Finally getting some weather

Last week we saw a little change in the mild winter.... RAIN or threats of rain all week. The warm weather continued but we did get out and bring the goose count down by 5.

This is the third time we have hit this field, and the first time we took anything off of it. It was an all day set but we finally were able to put some meat on the ground. By the way for those of you math wizards out there, we got 1 more after the pick was taken.
Next was my Christmas goose, on Christmas of course.

That pretty much summed it up for last week.
This week it rained all day Mon. and I was feeling a little sick so I stayed home. Tues I hit the water for geese with no luck, as a matter of fact I only saw one goose all day.
Wednesday I went to a property that has been holding a dozen geese or so and set up in the wee hours hoping to get 1 or 2. Well the morning flight came and went rather uneventfully so now I was in it for the long haul. As the day went on I had walked to the treeline to shall I say, "relieve myself" and stretch my legs. After the business was done I heard some geese, I looked out at my spread and in came 2 honkers that landed 5 feet from my layout blind. So after some deliberation I decided to make a slow walk to the geese and see how close I could get before they flew.

Apparently I could get close enough to put both of them in the dirt. So now all I have left is one goose so I was more determined to stay and try for the third. I put the 2 geese in the woods where I had just been and since I hadn't prepared to stay all day, I had to call Sarah to find out when sunset was. After she told me, I started walking out to get some more sleep ready for some geese. I noticed a flock of 6 geese starting out onto the far side of the field. I was close enough to get to my blind and get it closed before the geese were within the kill ring. I popped up and dropped my last goose for my limit of 3. I didn't have to call, I didn't get any video and everything was muddy, I didn't even get another band, but I did get my geese.
From zero to Hero in 17 minutes.

 Thursday I went and sat in a tree for 5 hours only to watch the squirrels, and woodpeckers. The good news is the October weather has finally arrived.  : )

warm--- non-eventful--- sad week

I had a pretty rough week this week....
For starters it was really warm only going into the upper 30's lower 40's at night. Went out and sat for some deer on Tues. evening. Didn't see any deer but did enjoy watching all the squirrels. Went out for some duck hunting this morning and didn't see a duck.
The caper for the week was I finally got a freezer full of fur, so I packed all the bodies in the car and headed to the furrier, only to arrive and see a "Closed- No Russian market" sign on the door. Now, this guy has been in business since he was a teenager and he's around my age now. So I gave him a call to find out what happened. Apparently he had to close because the Russians aren't buying furs; he still has all the pelts from last year and most of the pelts from 2 years ago. He also said this will probably be the way it is for the next couple of years to five years.
So today I pulled all my traps for the year and will not reset next week. I did find a buyer in the area but will probably only make pennies on the dollar for the coon and muskrat I have. It's really sad and has me pretty tore up over the whole deal, even though there's nothing I can do about it.
This was going to be the year my trapping broke even, even though I invested another $200 in it. Now I have all my traps pulled and drying in the shed waiting to be packed away until the fur market makes a come back.... if it ever does.

Last week was pretty dry

Well I've been putting off writing this entry because it's so very depressing.
Monday Sean and I went to Huntington for the pheasant clean up. I have never seen so much orange on property that I did on Monday. That being said they mostly had dogs and were all working the gravy cover leaving us to push the bare bones of the property. You know.... the kinda crap that while your pushing it your singin' to yourself... "and they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles and they ran through the bushes where the rabbits wouldn't go." It's a song you can google it.
Anyway, we made it to midday and only kicked out 2 bunnies when my com padre yells out, "I see one" I yell back, "Shoot it". The only thing I didn't realize was he was only 3 feet from this poor hen. Enough said or should I finish???? Ok, he pureed that pheasant with the only recognizable part being the part that should've been gone.... the head.
Tues. hit the water for ducks. Zippo
Wednesday I got permission for a field that had at least a hundred ducks dumping in it around and after shooting time. Well we set up in the wee hours of the morning and we were greeted with a fog that hung on until at least after noon. Strike one. When it finally cleared up we had some (2) ducks fly by and a flock of geese land a couple hundred yards from us in the same field that we Sean had to go scare away. Strike two. And finally into the magic half hour before sunset..... nothing. We did get a great show of ducks while we were picking up though. Strike three. They came in right on time like they had watches and knew what time we had to be done.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well as you can probably see I am not hunting today, I have too much to do. I have to pull my traps, pluck my turkey and cook it, and take care of some other stuff around the house before going back to work tomorrow.
So we'll get right into it, in the past 3 days I have been able to put a one day limit of mallards into the fridge. Even though that may sound good let me tell ya it's been pretty slow. The snow last week brought some new birds in but by the time I got to them they had been shot up pretty good.
That being said the last couple days have been beautiful, dare I say we could've used a little more wind.
Well lets get to the pics.

day 2 with a bonus muskrat

4 mallards and not one band..... come to think of it I haven't shot a band in a couple weeks...... how long do I have to wait?

Last week and this week in 1 page or less

Last week nothing good happened not alot of ducks or geese around yet and the ones that are, are pretty stale.
This week Mon- nothing
                  Tues- nothing
Wednesday finally had some geese in a field so I got a hold of my minion and off we went for an evening hunt. We got set up around 2ish and the way we had to shoot this field is not the way I like to shoot a field. We had to set up with the wind in our face from the left, so when the geese came in they wanted to land passing over my right shoulder. We had to set up this way because of the way the field is situated. It's close to a road and there are some houses around so I only had one way to set up and still stay on the X. It took one flock to come in for me to realize that I needed to have my full choke tube in; the next flock I dropped my 3 birds. One of mine almost landed on Sean; it was pretty funny, I did have to chastise him for letting the goose blood get all over the blind he was in.
 My minion was having a little trouble hitting his target, he would've been better off ramping up to his full choke but he left his other choke tubes at his house. OOOPPPSSS
So nothing was really passing close enough for Sean to get a shot at. Then we had a group of 4 geese land at 55 yards from us in front of the far group of decoys. The time was quickly creeping up on us it was getting close to sunset which was at 5:21, so I watched the birds on the ground and kept an eye out for birds flying hoping to get him a shot at some flying birds. Well once it turned 5:19 we had been discussing what he needed to do and that was....slowly open his blind, slowly sit up, jump out of his blind with his gun and run straight at the group on the ground hoping to cover enough ground to get a shot at one of the geese. I said he needed to go if he was going to go, so he jumped up, ran at the geese and when I could see he was in shooting range I started yelling "shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot". The wind was so strong he couldn't hear me but as I watched, the geese started to take off and he shot; one goose down; he shot again; two geese down; the third shot was a whiff but he managed to go "Rambo" on em'- his words-- and bring 2 geese home.

Today I sat until 10 and shot 1 duck; only saw 4 and only had 2 come in...only saw a dozen geese over a mile away. 
However I did get a muskrat in one of my traps.

So as of right now I'm sitting at 3 muskrat and 2 coons that I've trapped. : ) but I have to get a small 22 to use on my trap line : (
Sorry so short but have to get ready to work tomorrow and would like to spend some time with Sarah. I've got some good video of our field hunt but haven't had time to edit it yet but when I do, I'll post it.

Week 2 Hot, Hot, Hot

Not the hunting....but the weather.
The temps topped out at 70 plus all 4 days this week, I hunted all but Wednesday.
Monday I had luck on a triple that gave me a flyby, landed on the other side of the lake, then commenced to swim in a large C which ended up to my right. I jumped them up and dumped all three. Other than that it was a rather uneventful warm week.

 Next week however is forecast to drop by 20 degrees and I can hardly wait.
can you believe not one of them were banded   : (

Week 1 Duck and Goose season

Wow what a week it was for me, let me tell you what happened.
Monday I went out and hunted the water, I didn't get a duck but I did get two geese. I was hunting an island and kept hearing some geese. I could hear they were honking behind me on the water. So I called to them and they eventually came swimming around to see my decoys. Once they got in range I jumped them up and shot 2; one dropped DRT but the other one started swimming off. I got out of the boat and got it untied and the chase was on. He made it all the way to shore and stayed still under some brush that was overhanging the water. I got my net and was able to net him before he made me chase him further.
Here's the kicker: BAND

 He was banded in Ohio.
Tuesday my minion and I went to my spot below the dam. Outside of a couple wood ducks that zipped by early and the 5 geese that came in while I was picking up the decoys, I told Sean that we should stay at least 'til noon but I started picking up at 10:30ish because he was getting antsy. We didn't fire a round all day, (savin' money) so we packed 'er in and headed to the house.
Today was a completely different story. We got out to the field, set the spread out and promptly got buzzed by two flocks of mallards before we even broke out the shells. We got buzzed by a couple pairs and a triple of Wood Ducks, of which I got 2.
After that we whiffed on a flock of geese that may have been a little high.
The next flock of geese though we really put a hurtin' to. I got my limit (3) and my buddy got his first goose. We only had a short wait before I was working another flock into range. I called the shot, Sean sat up and dropped his second goose. A short time later I was working a pair that wanted to come in. I had them right on the deck at 25 yards when I called the shot. Boom,boom,boom barked Sean's' Remington with only air to show for it. Not a goose dropped, oh well he said he had a good day and we left with some ducks and geese.
After the morning flight was over Sean took a time out to check the back of his eyelids for cracks.

 Here's the pic

Oh almost forgot.......... all my geese were BANDED.

These were truly Canadian geese, they were all banded in Ontario, Canada.
Super Awesome Hunt Today, should probably pack 'er in while I'm ahead....

Fall Turkey season

This is the first year I have had private property to be able to try to hunt fall turkeys. Season opened yesterday so I went out to my buddy's house with a  friend from work who wants to try hunting. He'll be my Minion this year and for years to come if he likes it. Anyway we got out yesterday I got everything set up and right at daybreak I had a hen fly down 10 feet to my right. Now let's be clear that during the fall season you can shoot it if it's a turkey. Sean was on my right and I was trying desperately to get him to cap this turkey while leaning around me. No matter what I did I couldn't get him to shoot this bird, so we watched her and the other 8 hens meander off never offering a shot. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful unless you call watching squirrels and cat napping eventful. We called it a day at 6pm.
The second day found us on the same property 10 yards back from where we were the first day. To my surprise the turkeys roosted in the same trees, and when they started to fly down the fun started.

We had hens walking around @ 30 yards and I kept asking,"do you see her? she's right there, when you get a head shot... shoot." Well the bird finally cleared enough for him to shoot and when he did the others just kinda jumped up and landed on the path @ 30 yards. That's when I sent some lead flying at her head, I found my target and as it turns out so did Sean's. So there we were about a half hour into the second day with our tags filled.

Caution: there may be some questionable language used

 Yep she's small but she'll be pretty tasty.
By the way the fall season is much different than the spring season. I equate it to deer hunting, a lot of it is luck and good scouting just because they don't really respond to calling like they do in the spring. So you all you can really do is try to get them to cross your path close enough for a shot.

Last Hoorah

Last fishing trip up the year was a day on the big lake. The day started cool and breezy and ended the same way. I hooked up with 3 kings all came to the boat but only one was big enough to keep.

So if you follow this blog you will remember the finch that hung out with me for a whole day last year. Well I had a sparrow hang with me for a while this year, the only reason he left was a fish hit on this rod.

I watched seagulls harass, chase, kill and eat 4 of these little guys. They would chase them around until they ended up on the water then swoop in and collect their meal. I don't know why all these sparrows are so far out on the lake but they would live longer if they stay closer to shore.

Last week and this week

Well with the weather being very warm this year I haven't been hunting as much as last year. I got out a couple times last week and a couple times this week. Last week I was able to bring in a couple geese. I also went to Mongo for a day and did some dove hunting.

This week I got out on the 15th which is the last day for goose, no geese. Yesterday I went to Mongo again for some dove, but the shoot was far less than the first time. I managed to walk up 3 dove to add the 6 I had at home. So lets see..... that's 9 dove..... 6 more and I'll have a daily limit and a meal.
I got the video of the hunt yesterday but have yet to edit it, when it's done I'll get it on here.

Last week was perfect

The temps last week were in the 70's which would be great for the start of the early goose season. This week the temps are forecast to be in the 90's. So I did what anybody would do, that has to get dressed in neoprene up to their armpits to enjoy the great outdoors.
I went fishing.
Yesterday looked to be a stellar day on the big lake with only a 20% chance of rain in the afternoon. So I loaded up and got to the landing at 6am and was on my way by 6:30. I hit 90 fow and started to troll, it wasn't too long before I got my first hit. It was a good fight and I thought it should be a decent King.
Wrong, I was on the wrong side of Brown town- grease district.

I didn't weigh this guy but I'm guessing him to be around 12 lbs. So after the grease release I got back to trolling for some silver.
Bad news, I couldn't get out of the bad side of town. The next tug on the line I didn't land but figure it was a laker because of the way it was fighting.
The next hit came on my newly aquired meat rig on braid and a dipsy.
This one I did land.

Another laker and this one showed his displeasure by crapping all over my boat.
Now if you have ever had a laker crap in your boat you know it's a good way to kickstart a vomit.
Nasty.
Oh yeah 20% chance right? Thunderstorms right? 3 and a half miles out and the old saying, "man it just blew in so quick"

It went from flat calm to 2-3 footers in a matter of minutes. After I heard the first rumble of thunder I started breaking everything down and got ready to run in. The ride in was a little damp but I made it to shore with my boat and my gear. By the time I got to the landing the sun was back out and the 80 degree temp was back. I thought about going back out but a quick glimpse at my fuel gauge and that thought was quickly dashed. So I put the boat on the trailer, untangled my gear and pointed the truck home.

Local lakes again : (

Went to Tippy and Max again this week, nothing to report at Tippy but had a pretty good day at Max.
I caught largemouth,smallmouth, and a walleye not necessarily in that order. While on the way to and from the lakes I saw a coyote, a hen turkey with 5 poults, and at least 3 fawns.

Rough on the Big Lake so stayed close to home

I went to Big Cedar and did some trolling for trout yesterday, ended up catching 2 bass and a really nice sunfish.

You really can't see it but that is a regular size flicker shad, not a small version. Anyway I stayed on Cedar until 1pm when the speed limit is lifted and they came out to tear it up. The cool thing is there is 3 lakes in this chain so I just moved down to the next lake and started fishing for bass. I caught a few but nothing of size so I went to the last lake which is Round lake. I actually caught my biggest bass of the day on this lake I wish I had taken a pic. Once I made it back to the boat launch I put my boat on the trailer and went 5 mins. to get to Shriner lake. This was the last lake of the day. I did catch quite a few bass here but again nothing with any size. So at dusk I packed 'er up and headed to the house.

Another double lake day

I've really been trying to get up to the big lake, but the reports have been really scarce. Without reports on how people are doing I find it kinda hard to just run up and drop lines. I try to have a game plan when I go up, with at the very least a starting depth and lure color.
Anyway I went to Max and Tippy yesterday, once again I caught fish but didn't really get into 'em.
I started at Max because it's the furthest lake. I got started at day break with the hopes of being able to look for my lure. Even though you could see 2 feet it needs to be just a little clearer. Anyway, these are the fish I caught: smallmouth,rock bass, perch, walleye, largemouth. The walleye was too small and I had to throw it back.

 Once the speed demons came out and I went for a swim it was time to move on. So I packed up and headed to Tippy for some white bass action. When I got there I couldn't believe all the eel grass in the water. It was everywhere and soo thick I could barely make a retrieve without getting some on my lure. Even with the floating headaches everywhere I did manage to catch a couple fish including this white bass.

This bass wasn't the only one I saw but it was the only one I got to the boat. I had many chase my lure all the way to the boat but didn't bite. So I tried changing size and colors, nothing seemed to work.
All in all had a pretty good day.

2 lake bass bustin day

Did I mention hot I mean wow was it hot and humid. I think it must have hit in high 250 degrees yesterday but the heat didn't deter me from my mission. Since the silver has been hard to for everyone to find on the big lake I decided to hit a couple local lakes.
The first lake was Blue lake, even though this lake is really close to a smaller town the bass are really nice sized and fairly plentiful. The reason I picked the lakes I did was because they have plenty of lily pads. That being said I threw a frog almost all day, love to watch 'em smash that frog.

 This guy was a pretty decent fish, he had a weird sore by the upper side of his gill plate but that didn't seem to bother him.
The second lake was Crooked lake which is the same lake my buddy has his cabin on. I put in there and started fishing all the pads around the launch. Without much happening there I ran down to the opposite end of the lake and went into Penny lake. I threw all around that lake and finally on the way out this little bass choked the frog.

The funny thing about my time on this lake was I actually had a bullfrog try to eat my frog. I cast to him 10-15x's and he would chase it and try to eat it. I set the hook on him a couple times but couldn't get him to stick. If I could have we would be eating frog legs tonite.
After I caught this guy I headed out of Penny and motored over to my buddies swim raft, tied the boat to it and went for a swim. WOW did that feel good, the bad news was that after only 15 minutes of being out of the water I was starting to sweat already.
On the way out I hit the pads by the ramp and heard alot of birds squawking. When I turned to look I saw one of the birds had been forced into the water. I went over netted him, got him into the boat, dried him a little bit and released him in the boat. Within a couple minutes he was dry enough to fly off.

Another honorable mention bass was the last one I caught. In the back of the channel I once again had a bullfrog try to get my frog so I cast to him and while on the retrieve this bass smacked my frog.

Something was stinking up Lake Michigan this week

Do you know what it was???
Yep it was the skunk on my boat, I could not get rid of it no matter what I did. I got to the lake around 6 in the am and trolled until 7 in the pm, only to come home with a clean cooler.

Just a shame, I didn't have a release all day. On the up side I did have really nice weather all day. Not too hot, partly cloudy, and mostly 1 ft or less for wave height. Nothing broke and everything worked as it should (except the fish) so I must say I had a relaxing day.

After I got the boat buttoned up to go home I had just left the Marina and saw this:

This is the most colorful Turkey I have ever seen, I can't wait for Turkey season next year.

Two lake day

Started the day late got to Max around 7ish and once again found the water stained. So I hit the good spots and came up with a couple smallies. After a while the speed demons came out so I packed 'er in and headed east.

 Well I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to Winona or Tippy as they are both on my way home. The more I thought about it the more I didn't want a repeat of the last time I went to Tippy (high water). So I pointed the rig to Winona, it's been a couple years since I hit this lake so I was a little excited. I caught a couple crappie and this nice bass off the pads with a frog.

All in all had a good day I didn't catch a ton of fish but the fish I caught were decent.
I'm really hoping to get up to the big lake next week if the weather cooperates.

Got a little Crooked yesterday

Since it has been a couple years, I thought it would be a good time to go up to Crooked Lake until the wave makers came out then scoot down to Silver for the remainder of the day. Well I got to Crooked and it looked like it was going to be a great day. The weather was cool and overcast which is what I was hoping for since Crooked has plenty of walleye. Long story short I caught walleye,smallmouth, and largemouth. I was even able to keep a walleye, most of them were short.

 yeah he wasn't huge but he went over the 14" mark so he came home with me.



You can see the preferred lure of the day was a small clown flicker shad, almost all of the walleye caught were caught on it.

Around noon the speed demons started coming out to run the water, that was my cue to go to Silver. So I motored back to the launch packed up and ran the 20 minutes to Silver.
The launch at Silver is the South side of the lake through a trailer park. Now to my understanding this is a DNR owned launch, at least that's what it says in the fishing regs. To my disbelief there was a locked gate across the road to get to the launch, that read ,"residents of the trailer park only". Now I not only fish this lake but I have duck hunted it in the past and that was what I was scouting it for. Well I backed up and saw a guy walking to his trailer so I inquired about the gate. He said it has always been private and they stopped letting everyone in because it was getting to rowdy. So I thanked him made my way to the main road found a place to pull over and call the DNR. Only to find out the guy was right, it is now a private lake, and the only way on is to know someone on the lake. So now I'm out a good fishing spot, a decent duck spot and I lost a couple hours in my fishing day.
Not wanting to go home quite yet I ran back over to Crooked. By the time I got there it had started to rain a little and thankfully that got some wave makers off the water. I spent the rest of my day there and had a relatively good afternoon.

Happy July

Let's see where to begin, my week was pretty hectic.
 Since we moved in here we have had ivy growing on the corners of our house so as long as there was green there I really didn't notice. Until we took a closer look only to see we had poison ivy taking over and choking out the good ivy. So we had some guys come in and remove all of that on Friday. We dropped 240$ on the removal of the poison ivy that was covering three corners of the house.
I went fishing at Max this week figuring the water was going to be warm enough to dive for my lost lure. Welll the water was 74 degrees but the vis was terrible. Normally on this lake you can see bottom at 10 feet. Since all the storms and rain and people getting ready for the fourth the lake was really churned up, I could only see 3 or 4 feet down. So I scratched the lure retrieval and concentrated on catching fish, which really didn't pan out either. I caught a couple good bass, two very short walleye's and a couple small perch.

eye's bigger than his stomach

Looking at that picture makes me realize how much skill it takes to catch a fish that small.

Since there is another lake that's close I decided to hop over and see if the fish were biting any better over there. Well long story short they weren't, I didn't even catch one. I did get to go through a high water area though.

 We've had alot of water.
Let's see what else.... oh yeah, that sore throat I had on Saturday finally went away and turned into a full blown summer cold.
Lucky Me
And I almost forgot, the quick disconnect bracket that holds my fish finder broke.
boy oh boy what a week I wonder what next week will hold.

Sometimes I hate my radio

The weather looked good (not great)and fish were being caught. So I made the 3 hour trip to Pastrick Marina in East Chicago to try my luck. I got there really late around 7ish, I like to arrive and set up in the dark and head out at first light. I headed out full well knowing I only had until around 3pm to catch what I could and get off the lake before the storm hit. Well after the first hour the reports started coming over the UHF of a storm headed our way. The skies were dark and stormy looking over Chicago area so I believed it when I heard we might only have a couple hours to fish before it hit. After an hour my first rod went off, I got up and raced to it, turned the handle 4 times and the fish came unbuttoned. OK, 0 for 1, is not a great start especially when I'm in a good area and using almost the same lures everyone else was using. How do I know this? Well that's easy; they were all talking on the radio saying where they were, what they were using and how many they had in the box. The only thing they were doing differently was they had more rods out. Since I was by myself I could only run 3 rods. After a couple hours with no mention of the storm, I asked for an update over the radio. It seemed the storm was going to miss us to the south. So I trolled in and out of the pack and back the way I came. I finally had my rigger fire around 3pm. A nice coho that by all rights should've come off. I was checking another rod when my rigger rod went off. At first I was just going to try and land the fish with the line from the other rod trailing. But I didn't want to risk the fish getting tangled in it so I just threw it in the boat and untangled it after I landed the fish. When I finally got the fish in the boat I noticed the hook had come out and luckily got hooked in the gill plate. I'm sure it came off and got re-hooked while I was messing around with the other rod. So there I am 1 for 2 and the day is getting late so I decided to troll in towards the marina. After another couple hours my rigger rod went off so hard the rod tip slapped the water. By the time I got to it the fish was gone: 1 for 3 is just horrible for someone with sharp hooks. Generally speaking I don't miss fish once they're on I get 'em to the boat. Now I have messed up the landing part and let 'em come unbuttoned but that's a whole other story.

Lota miles for that one lone Coho

 

 Man did I work hard for that fish, well since my dues are paid maybe the next trip will be more bountiful.

Tippy again

I went back to Tippy this week and once again smashed 'em. Lots of largemouth, silvers and even a sunny on a smash shad.
The notable things that happened on this trip: crashed my boat and broke off the head housing on my trolling motor on the culvert I have to pass through just to get to the lake, saw a deer on my way in to the lake on top of a beaver dam, jumped onto a swim raft to stop the boat from hitting it and when I jumped back into my boat I lost my footing and ended up in the bottom of said boat, had a 24" pike follow in a deep #8 x-rap -- so switched poles and lures and had the same pike hit a hollow body swimbait on the first cast -- he only bit the tail and didn't touch the hook so I put on a stinger and only had him follow it after that.
This was a trip and a half.
Still caught fish though.

cookie cutter silvers - they were all about the same size

I wonder what next week will have in store for me?

Largemouth, Whitebass and Crappie

That's what I caught at Tippy this week. I started in the wee hours of the morning and caught fish all day, as a matter of fact I stopped counting after 20. I would like to say they were eating anything put in front of them but the fact of the matter is they were only interested in 4 lures. I caught all my fish on a strike king jerkbait, an x-rap deep jerkbait, a sexy dawg topwater and a spinnerbait. The bass just hammered them all day, I even quit early because I was exhausted. It was really a great day.

I caught more that a couple that were all this size

 I was waiting to get a really nice largemouth to get a pic of but the one I would've gotten a pic of I didn't even get into the boat. Right at the end of the day I caught and lost the biggest bass I have ever seen.
 I was casting when I felt a hit so I set the hook and started reeling the fish in. As the fish got closer and started to come up I was looking down when I saw an open mouth coming to the surface. If you put your thumbs and middle fingers together to form a 0 that's how big his mouth was. I could've put my fist in it, he was at least a 5 pound bass, but I'll never know. As soon as he was within inches of the surface the hook popped out and he went straight back down. Like I said it was the largest bass I have ever seen, the sight of loosing that fish still haunts me.

And it rained, then they were done

I went back out to Max for 2 reasons:
1-I wanted to drive and try and find the lure I lost last week.
2-I was trying miss the rain by going an hour and a half to the west.
Well I failed on with both reasons, I put my mask snorkel and fins on and swam around on the GPS mark for 20-30 minutes in 65 degree water. I got pretty cold and the only thing I had to show for my effort was wet clothes and water in my ear. After I changed it was time for some fishing. The lake did not disappoint yet again this week the jerkbait bite was on. This week I used a Rapala X-rap in Hot Steel it did pretty good and the fish did smash it, but I really want my Strike King jerkbait. (which actually came in the mail today : ) : )) So after fishing for most of the day I ended up with 12 or so decent bass. I caught smallmouth, largemouth, one rock bass, but no walleye this week.

eating lunch at the truck

From what I've heard, the black dots are a sign of a healthy, high population.

had 1 saved in the livewell for this double

 These fish were caught before the storms really hit. I did catch a couple after the storm, but they weren't hitting like they were.