we had 50 plus bass, 2 walleyes, 4 northern and a couple rock bass, our best 15 bass would have been over 60lbs!  Pretty awesome for a first trip to the big pond, won’t be my last!  To see more pictures from trip, follow this link.  This is a trip that any of us will soon forget!


Fun Fishing

Memorial Day Bass Fishing 2011

I was able to get out for about 5 hours on Monday morning with my Dad.  We hit a lake that we have a tournament coming up on in the metro area, although we would be fishing against each other, his boat was in the shop, I thought he should get a look at the lake and it’s always good to get out with my dad.  We don’t fish as much now that we both have boats.  It was pretty  overcast, windy and misty when we started the day.

I started out with a swimbait in the main lake, looking for some big bites, after 20 minutes, that didn’t really pan out, so we headed to look for some shallow fish around emerging vegetation.  It did not take long to start putting bass in the boat, many of them were chunky 14-16″ fish.  We kept hopping around trying to expand on these fish and looking for a bigger bite.  Well, we kept getting bit, but nothing over 3lbs for most of the day and all are fish came on light weight or weightless soft plastics fished really slow. I tried several reaction baits with no avail.  Based on Saturday’s trip and water temp, it was obvious that some fish would be spawning, but with the weather, trying to look at them would be near impossible.

Not long before we headed in, I did pop a 3lb 12oz pre-spawn fish on a beaver.  My best 5 would have been 13-14lbs, not bad, but not great for this lake.  Hoping to dial in a few more big bites come tournament time!