Who loves fishing ?

[Doublej]

I remember when I was that ambitious. Good on ya. Glad you were rewarded.


I wandered down to the river around 9 this morning after breakfast, tea, and watching some Conor McGregor humiliation.(what a fukkin clown)

Water was rising and fishing was slow. They were around but you had to work for every hit. Something kept biting my minnows in half, but I couldn't get a hook in it. Got a white sucker, a long-nose sucker(I think that is the name) and finally a small walleye.

I was going to wander along the bank for a look-see, but stopped when I almost stepped on this little fella.

I took the pic from a foot away and then backed off and let him be. I looked an hour later and he was gone, so he either got his wings working or something got an easy breakfast. Nature gonna Nature.

It gets harder and slower every year.
Filling the freezer, only really get couple months a year for prime time

 

[Martyrs Mist]

Sitting low in my yak kills my spine so I made life a little better. Hard to see but I used my extra light winches to hold everything down lol. Also added a gel pad cushion for my body ass

 

[Amarok]

Home after work for a snack and a hoot and then off to the river.

What a fun night. The skunk was slain with a smalleye shortly after arrival. A while later I set the hook on something heavy, expecting to see a sturgeon. It was a big, thick 27 inch river wallie with a small wound on his head. Hell yeah!

I believe it was a goldeye next, followed by a big, thick 27 inch river wallie with a small wound on his head. Hmm, something seems familiar. Then it was another small walleye.
The next fish had me confused. After the hookset it went sideways and looked like it was going to jump. Must be another goldie. Then it decided to hug bottom. Okay, a walleye.
Shows what I know. In came a wee baby sturgeon of maybe 24 inches. I was able to hold it under the belly with one hand like it was another 'eye. I believe this is the smallest dino I've caught.

The final fish was a big, thick 27 inch river wallie with a small wound on his head. Yes, I caught the same pig walleye 3 times tonight.
By the third time I was shit talking it "really buddy? you really can't figure out an easier way to get a meal than this?"

They were still biting when I left but I needed time to wash off the bug dope and sunblock before bed.

 

[belleswell]

Anticipation. Lake Michigan. Waiting for a rod to bend over.






Steelies

 

[Martyrs Mist]

Fished s new lake today. By far the largest lake I've hit. Everything went wrong lmao! Broke one of my rods while rolling up the windows, lost my bowl...we'll, that kind of stuff happens when a kayak tips over! I won't give details as I don't want to be considered mentally handicapped i masterclassed it. I the midst of the chaos, i slayed the smalls. This one was spectacular to catch. It put on a great airshow.

 

[Doublej]

Hopefully that body ass had a good seat

Have had those kinda daze....good on ya for getting fish

 

[belleswell]

I added some leveling ballasts to my canoe after flipping it on a small lake in late October. The extend out about 3 feet each side of the canoe,
and make tipping it much hard to do.

I use it for carry on access only lakes where using my baby 12' Lund can't be launched.


Note the c-clamps holding the boards for seats. Normally there are 4 of them. One on each corner, but the day I flipped it, there were only two holding the seat there, and one of the c-clamps was loose. As I shifted my position to grab the net for a fish I had on, the loose c-clamp fell off and the seat tipped into the canoe and with me falling into the canoe on that side, over I went. I felt like such a maroon knowing that it was the 2 c-clamps
holding the seat in position, and one was loose. Had there been 4 instead of 2, and all of them clamped tight it would not have happened. It was
shortly after that that I bought leveling floats that extend 3 foot out on each side with buoy floats about a foot long. They sit a few inches above the water. If the canoe tips a little to one side or the other, the floats take over and stop a possible flip from happening.

This Coleman canoe also has a small motor mount for my Minn Kota 3 hp electric motor. It is also lined with foam for stealth as dropping a net or sinker into a metal canoe can make enough noise to wake the dead, let alone a wary fish.






Our pond has some very nice sized hybrid bluegills, as well as perch, red-eared sunfish, and LM bass. In this pic you can see 12 or 13 hybrids looking at
the Zeigler's floating pellets I toss to them daily from April through October.





I buy 15 to 17 bags of Zeigler floating pellets fish food early spring and feed them daily from April 1st through the end of October or until the water drops below 50 F late fall when their metabolism slows.





I also buy two gallons of fat head minnows each spring to keep the perch happy, and again plant 2 more gallons of them late fall to get them through the winter. When traveling back from the hatchery with these, they put a half gallon of them in each of pure oxygen infused bags for the one hour drive to get them home to our pond.





All of the fish in our pond are catch and release. I can usually twist the small jig I use to catch them out of their mouth with forceps as the barb on the end of the hook has been flattened out with some pliers. If I do have to handle them, I wet my hand first so as not to disrupt the protective slime on them.








In this pic you can see the Lil Nipper jig made by Lindy/Little Joe I use. No bait, just the jig with some light jigging action on the retrieve.





I only fish the pond once or twice in the winter, more to assess the size and health of the fish. Here is a nice jumbo perch that was carefully released. She was an obvious female filled with eggs.

 

[Amarok]

Bit of a Noah's Ark night at the river tonight. Two walleye, two goldeye, and two mooneye.

Had a dinosaur on for a few seconds, just long enough to feel the big weight and power start swimming away before the hook popped free.

It was horribly hot, muggy, and mosquito infested, but still fun for a fishin' masochist.

 

[Gentlemancorpse]

Hell ya, fellow fishermen! Couple catches from this morning! The tentacles guys were an incidental catch that I'm not mad at all. Snagged a single lobster too but most of the traps were full of ladies.

Been doing a lot of kayak fishing too but I'm bad at taking pictures doing that. The phone tends to stay in the dry box the whole time.

Got caught in a crazy thunderstorm last night in the middle of the lake. Thought it was just a passing shower until a bolt of lighting ripped down in my peripheral vision. Was pretty exhilarating but led to more hiding under cover than fishing for a while.

 

[Amarok]

The tentacles guys

So cool! Thanks for sharing!

Hell ya, fellow fishermen!

Yup, we're growing in numbers and slowly taking over the forum.



Slow night for me. A couple mooneye and one walleye.

Watched a deer on the opposite bank for a while, argued with the beavers about whose spot it was, and just marveled at the beauty around me. It was a great way to spend Friday evening.

 

[belleswell]

with the beavers about whose spot it was

This hairy beaver tried to set up shop in our pond a couple years ago. He was also eyeballing which tree he wanted to drop into our pond.

Not on my watch.





Here he is calculating the hypotenuse better than Pythagoras to know exactly where the tree would fall. Something he could easily do overnight.
That is when we decided to throw a wrench into his plans. The wife and I harassed him by clapping our hands at him and chasing him from one end of the pond to the other. It took a few hours to convince him to move on. That was a better choice over hiring my logging bud to remove yet another tree from our pond.

 

[Amarok]

Not on my watch.

There used to be a lodge right in the middle of my fishing spot. I was always feuding with those big water rats. Then a couple years ago, a bear dug into it from the bank in the early winter and cleared it out (and there was much rejoicing). The Spring floods washed the remains away and since then they haven't rebuilt.
They come swimming along the bank within a few feet of me, often unaware of my presence until I scare the shit out off them.



Caught 5 or 6 small wallies this morning before the heat got unbearable. Supposed to be some storms this afternoon/evening. I'm hoping it cools down enough for another go later.