Fishing 2017

[bigbog]

Apparently that one was not! Probably do eating though!

Never caught anything brooktrout that big...but even the many ~3lb+ brooktrout we got back in the day..fed on many more small mayflies than the trout get to today...but were somewhat predatory = eating their kids. The few that I had to eat were somewhat bland...even back in the 60s. The smaller trout = far sweeter. Back in the day there was much less air pollution than the EPA & state allows now = many more mayflies and minutae that made for much sweeter tasting meat and faster growing trout. Can't believe how rotten the natives that I've kept over the past decade, from areas with special memories, have tasted...in comparison with the natives of the past.

 

[JimG.]

Excellent largemouth day last Friday. Several 5+ lbs. fish were landed and released:


Steve with a 6+ lbs. fatty:


Bonus time:


Good night action too. That's when the smallmouths started to bite.

 

[bigbog]

Nice bass and evening sky JimG.........

 

[JimG.]

My buddy Steve has been complaining I've been catching all the big fish this season (which is not really true). Anyway, fortunately the fishing gods muzzled him this past Friday:





We missed getting soaked by heavy rain by the slimmest of margins.

 

[powhunter]

Nice Fish!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[JimG.]

Been a few weeks since I've posted. The last half of August is when bass start to get more picky. Diving plugs work great in the spring and plastic worms cleanup in July and early August. But at this point in the season it gets harder to figure out the best lure to use.

3 weeks ago I did a solo trip to the East Branch. I caught a bunch of nice smallmouths on plastic worms but also had some good surface action using floating plugs:




That second smallie was a nice 4 pounder.

A week later I went back to the East Branch and the fishing was different. The smallmouths were not attacking the plastics as vigorously; they were not hitting on the drop but rather on the retrieve which made them almost impossible to hook well. But the largemouths were hitting the worms really well. At the Little Island, one of my go to spots at the EB, I hooked and landed 7 fish in the space of an hour. 2 were nice smallies that threw my hook but I did manage to land 5 decent largemouths:



Yesterday I went out on Rye Lake with Steve and Chris and the fishing was again different. Smallmouths were not biting at anything. But the largemouth action was pretty good:



Both worms and plugs were effective. If past history is an indication, smallmouth action will wane until mid-Sept at which point plugs will be the ticket. Largemouths will continue to hit worms until late Sept. and then disappear until next spring.

Hard to believe that in only 6 weeks I will hang up the freshwater bass gear for the season.

 

[JimG.]

Got out on Rye Lake last Friday and the Fall is here. Plastic worms produced nothing but any floating plug twitched gently on the surface produced good action. A few fish took on the retrieve also. Steve and I landed a few nice smallmouths:



They're a PITA to hook when they take on the surface so we lost quite a few. Amazing to think I'm hoping for some skiing in 3-4 weeks or so.

 

[JimG.]

Last post for 2017.
The warm October and early November kept the fishing alive. We did well with smallies right into the first week of November:

Even more ridiculous were the largemouths which stayed very active to the very end of October. This is not a particularly big fish but look how fat he is (that's my buddy Chuck with the photobomb):

I voted for him but not sure he won:

Until next spring!