Dogs and Coworkers 8/1/15

Meet Charlie, she's my 8 month old golden retriever. She, uh is really smart, which is great. She's also filled with moxxie, which is sometimes great.

Here's Charle demonstrating her frisbee prowess:

Here's Charlie showing us, we need to bring one fishing rod on wades with her, not two:

Took William the Coworker fishing with me because he had a rough week. He hung in there all right, even caught some nice fish. Being left handed will help him wading streams. Seems like I'm always walking up the right side. Maybe something to do with streams generally flowing south.

I think I ended up with 19 SMB 17.25" 8 rock bass and Will 10 or so, with a three over 16". His 16.5" was a "five pounder". HAHA. Was roughly half the speed I would fish.  I would have loved to have tried for a repeat of last Saturday on a different stream. Sometimes it isn't about the results, but the journey. 

Cold, New Jobs, Flu, and a Puppy

Sorry for the hiatus. I have been busy. Busy with a new career, a new golden retriever puppy, and a long recovery from the flu that has still zapped me of my strength and energy 5-6 weeks later.

That being said, I did have two pretty awesome days on the water in March and April,

Check out the new puppy Charlie (girl)

I also added a couple new Wilderness Systems Kayaks: A Tarpon 100 angler package:

Give me that bone.

Another dog trip- Smallie eggs ready to drop.

Here's food for thought. I played hooky today and went north with dog to exercise her and hopefully some kite string too.


Interesting day.

First, fishing still sucked unless snagging 18-22" redhorses hand over fist with a jerkbait for an hour counts. Finally found a use for them...



The fish above was a 20" specimen which is pretty large for this species. BTW, anyone know if these are greater redhorse? The school I was playing with was probably 20 fish all 18-24"....


But...the water was like looking into an aquarium with polarized glasses on. I saw some great big schools of big redhorse in the shallows snarfing on algae! Picked out some quillback bothering smallies near beds, a buffalo fish! Haven't seen fish sitting in the open in push water in 2-3 years in these numbers. Saw about a half dozen gar tried snagging them too. You could make out the shadows of moving, spooking fish for remarkable little noise caused.

BUT...

I counted no less than 10 fanned nests the size of big smallmouth. When I was able to see them from a high bank first without crunching up to the area, I witnessed paired up large smallmouth patrolling the area.

I had multiple pickups that didn't hook before I knew what was going on.

Couple fish to 15" and a couple of very obvious pick up and drops...

On the walk back, I finally figured out how to use pointer 78 type jerkbaits on stream and am kind of excited about it. Throw at front of laydown, two jerks to get it down, drift it past the side of laydown, twitch, drift.... mostly drift with the twitch coming to bring fish out of the cover. Drift like a fluke. Can walk the dog with slack line twitches. Should be the kind of precise fishing that will be a fun challenge in clear water. Caught a mess of dinks with this little guy below truly making me happy. Been a long time since I've caught one that small.

Here's hoping the big boys get the deed done and things stay dry. If they are ready to egg up near Delphi, then maybe that explains the funkiness. Seems like the little ones are waking up.

The other thought on one or two fish per spot is if the larger fish schooling in spawning pairs (or would be suitors ). Mike and I witnessed this beahviour on Sunday and true to form, the smallmouth I spotted from above were in following in spawning pairs. So catching one spooks the other..etc...

After Work Dog Wade 7/24/09

Got off work early and picked up the dog for a wade. Every bridge had a car parked at it. Finally found a spot by 5:30.

Got one 14" fish off the front of a rootwad (shade). It picked Wake Crank of surface. Only bite until sun started going down in earnest. Got another 13" cranking the WC up a current seam. That was the last time I got bit on that bait, they just weren't chasing at all.

I started working a Sammy 100 really close to wood. Plop it down, one long walk to one side, let it sit, walk to the other side, let it sit.... bam! Another 14" smallmouth. This pattern kept repeating for a while- all 13-14" fighters. I was in the middle of a long pause, when a large fish suddenly shot upstream past my lure. A couple casts later, I hooked up with a good fish that turned out to be 18.75".

2009 is the year of the 18"+ smallmouth, must have been an oustanding year class. Oh, and someone snuck in the picture:



8 SMB (18.75") the rest 13-15" Most came in about 2 hours of fishing.

Quick Hotspot. 3/22/09

Waiting for my wife to arrive at airport, so I hit a quick local flow Sunday.

Got one on tube about 12" right below a riffle with some slower deep water offset. I fished it in sandals from across the stream. Wore the tube out without another bite. Switched to a weighted 5" fluke. First cast nabbed a 14" LMB, then the second was a 17" Smallmouth bass:



They tired of swinging on the fluke so I tried the LC Pointer 100 in Misty Shad. After about 10 casts, I stopped the bait in the right spot, it got slammed again. After a sweet fight in current, a nice 18" fish.



Yes, that's the dog behind me.



Sitting in creek:



Not bad for a quick hour of fishing.

Sleep Walking dog

Thanks internets:

Wendy still excited about Phillies World Series Victory

Our Golden Wendy loves to play 'stay' games.

Golden Retrievers-Wendy

Smallmouth Bass Caught in Winter by Golden Retriever 2/27/08

Took my Golden Retriver Wendy out for some outside play that included a fishing rod and some hair jigs and float for me :) . We walked the long walk through corn fields and woods. The temp was around 25F, mostly cloudy, but not gray.

When we got to the spot, most of it was covered with a thin ice layer. I did have about 15 feet of eddy in which to play followed by 25-30 feet of ice before the steep bank I stood on. Wendy was busy frolicking in the snow, she is truly a winter dog. Burying her head in snow drifts and walking out on the ice for fun.

About an hour and a half in I was using about 5' of leader below my float when it started to swim sideways a bit, then dunked! I pulled tight and soon had a nice smallie pulled up on the ice flow. Well about halfway in the line caught on a branch laying on the ice. Wendy ran out and grabbed the stick :) :shock: enough to free Mr. Bass! I reeled him in and noticed he was kind of large :) :) . No idea she was going to to do that, so I can't take credit. Guess she wanted the stick? The rest of the time I had to try and keep her off that ice.









19.25-19.5"er Pretty sure I've caught this one before, check the top of the caudal fin:



Try as I might, I got one more bite, the fish swam under the ice and sawed off my old mono backing. Looked about 17".

Wendy 1, BT 0