Good fishin' with Jeff...

I got out on a little lake last night with Jeff a.k.a. Fishuhalik (Moniker from Fishing Minnesota) for a little fishing out of my canoe. The canoe deserves the name "Big Bertha" or "The Iron Maiden" because it weighs a ton and is a beast to handle! Fortunately, Val brought a little flatbed cart home from work so I could roll it to the launch site, since carrying this monster is out of the question! It worked really well.

Judging from weather reports earlier in the day, I thought we were going to be hampered by storms or be blown off the lake, but we were pleasantly surprised that conditions on the lake were quite perfect for our little outing. Jeff had never fished this lake before and was amazed by the size of the panfish being caught, with gills up to 8.5" and crappies up to 11". We pounded the fish, practically getting one on every cast. Jeff was using my new 5'6" St. Croix UL and having a blast with it. We started out using floats with plastics but soon took off the floats and just tightlined instead. Jeff even took a few crappies home to eat.

Here's some pictures I took...


Jeff and gill...

This is the skinniest crappie I have ever seen in my life! It needs to check into an eating disorder clinic immediately!


Pretty colors...



Here's three more pictures I took from a prior outing in my float tube.

More shore fishing with kids....

I bought Genna, Lucas, and my nephew Ryan out for a little shore fishing last night. Action was non-stop with some nice gills and a couple decent crappies mixed in. I didn't get alot of pictures, you know how it is fishing with a bunch of kids trying to keep things going. Here's a few though...

The cold front didn't affect these fish!

I had a half day of work friday and got off around 1:30 in the afternoon. A cold front came through the area yesterday and conditions were very breezy and temps about 10 degrees colder than the day before. I couldn't decide if I should go fishing in my float tube or forget about fishing and do something else....I thought the fishing would suck with the post-frontal conditions. Well, I decided to go fishing and I made the right choice. I was surprised that the panfish were very active and eager to bite anything that was put in front of them. I caught probably 75-80 fish in about two hours. Mostly gills but a few crappies mixed in.

I started off with a 1" Berkley micro tube. I also used Culprit paddletails...



Working the presentation about 18" under a float...







Lots of bluegills between 8 and 9 inches long....







Crappies were ok. Largest was probably 10.5". Not very thick though...

These next four pictures I took of the same fish. Pretty cool me thinks!

Springtime slammin' with Crappie Keith

I had a couple days off from work after working the weekend, so I paid a visit to Crappie Keith for two days of fishing. Keith lives about 2.5 hours north of the metro area in Palisade. Being just a few days after ice out on the lakes up there, it's traditionally a tough time of the year for fishing. Once the shallows warm up, then panfish are generally active in those areas, but things were too early and we knew fish would be tough to locate.

Monday morning we tried a proven spot of Keith's, but that didn't produce much except for a couple big perch and a couple slabs, so we decided to try another lake. It was quite a ways away, but Keith heard of a good bite there and we decided to drive the miles and give it a try. There was a small cove off the main lake, so we headed over to the cove and started killin' the crappies in the shallows, most fish between 9-11" with a few in the 12" class. The wind was key. If the wind died down, so did the bite. We tried a few other spots on that lake, but with little to show. The cove was where it was happening. It was absolutely crawling with crappies. Blueglls and LM bass also caught.

A good way to start the day with some big perch...

Keith get's a sumo too...

We caught a couple crappies too at that spot before we buzzed over to the other lake where we caught hundreds of crappies over the two days. Here's some more photos I took of my trip...

There were alot of bass in the shallows and were easy to catch. Here's the biggest I caught...

Crappie cancer?




T.H.E. jig strikes again!


CK living up to his name...


Here's a cool eagle's nest we found complete with a pair of eagles!


Another slab for the fry pan...

Here's two fish I snagged within about five minutes of each other!

I think I got the "Mike Thompson" method of self-portrait down...