12/26/16 & 12/27/16 A Christmas Miracle

December started out like any other year. Highs in the low 40s and lows in the 20s. It then quickly deteriorated to arctic like temperatures with highs in the single digits and lows down to 17 degrees below zero. We also got our first significant snowfall of the year and had up to 8 inches of snow on the ground in some areas. The ice junkies were excited and buying new gear at a record pace and I was left wondering if any lakes would be open once the current 'Polar Vortex' was out of the area. As you can imagine all of this extremely cold air put an abrupt end to my open water trout season. Every lake in the area quickly had a covering of ice and my favorite trout lake succumbed to the cold literally the night before I was able to make a trip out to fish. Fast forward two weeks and not much had changed. The temperatures were slightly warmer but the ice was seemingly here to stay and ice fishing had begun in earnest for most folks in the area. Then came some interesting news. The forecast for several days now showed high temps in the 40s and the day after Christmas forecasted to be close to 60 degrees with heavy winds and rain! Christmas with my family was great and I went to bed on the 25th with high hopes that maybe, just maybe, at least one trout lake would be open when I woke up the next morning. On the 26th I woke up to a text that simply read: Wide open - wind has pressed remaining ice to the east and about 10 yards out front. I quickly made plans to get up to the lake and take advantage of this opportunity to fish open water again! Upon arriving there was a good amount of ice on the bank and just to be sure I could launch, I put my waders on and pushed my way out into open water. It was relatively easy and I knew it was go time. The wind was still very heavy and I knew that my best chance would be to fish the opposite shore where the wind was not quite so extreme. There was still ice covering approximately 30% of the lake but there was also plenty of open water! There was also plenty of fish willing to play! I ended up catching 4 Rainbows and had several missed opportunities in just over 2 hours! It was a very surreal day with all the ice remaining on the water. I was often fishing around icebergs and shelf ice was still prevalent on much of the lake. The next day was very similar with heavy winds but even less ice to contend with! The fishing was just as good and I managed to put 4 Rainbows and my first Brown Trout of the winter into the boat. I thought that the Brown was going to be massive by the impressive fight that it gave me. Instead it was a chunky 15" fish with great colors and beautiful perfect fins. I released it quickly and only have GoPro footage from which to take pictures. It was great to get out twice to take advantage of this sudden thaw. I only hope that the open water sticks around long enough to squeeze in at least a few more trips.

Video - Last Pike of 2016?

Video - Back to Back Rainbows

Video - Late Season Pike

Video - Tandem Rig for Trout

11/27/16 Late Season Pike Action

On Sunday, I had just a few hours to sneak out and do some fishing. After some internal debate, I decided to head North and see if I could get into some late season Northern Pike. With Sunday being the last day of gun season as well as waterfowl and pheasant being in, I decided to grab my trusty orange hat just to be extra cautious. Turns out that was a good call as there were numerous hunters out and the sound of gunshots in different calibers was pretty persistent for the first hour or so of my trip. The fishing was nothing short of fabulous, the weather was decent, and the river was in perfect shape. After only a few minutes of casting I had my first swing and a miss from a decent fish. After missing another fish I was beginning to get frustrated. On my next cast after missing the second fish, I made a cast near a downed tree. I made a few jerks and thought I was hung up on a limb but all of a sudden the 'limb' was fighting back. My first fish of the day was an extremely fat, beautiful fish measuring out right at 30". It had totally engulfed my lure. So much so in fact, that I had to cut the back split ring to remove the back treble to get the fish unhooked. Even with the trouble I had getting it unhooked, that fish released well and after a short period of replacing hardware, I was fishing again. I caught another smaller but still nice fish shortly after. I headed upstream and had a somewhat slow period during which I had only 1 strike. I did however see a massive fish that probably would go close to 40". That always gets me excited. Before long I was nearly out of time and decided to return to the spots where I had action earlier in the day and fish for another 30 minutes before calling it quits. In 30 minutes I rattled off another 3 decent fish, bringing the total for the day to 6 fish in the boat and at least another half dozen chances. Not too shabby for the end of November!

11/26/16 My Mom's First Ever Trout!

On Saturday, after I finished playing hockey at headwaters park, I had a few hours to get out before dark. Boy the days are going quick now aren't they? I called my parents to see if one of them would want to go Trout fishing. My mom decided that she would go and before long I was packing up and getting the canoe ready to head out. We fished for about an hour and a half with absolutely nothing to show for it and I was suddenly worried that we were not going to have any action. I spotted a bald eagle in a tree and my mom got out her fancy camera and took some nice shots. Before long we finally hooked a fish. My mom reeled it all the way to the boat only to have it flip off at the last second! After that though, we were really into the fish and boated 4 and lost 2 more in less than 30 minutes! She was extremely happy to catch so many fish and was thrilled with how we were doing. Before long though, the sun was going down and we had to head for the ramp. On the way back we somehow managed to hook and lose another 4 fish! With a little more luck we could have had an amazing end to our trip.

11/25/16 Chrome Friday 2016

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, 9 kayakers came together at Lake Gage in Northern Indiana to chase Rainbow Trout. Out of the 9 people, we had 7 different kayak brands represented. It was actually kind of neat seeing that many different shapes, sizes, and styles all at once. We had Old Town, Hobie, Feel Free, Native, Wilderness Systems, Jackson, and Pelican all represented! The weather was a balmy 40 degrees for the high and despite the weather forecast calling for no rain, there was a light misty rain most of the day. We got onto the lake by about 8:30 and fished for a few hours. I ended up getting into the fish pretty well and boated 4 Rainbows by lunch time. Mike and I came back to the launch and cooked hotdogs and brats for the group. Before long everybody else was back and had a nice warm meal complete with chips, summer sausage, drinks, and cookies. After lunch everyone was eager to get back out on the water. By the end of the day, there were only a few folks that had not managed to boat any trout. I only ended up getting one after lunch so I ended the day with a total of 5 fish to hand. I caught most of my fish in shallow water (<5 feet of water) on streamers but did get 1 on a small sparrow fly. Mike had the hot hand after lunch boating a reported 6 fish in just a few hours! I'm not sure what he was doing differently than anybody else but he was slaying them! All in all I think the group ended up combining for over 20 trout and I did also hear that there were some largemouth and smallmouth bass caught. It was a really fun day and I hope everyone that participated had as good a time as I did. Until next year! Mark your calendars for Chrome Friday!

Video - Sharing the Pike Passion

Video - Start of Winter Trout

Video - Dangerous Pike Moment

10/30/16 A Very Varied Weekend

On Friday (10/28), I got out of work just in time to drive down to a local reservoir and fish for Crappies. Kelly and I headed down and arrived with only around 2 hours to fish. We spent the majority of the time fishing stick-ups with jigs and floats. The action was fast and furious but the size of the fish left something to be desired. Most of the fish we caught were between 5 and 8 inches in length. We did sort through and keep about 9 fish between 9 and 12 inches long to eat. This included 7 Crappies and two nice White Bass. It was a fun and quick evening trip.
On Saturday (10/29), I spent the majority of the day helping Kelly's uncle put a new metal roof on his lake cottage. I figured it would take most of the day but on the off chance we got done a little early I took my kayak and my trout gear. We completed the roof in no time and also did some soffit and put the gutters back up. It was around 5 o'clock but with the ridiculously warm weather and only being about 5 minutes from a trout lake I decided to give it a try. I arrived and got my flies in the water and proceeded to hammer nice holdover Rainbows for the next two hours. I landed 4 very nice fish between 15 and 17 inches and lost at least 6 more to jumps. The fish were absolutely on fire and would run and jump until they escaped or were too exhausted to continue. I love how these fish fight when the water is in the 50's!
On Sunday (10/30), Mike and I met up in the afternoon to try our luck fishing for Muskies. We spent about 6 hours on the water without catching any Muskies or even a single follow! Luckily, the Northern Pike were in a much better mood and we both ended up boating 2 Pike apiece. I had a large Pike follow my lure to the boat just like a Muskie would have done. I also had two other smaller Pike hit my lures without getting hooked. Catching Pike while fishing for Muskies is a little disappointing but at least they gave us some action and saved us from an otherwise potential skunk of a day!

10/23/16 An Esox Afternoon

Kelly and I got out on Sunday afternoon to try our hand at some Pike fishing. The bite was phenomenal to start with and we landed 6 Pike and 4 Smallmouth in an hour or so. After that the bite slowed to a crawl before dying altogether. It was a strange turn of events considering how good the bite was to start with. It was a beautiful afternoon and possibly the last 70 degree day of the year. Kelly and I each caught 1 fish each that was well over 30 inches. Hers came on a spinner bait and mine was taken on a jerk bait.

Video - Fall Muskie Success!

Video - Figure-8 Failures

Video - The Mystery Fish

10/16/16 Rainbows on a Warm October Day!

Looking for a change of pace I decided to head up to a trout lake for the afternoon. I was glad I did! I managed to land 7 rainbows between 13" and 17" in about 4 hours. The fish seemed to prefer a pink Clouser style fly until the sun went down, then they seemed to only want a natural looking olive and white Clouser. I had a ton of fish that I lost on jumps throughout the course of the day. In addition with the water still halfway warm, I managed to land 6 Largemouth Bass and a Smallmouth Bass. The 17" fish gave me an amazing battle with several huge jumps and half a dozen blistering runs! This Fall/Winter is shaping up to be a good one!

10/5/16 & 10/15/16 Fall Muskies!

I bookended my vacation with a couple of trips out Muskie fishing. I was throwing a custom bucktail spinner that I built. It features double #7 gold blades and a skirt tied with black flashabou and bucktail. It looks great in the water and the fish must have agreed as well! I had several follows and close calls with bigger fish each trip. I also managed to land a 27" fish on the figure-8 and a 28" fish that hit away from the boat. I can't wait to get out more!

9/25/16 What a Beauty!

I apologize for the lack of updates! I have been very busy fishing! Here is a beautiful shot of Kelly with the nicest Pike of the weekend. More to come soon!

9/17/16 Another Weekend of Pike

On Saturday, my dad and I fished from the Canoe. I hooked and lost a fish within the first 5 minutes of the day. After that I spent the rest of the day missing fish. I could have had 4 fish in total but I just couldn't seem to keep them on the hook. My dad did manage to land a pair of nice fish including the 28"+ fish pictured below.
On Sunday, Larry, Mike, Reid and I set out on yet another search for Pike. I got my brand new, lime camo Predator MX out for the first time. It wasn't long before the first fish was in the boat and it was a very nice 26" Pike. After that everyone had some action and I'd say between the 4 of us we probably landed about 2 dozen fish in total. I caught a very nice 31" Pike. I had Mike net it for me instead of using my fish grips like normal. When I reached in to grab the fish, it suddenly thrashed and sliced a couple of my fingers open pretty badly. I got a couple of quick pictures of the fish and got it released. The blood running down my arm in the picture is mine not the fishes. After the release I put pressure on my fingers to stop the bleeding, applied antiseptic, and a couple of bandaids to finish the job. Yet another situation where my first aid kit comes in handy! If you are reading this, you should seriously consider adding a first aid kit to your gear when on the water. Without a first aid kit, my day may have ended only an hour after it started. I tried to get at least a few pictures of everyone enjoying the weather and fishing. I only ended up with one blurry picture of Larry which I did not post because you can't really see much. Some of the other pictures turned out awesome! Reid enjoyed his first trip in his new kayak and managed to catch his first fish from his new kayak hopefully with many more to come. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

9/3/16 Homemade Lure, Great Success!

I finally finished a few homemade Bucktails. The lures feature double #7 blades in Copper, Gold, and Silver as well as tons of Flashabou. I got a chance to use them this past weekend. They looked great in the water, ran pretty well, and worked like a charm. I put 8 Pike in the boat in a few hours including this Indiana Beast! I guess you could say that my experiment was successful! I'm going to put together a few more for Muskie season.

Video - Evening Pike Action

Video - Discovery Canoe Pike Fishing

Video - Jerk Bait Pike

8/13/16 New Section, Same Result

Mike and I got the chance to fish a new section of river last Saturday. I had been on part of it last year but had wanted to float the remainder for quite a while. It is a nice section with some very nice and unique features including a dam, a handful of bridges, several cold water feeder creeks, and a diversion channel with a subsequent return channel. This section also had numerous log jams and shallow riffles that made the float slow going and hard work at times. It also had some very nice looking water that fished very well. Mike and I combined for at least a dozen Pike over the course of the day. We also caught quite a few Smallmouth Bass including a 19 1/2" beauty that I landed towards the end of the day. Pike were concentrated in the deeper pools and we had especially good luck where feeder creeks were coming into the river. I caught the majority of my fish on my go-to summer Pike lure: the spinner bait. I also caught a few fish on a buzz bait. I landed a few Pike approaching the 30" mark and even got my biggest Pike of the year so far with a fish that dwarfed my 30" bump board by at least several inches. It had a big head and a thick body. What a fish! Small rivers like this one can be very hard work but can also be extremely rewarding. It always amazing to see the caliber of fish that these places can hold. If you haven't been out fishing, you need to go! The fishing is great right now.