12/27/14 Season Winding Down but Bite Going Strong

2014 by the numbers:
It's been a long and excellent 2014 fall Trout season! from 9/29/14 till 12/27/14 I got out targeting Trout 15 times. Out of those 15 trips I got 71 Rainbows into the boat. This is an average of almost 5 fish a trip. I had several skunks which is unusual for me but I also had 5 trips where I caught 8 or more fish during a single trip. During my best trip I ended up catching 12 Trout. The vast majority of the fish I caught this year were this years stockers between 14 and 18 inches in length. I caught no Brown Trout this fall which is extremely unusual. Last year I caught 12 Browns. Their absence is a mystery. I'm sure they are still in there and will show up when I least expect it.

12/27 Trip:
Mike and I got to our favorite Trout lake in the early afternoon. The wind was blowing from the Southwest at a pretty good clip. We stuck to the South shore to avoid some of the rather large waves that were present on the North shore of the lake. I caught a few fish here and there to start the day but really got into them during the last hour of light. At one point I had a fish take my right side rod. I got that fish in, released it, and began to paddle back out into the lake with my other line still in the water. Before I even made it back to deep water, I had a fish on the other line! I got that fish in and released it. I set my lines again and had barely started to paddle when I hooked and landed a third fish. All three fish came within a matter of minutes! I got the good fortune to see not one but two adult Bald Eagles while on the water. They are so neat to see and really add to a trip. The wind was starting to shift and was coming straight out of the West and starting to increase in speed even more. I was now paddling directly into the wind. I had a fish hit the lure on the right side of my boat without getting hooked. I then had a fish hit the lure on the left side of my boat without getting hooked. I finally hooked up on the third strike on the right rod. As I was fighting that fish my kayak was drifting at a pretty good pace due to the wind. I almost had the fish in when I realized that a fish had taken my second lure and I had a double, my first of the year! I got the first fish in the net and wedged the net between my boat and my leg. This kept the fish already in the net in the water while I fought the second fish. I grabbed the second rod out of the holder. The fish had plenty of slack line so I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been gone by the time I got to it. I reeled up the slack line only to see that as I was reeling my rod was getting that familiar bow to it! The fish was still on and after a short battle I had two beautiful and nearly identical trout in the net at the same time! The two could have practically been twins. I released those fish and reset my lines. I was paddling into the wind again when I got a jolting strike from a fish. It stripped line about 5 times before I even had time to recover and before I knew it, it had me into the backing on my fly rod. I was hoping this was going to be as good fish by the way it was fighting and it did not disappoint! It was a massive Rainbow that looked more like a small Steelhead than the stocker Rainbows I had been catching all season. After several more runs and some thrashing around the likely last and certainly nicest fish of 2014 was in the net. The photos from my carmera did not turn out too well unfortunately. The pictures below are stills from my GoPro camera and are not extremely high quality. The fish was a beautiful female with her spawning colors. I did not measure the fish as I wanted to get it back into the water as soon as possible but I would estimate it's length at well over 20 inches. What a great way to end a great trip! I ended up catching 9 fish out of 12 strikes. All of the fish were caught in shallow water with Clouser Minnow flies. I had to paddle out against 2 foot waves with white caps and it took me a full 30 minutes to get back to where I had parked. What a great 2014. I'm looking forward to an amazing 2015!

These two fish were my first double of the year and were practically twins!

GoPro shots of my nicest fish of the year.

Couldn't have asked for a better fish to catch as my last of 2014!

12/21/14 Will it ever stop? Yo - I don't know



As I was driving to the lake yesterday, I was getting more and more worried. Every lake and pond that I passed was frozen solid with no sign of open water. Keeping my fingers crossed for open water...I arrived at the lake to find quite a bit of ice on the lake but open water all the way to the shore where I was going to launch my kayak. Whew...open water still! I got on the lake and quickly got into some fish on the windy side. As I was fighting one fish, the wind was pushing me into the shore. I got that fish in and released it. I started to paddle back out into deep water while I still had my other line out and got a fish on the other rod! The action was pretty consistent throughout the day. I ended up having my best day of the year (so far) landing 12 of a potential 18 Rainbows. I caught most of my fish up very shallow in only a few feet of water on clouser minnows. Later in the day, I met up with another kayak angler on the water. He had put in at the public access and was only able to get on the water because some duck hunters had busted about 75 yards of ice when they came and went earlier in the morning. Nice to see another person out enjoying the decent weather and good fishing. The sun came out later in the day and the fishing slowed down a bit. By the end of the day, all the ice had broken up and pushed off the lake. Looks like I may get one or two more chances if the weather stays warm for a few days. If you're getting out, good luck and be safe!

  

Check out all the ice on the lake!

This is what heppens when you take a picture of a rainbow facing into the sun. All the colors get blotted out with silver!

This is what happens when the sun is behind you, not much better. I hate the sun for getting trout pictures!

12/13/14 & 12/14/14 Beautiful Weekend for Trout

The weather this weekend was absolutely perfect to get out and chase some trout! I did extremely well both days and I would describe the trout's mood as borderline suicidal. They were extremely aggressive and action was frequent and consistent. Between the two days, I got 17 fish in the boat and lost or didn't hook up well on at least that many more! I landed several nice fish pushing 18'' and lost one right at the boat that would have gone over 20 inches. Mike landed what I'm sure is his personal best trout to date. It was the biggest fish I've seen since I started fishing these lakes. Most fish were up shallow near the break lines. I caught all these fish on clouser minnow flys. It will probably not be long before the lakes are frozen so if you have the opportunity, get out as soon as you can. The fishing is amazing and you will not regret it! I got some great video but with my computer out of service, I can't get it edited yet. Enjoy the pictures and check out the trout section of the website for tips and tricks to help you get into some trout.

 

Absolutely beautiful 18''er. The colors showed up really well in this picture.

This was a really nice, fat, healthy 17''er. It was extremely beautiful, but the sun blotted out some of it's colors.

Small stocker caught on the "Short Strike Special" clouser minnow.

"Short Strike Special" Clouser Minnow

This is an overview on how to tie a modified clouser minnow. I developed this pattern to catch short striking trout. I based this fly on patterns that people use when spey fishing to Salmon and Steelhead. Once the braid loop is added, this fly is tied exactly like any other clouser minnow. The hook rides from the middle to the back of the fly depending on how long you make the braid loop. Hope you enjoy and get out after some trout. The fishing is hot right now!

Materials Needed:

140 Ultra Thread

Size 1 Streamer Hook

Size 6 Short Shank Hook

Craft Fur (various colors)

Flashabou (personal preference on color)

Small Lead Eyes

Stick-On Holographic Eyes

Head Cement

50lb Braided Line

Tie on and add a base of thread to the hook shank. Move thread back up to the eye of the hook.

Cut a 6'' piece of 50lb braid. Loop it in half. Put the two tag ends through the hook eye and tie it in.
Make sure to leave enough of a loop to fit the hook at the end of the process.

Wrap the two tags ends under the hook shank and tie those in at the hook eye.

Trim the tags ends of the braid and wrap the braid in back to the bend in the hook.
I apply a coat of head cement at this point but I don't think it is entirely necessary.

Tie in the dumbell eyes making sure to tie them in on the opposite side of the shank from the braid.

Add a small clump of craft fur to the bottom of the fly.

Add a decent clump of flashabou and a clump of craft fur to the top of the fly. Build a neat head for the fly and whip finish.

Add stick on eyes to the fly. Apply head cement to the head and other tie in points to get more life out of the fly!

Cut the hook off behind where you have material tied in using a pair of side cutters.

Add the hook by pushing the braid loop through the hook eye then running the hook through the loop.
 The fly is now finished! Make sure that when you do this, the hook is riding point up as pictured above.
This will help to keep you from getting snagged and will help to hook fish in the top of the mouth to aid in release.

This fly has been extremely effective for me! Good luck and tight lines!

12/6/14 Silver Fish on the Bite!

Unfortunately my computer is on the fritz and I haven't been able to put together the pictures and videos that I have collected over the last several outtings. With that being said, I've got a lot of great video of trout fishing and as soon as I get my computer back to running I'll have a lot of video and some photos to post! The last several trips I have taken to area trout lakes have been very good. The bite is hot right now and the last 3 trips I went 3/6, 8/16, and 4/6. All the fish were caught on minnow imitation flies. Fish are right in the top of the water column and easy to get to right now. Keeping my fingers crossed on getting my computer fixed soon! Mike was nice enough to take the photo below of me with a nice 18'' holdover Rainbow that was released shortly after this picture was taken.

11/30/14 Happy Thanksfishing!

I've been out fishing 3 of the last 4 days and I have a lot of footage to go through. It's going to take me a few days for now here is a picture, so you guys know what kind of video to expect!

11/16/14 The Feast and the Famine

I was able to take two trips this weekend. With this cold weather I expected some changes with the fishing but wasn't quite sure what to expect. As far as catching fish, I had one really good trip and one really bad trip.

On Friday 11/14, I hit the river after work in search of Walleyes. I had been doing very well on these fish so I was surprised when I fished for two hours in the cold and snow with no fish to show for it. I got some neat video of fishing in the snow but overall an extremely disappointing trip considering I'd been hearing good reports from some of my friends in town. If the weather recovers a bit this weekend I plan on getting out for them at least one more time.

On Sunday 11/16, I got out trout fishing for the first time in a few weeks. My friend Andrew and I decided to try our luck at a lake that has been pretty lackluster the past several years. We had heard some good reports so we thought we'd give it a try. When I pulled into the lot, Andrew was already there waiting. He told me that the channel to the lake was open but there was some ice at the ramp that we would have to break to get to open water. I was surprised to find that there was ice about an inch thick for about 50-75 feet out from the ramp. We spent about twenty minutes breaking this ice to get to open water. Once we got to the open water, we turned the corner to go through the channel to the main lake. The channel was frozen for about 100 yards, so much for it being open! Luckily this ice was not as thick and was relatively easy to push through. Once on the main lake, it didn't take long for us to get into some Rainbows. I hooked up within 5 minutes of starting to fish. Before I even got that fish landed, Andrew had hooked up and was also fighting a fish! I spent the next three and a half hours having really consistent action from the stocker Rainbows. It snowed for at least the second half of the trip and snow accumulation was pretty close to an inch while we were on the water. I landed a total of 8 fish between 14 and 16 inches and lost or never got a good hook-up on about 8 more. The fish are fighting extremely well now with the water temps in the mid 40s. They would jump, pull, and bulldog for everything they were worth. One more pretty interesting thing that happened is that a Seagull swooped down and grabbed my streamer from the water and I hooked it in the beak! I actually reeled in a bird! Every time I would get it close to the boat and try to reach out with pliers, it would fly off until it ran out of line then crash into the water. After about 10 minutes I finally had it subdued enough to get some pliers on the hook and leverage the bird free. It flew off pretty agitated and only slightly worse for wear. Between the ice, snow, Rainbows, and Seagull, it was a pretty memorable and enjoyable day.

Here's a video of the trip:

11/10/14 Gettin' Jiggy With It

Today was another 'take your kayak to work day'. I made a big push to get out today because the weather looks like it is going to take a nasty turn for the worse. Got out of work about 4 o'clock which left me with about 2 hours to fish. I got things started pretty quickly by hooking up within the first ten minutes on the water. I hooked this fish right at the base of the dam. I could tell it was a nice one cause it really didn't want to leave the dam and when it did it stayed nice and deep and bulldogged a few times. I got it up where i could see it so I grabbed the net. About the time I was going to make my move the hooked popped out! This was actually the first Walleye I have lost this year. I've managed to land every single other fish so I guess it was bound to happen eventually. Unfortunately though, it was a really nice fish and would have definitely been in the top 3 for the year size wise. Undeterred, I fished on and eventually hooked up and landed a nice 18''er. It gave me more of a frantic fight than actually displaying any strength or power. I ended the night with another hook up. This fish felt pretty good too. It was pulling good and you could feel each head shake as I brought it to the boat. Got it in to discover that it was a small fish that may not have even been 14''. Gave me a good fight and a good picture with the sunset in the background. All in all not too bad of a day. Went 2/3 and got to enjoy the beautiful evening. All fish were caught on a lead head jig and Berkley Powerbait flukes.
One more interesting thing happened. I got snagged on a retrieve. I couldn't get it to come undone so I was pulling a lot of pressure on it. I felt something give and saw my jig come into sight. It was hooked on another anglers line that had previously been broken off. The line was wrapped around a log which I was pulling up enough to get in view. The log was absolutely covered in lures! Without much effort, I recovered 4 jigs and 3 nice crankbaits along with a mass of fishing line. Pretty strange but pretty neat as with some new trebles I have some throw away lures to use in the future.

11/8/14 Those DAMn Walleyes

Four of us got together to hit the river again in search of Walleyes. It was a nice and cold, windy day to be out. James got things started quickly with a hookup literally before Jameson and Mike even got on the water. He continued to put the hurt on and landed 7 Walleyes and missed several others throughout the course of the day. He even spent time sitting and watching the rest of us fish for a bit! Mike and I each caught 4 fish during the course of the day. I caught all of my fish on a lead head jig and Berkley Powerbait fluke. Mike caught several of his fish trolling. He made the comment that trolling in this spot was like "trying to troll in a fish bowl". He made it work though and scored several fish on shallow running crankbaits. Jameson again struggled to land a fish. He had one on and lost it right at the boat. A while later I heard some hooping and hollering. I turned around to the sight of Jameson with a Walleye in the net! He finally got the Walleye skunk-monkey off his back. I'm really glad he finally got his Walleye. All in all, we had a hell of a day landing 16 fish between the 4 of us. I'll let the pictures and video do the rest of the talking.

Here is a link to a video of the trip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUS_V1ahRfQ

11/7/14 Jiggin' for Walleyes

I took my kayak to work on Friday and made a quick trip when I got off. I hit a local river in search of Walleyes. My first fish came only minutes after getting to the spot. On the cast I snagged the bottom. I managed to get it off and reeled in some slack. The fish hit right after that. I landed a nice 18''er. I got a couple pictures and put it back. Just minutes later I hooked another fish in the exact same place. This fish was really nice. It measured out at 24''. Making it my biggest river Walleye to date. I continued to hit that spot in hopes that more fish were stacked up there with no luck. When darkness fell, a guy walked down a wall on the bank right next to me and started casting a crank bait literally over my head! He even snagged my paddle on his retrieve! It really pissed me off and I decided it was time to get out of there. That aside, I had good luck and I'm definitely going to hit this spot a few more times after work this year! The fish were caught on lead head jigs and curly tail grubs.

 Here is a link to a video I took of the trip with my GoPro camera:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB1ung_5vmE

11/1/14 Fort Walleye

Mike, Jameson, and I got out on a local river today in search of Walleyes. We'd never had our kayaks on the water here but always thought it would be awesome. It did not disappoint! What a cold, windy day it was for fishing. It wasn't too bad once the sun got up to warm things a bit. There were numerous shad either dead or dying from the cold snap on the surface of the water when we arrived. I caught two 18'' fish in the first couple hours. When I caught the second fish, Jameson told me that Mike had one as well. We had a double...kinda. He ended up boating a nice one just over 20 inches. An hour or so later, I hooked up again. I could tell it was going to be a nicer fish from the fight it was giving me. I caught a glimpse in the murky water and it was confirmed. After a nice battle I netted my biggest Walleye from our local river, A 22 inch fatty. It wasn't super long but it was the thickest Walleye I have seen here in town. Definitely a memorable fish. Mike boated two more fish that measured right around 21'' over the next couple hours. Mike ended up catching a smaller fish of about 18'' about half an hour before we were going to leave. As our time to leave drew near, Mike made the comment that I had the big fish of the day but he was up 4 to 3 on me. Surely the fish wouldn't let that stand would they? The answer was NO! as I hooked and landed another nice fish over 20 inches to end the day. The only disappointment of the day was that Jameson did not land any fish. I was really hoping to get him on a couple but it still sounded like he had fun paddling around at least.  I caught all of my fish on a lead head jig and curly tail grub. Mike calls my color of grub "Electric Chicken". Not sure if this is made up or not but I've never heard of it being called that before. Mike caught his fish on a variety of soft plastics from small jigs to a 5+ inch swimbait! This river is not the most pleasant environment to fish and the DNR advisory says to not eat any Walleyes out of here. They are a blast to just catch and release though. We got to "admire" some brand new graffiti on the way on and off the water, some of which is not appropriate for children. We watched a shore fisherman leave a bunch of trash on the bank after fishing a few hours. I wish people would take better care of this place. It's a true gem and I don't even think people realize how lucky we are to have this in town! I got some GoPro video of two of the fish that I caught. I'll get the video posted when I have time to get it edited and uploaded. Had a blast and looking forward to getting out there again.

10/23/14 Walleyes after Work

Got out tonight after work to chase some Walleyes for about an hour and a half. Ended up with 2 fish tonight. I got one about 17 inches. Nothing too special but glad to see one anyways as I've gotten skunked the last two times out. The second fish was much larger at 22 inches. It hit right at the furthest point of my cast. It was awesome getting to fight him all the way back. I could tell the whole time it was going to be a nice one. Both fish were caught on lead head jigs and curly tail grubs. Both were released. Hopefully they get some more time to grow but a lot of people have a nasty habit of keeping EVERYTHING they catch from this river. I hope everyone is getting out to enjoy the wonderful fall weather!

10/18/14 Rainbows on a Cloudy Day

Fished for about 7 hours yesterday for trout. I ended the day going 6/11 on Rainbows and I also caught 2 Smallmouth and 1 Largemouth. I lost 4 Rainbows on jumps and I had one break my line. None of the fish were too big. The Rainbows this year have been in the 12-16'' range. They still give a magnificent fight and usually give a few good jumps and take line a few times. I struggled for a while fishing streamers so I switched things up and put 2 sparrow flies on and starting catching fish pretty consistently. I did catch a few fish on a Clouser Minnow but the Rainbows definitely seemed to be really into the small sparrows. The fish also seemed concentrated up in shallow water along the break lines. Mike ended his day with 3 Rainbows to the boat. All in all a decent day. All my fish were released and I only put a few in the net to get decent pictures.

10/14/14 Brief Excursion

Kelly and I hit the river today in search of crappies. We were only out for about 2 hours. Kelly had some rough luck and did not manage a fish. I've been there before and it sucks. I caught 5 fish starting at 10'' and eventually managed a true Fort Wayne giant of 15 1/2''. fish were not extremely cooperative and I had to work to catch what I did. All fish were caught with slip floats and jigs only set about 2 feet down. Water still feels relatively warm and there were a ton of leaves on the water to make things more challenging. The best is yet to come.

Beautiful Fall colors on the River

Slightly better than average...

Measured in at 15 1/2''. A true river giant!