9/30/2017 &10/1/2017 Back in the Swing

This year I've started doing something new: I've been building spinner baits for Pike fishing. The baits that you can buy in stores and even from most custom dealers are made of thin wire that with use and abuse will end up breaking at some point. I've had quite a few baits fall apart on me while in use. Luckily I've never had a fish break one on me. My biggest fear is to have a nice fish hit a spinner and for it to break and result in a lost fish. With that in mind I've been buying components and building lures from much heavier wire. I've gone through a few iterations with a picture of my latest build below. I've learned quite a bit along the way and have had to make some modifications along the way to make the lure work better without fouling up. I've been very happy with the results thus far and Kelly would agree as she had an awesome weekend of fishing using these baits! I'm not going to give you the play by play on our weekend of fishing, but Kelly and I fished both Saturday and Sunday and boated well over 20 Pike in the process. I had a good day of fly fishing, boating 4 fish in about an hour. Kelly was gracious enough to paddle for me and let me get some great fishing time in with the fly rod. I caught the first fish pictured below on a fly rod but missed getting it on camera as I forgot to hit record after we had eaten lunch on the water. The second fish was a 30" beauty caught by Kelly towards the end of the day Saturday. The last picture is of a nice 30" fish Kelly caught on Sunday. The fish missed Kelly's bait on the first cast but came charging in hard on the second cast. It followed al the way to the boat and Kelly executed a beautiful L-turn at the boat that extended the chase long enough to get the fish to strike. We had an awesome weekend! It  feels good to be back in the swing of fall fishing and get some great time on the water with my new wife!