Thursday, April 21, 2016

All the Coho gone?

I've been watching the forums for LM and it seems the Coho have all gone offshore and the Lakers have taken their place. Since I am not a fan of catching grease I went to an area lake this week. This is a lake I usually hit once or twice a year, later in the summer it gets pretty weedy.
So with a strong E wind I loaded the boat grabbed a couple rods and off to Lake Hamilton I went. My first fish was both awesome and sickening. I hooked into a really nice female largemouth but when I got her to the boat I saw she was bleeding from the gill. When I looked to see I noticed I had ripped off one of her gills and she was bleeding out. After 20 min of trying to revive her she was dead and for the second time I had to fillet a largemouth.

The really sad thing was she was full of eggs, she didn't go to waste but it still sucked pretty bad. This wasn't the only bass or fish that I caught this day.

I hooked up this little pike on a X-Rap, he was the only pike I caught.
Well not sure when I'll be able to get back on here, I have my turkey draw next week 27-29 so depending when I get back I may or may not post until after next week.
Wish me luck.....

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Windy but good day on LM

We started at Gary Light pulling all the old faithful lures hooking up 5 before moving out to troll back to Pastrick around 1pm. On the way over there was some scuttlebutt about some fish being caught on the wall so trolled to the wall and hit a fish, then another trolled E and W until we went 9 for 13. Had a great time but the ESE,E wind certainly felt like it was straight out of the N. From the direction of the smoke out of the steel plant was straight out of the North..... really hate the weather guy. Even checking the weather on the water said ESE,E what a crock. They can't even stick their head out a window to give a proper report.
Anyway my buddy Mike said he had a great first trip up to the big lake and that he would love to go again. So looks like I got a new fishing buddy.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Not as good as last week

Well I went up to LM again this week again I got there late. I set up the boat and started the day at the mouth of the "Ditch". I caught a decent coho...

(There's supposed to be a video here but it won't upload I will try later)

Since all the chatter all week on the web was the fishing was hot at Gary Light I started trolling there. On the way I caught a smaller coho, once there the east winds had picked up exponentially and the way I had to go home was directly against the caps and rollers. So I packed her in and headed back to the ditch at 13 mph so I didn't beat the crap out of myself and my boat. When I got back I wasn't quite ready to throw in the towel, so I went to Michigan city. There I could troll out of the wind and rollers just like last week. I trolled til dark with not even a bump so I packed up the boat again and headed for home.

They're not huge but they'll eat....just fine...

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Early start this year

We've had some pretty warm temps the last couple weeks and with that the fishing bug bit a little sooner than expected this year. With the promise of low waves and light winds.....

I called everyone I could think of to see if they wanted to go fishing. Since no one could make it I left by myself at 6am, yes I was late on arrival at 8:15 am. Since I was late I just took my time and got all my gear ready, I finally hit the water around 9:30am and started my troll. Well I had to fish almost all day but I did go 5 for 8 which isn't too bad when your manning the boat and catching the fish in the confines of a river that is probably 30- 40 yards wide. With the wind and the waves the way they were I was able to troll the river out the mouth and to the break wall just on the other side of the lighthouse break wall.

The only bad thing that happened was one of my speakers wasn't working..... gotta fix that. : (
here's a video of my would be limit fish......

I lost that fish because my net got caught on a bolt at the end of the roller.
By the way, thank goodness, I did get that speaker fixed.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

The end of another season

Well what can I say..... I had a very enriching season. From the new company I'm keeping, to all the bands I brought home. This was a pretty weird year because of the weather. I didn't get out as much as in years past, however I did take advantage of the weather when it did decide to cool off. Since it was so warm we really never got a good push of any kind of waterfowl. But as I said when we did get some cool weather I took full advantage.
Like yesterday, the temps were supposed to be in the mid 30's all day and Mike wanted to take me to his properties to do some coyote calling. Usually I am done hunting as soon as March hits but Mike wanted to go out with me to see how I do it and see if he was doing anything wrong. So I showed up late (by my standards) and we packed my car with gear and took off to put some fur down. We only made between 4-7 stands but midway through the day we hit pay dirt. The bad thing was when we set up I had Mike just off to my right and a little in front of me. When I lit the fire and threw the lead down range I really rang his bell. I'm not sure but I bet his ears are still ringing.
Sorry Mike - my bad. : )

So with the last hunt in the books here are the totals for this year.

2015 Hunting Season Breakdown

Species | Days Afield | Number of Critters Taken

Turkey 3 2

Deer 3 0

Dove 2 9

Rabbit 1 3

Pheasant 1 0

Coon Did not hunt/no fur market

Coyote/Fox 4 1

Waterfowl 41 10 ducks/35 geese

Total 55 60

So as you can see I didn't have a banner year either with days afield or with my take home. However if you add up the good times with friends and the jewelry I got it was a very very good year. I would like to take this time to say thank you to all the landowners who allowed me to use their property this year.

Diary of a madoutdoorsman from INDIANA