This Year's Last Bass

Photo by Asher Samsel

My last bass of 2011 wasn't big, and there was nothing noteworthy about the way it it hit or fought. The best part about it was that I was in the canoe with two of my boys, Asher and Nathaniel. In fact, Asher, who is 7 years old, took the picture that documents my last bass of the year.

The three of us left the house around 10:00 and spent a few hours fishing, with that time split between two ponds on the same property. A few days ago Nathaniel had better success on "the middle pond" than on the pond where we normally start and where the canoe is kept, so we toted the canoe down the hill after we'd fished the upper pond a while this morning. It turned out that the upper pond was better today and accounted for four of our five fish.

I wonder what my first fish of 2012 will be. Nathaniel and I are Santee Cooper bound next week, so maybe it'll be a whopper blue cat!

Christmas Bass

Green-dominated and sparkly, Bobby Garland's Midnight Sun color has a Christmas treeish sort of a look, so a Midnight Sun Stroll'R seemed like a good choice for a couple of quick laps around the pond on Christmas day. And I'm glad to report that couple of bass thought my sparkly little minnow imitation looked just right for Christmas dinner. Nathaniel and I only caught a few fish during our Christmas outing, but it sure was nice slipping out to the pond for an hour or so after the presents were unwrapped.

Tweet Nothings

The truth is that I don't really get Twitter. I'm there, though, so if anyone wants to follow, I'm @jeffsamsel, and I'll try to tweet something worth reading from time to time.

Nathaniel, @NathanielSamsel, will probably be more interesting to follow. He's the one with the CD coming out. I just write fish stories.

First Baitcaster Under the Tree

Bill Dance used a Daiwa Procaster Sm 2A, and he sure caught a lot of fish. Whether I was convinced a matching rod and reel would bring me catches like Bill Dance's I don't really recall. I do know that his weekly program, Bill Dance Outdoors, was by far my favorite thing that the TV brought to our home in Clearwater, Florida, and I wanted to fish with the same stuff that he did.

The Procaster reel and matching graphite rod marked a major step up from simple spinning outfit and the Zebco 404 I had owned previously -- enough so that I had to ask for the reel for my birthday (in October) and the rod for Christmas. I didn't mind, and at first light on Christmas morning, I was standing in the front yard with a weight tied to my line, figuring out how to cast my delightful new rod and reel and how to pick out plentiful backlashes.

It's been a quarter century or so since that Christmas morning, and I still don't catch fish the way Bill Dance does. He got me started early with a good baitcaster, though, and taught me many things that helped me catch more fish at the time and that remain foundational to the way I make my living. And for that I am thankful.

Panfish Through the Minnesota Ice

A Lindy Toad proved irresistabe to this big bluegill for Minnesota fishing guide Jeff Sundin.

Because I haven't spent an enormous amount of time ice-fishing, every day on a frozen lake provides new experiences and understanding of the sport's strategies. Most recently, I spent a couple of days in northern Minnesota, learning how to target bluegills, yellow perch and crappie (or crappies, as they say in Minnesota) and gathering photos of the same species.

Beyond the obvious need to downsize baits and gear from what you'd use for walleyes, bass or pike, targeting panfish involves picking the right lake and the right part of the lake. We focused on the edges of deep holes in smaller waters and used a run-and-gun sort of strategy, drilling lots holes and doing quite a bit of searching with flashers. We also looked for suspended fish, which were feeding more actively than fish on the bottom. Our most productive lures included Lindy Toads, Lindy Bugs and Micro Slick Jigs, all matched with plastics, fresh bait or both.

My next hard-water outing will be at Devils Lake in North Dakota, with walleyes and yellow perch as the main attractions.

Two Tremendous Days on the Niagara

I'm not sure how many hundreds of pounds of fish were caught and released in Frank Campbell's boat yesterday and today, but I do know that when we were not running from spot to spot or stopped to take pictures, at least one of us was usually battling a fish. Add the unseasonably mild weather and Campbell's great company, and you just can't ask for much better "work days."

Top techniques today included pulling Lindy River Rockers on three-ways and Shadlings on flat lines, hopping Fuzz-E Grubs off the bottom and dragging minnows on Lindy Jigs and on three-way rigs with Lindy Beads in front of our hooks. Yesterday we combined Lindy Beads with eggs for steelhead.

The Lower Niagara has become one of my favorite fishing destinations in the nation, in large part due to the tremendous variety of quality fish that you can catch any given day. We caught steelhead, brown trout and lake trout, but any given fish that grabbed a lure could have turned out to have been a coho or king salmon or even a big smallmouth bass.

Adding appeal is the delightful riverside town of Lewiston, with its shops and restaurants all walking distance from the Riverside Motel. Town seemed nicer than ever this week because of the Christmas lights and the open-air family skating rink, which is run by the town and free.

I've only been out of town for about seven hours, and I'm already looking forward to my next visit to the Niagara River -- whenever that might turn out to be.

Water & Ice

Today begins a two-legged northern fishing trip, which will include both open-water fishing and ice fishing. Stop No. 1 is in Lewiston, New York, where I'll spend two days with Capt. Frank Campbell on the Niagara River targeting big and beautiful steelhead and brown trout. Stop No. 2 is Northern Minnesota, where the lakes are well frozen. There, I'll ice-fish primarily for panfish, but you never know for sure what you will pull up through a hole in the ice!

Different Kind of Creek Photos

Nathaniel and I spent a couple of hours streamside on Sunday to do some photo work, but oddly for us, no fishing rods were involved. We were on our way to Chattanooga, where Nathaniel would spend the first half of this week recording his first CD, and the Tallulah River provided a really nice setting for what we wanted to accomplish photo-wise. Photos from that day will likely be used as CD cover art and for some of Nathaniel's promotional work after the CD comes out.

A Better Friday Tradition

Marilyn Black displays a Bronzeback Friday "find" from Western Pennsylvania's Allegheny River. Photo by Darl Black.

I must give recognition to my Pennsylvania friends, Darl & Marilyn Black and Dale Black for their "Bronzeback Friday" tradition. While folks everywhere are battling one another in crowded shopping malls on the day after Thanksgiving, my friends look for fights with feisty smallmouth bass on the Allegheny River near Oil City. The river was muddier than they prefer this year and the bite was slow, but conditions don't get in the way of tradition, and they did manage to wrangle a few fish out of the river.

December!

It's sort of hard for me to believe that the calendar page turned to December this morning. Of course, a few things have reminded recently that winter has arrived. Most notably, I suppose, we had some sleet a couple of days ago. Another good clue should be that I'll be ice fishing in about two weeks and that one fisherman friend I spoke with just this week was sitting atop the ice catching walleyes! I'm also looking at my family's Christmas tree as I write this, and we've been doing Advent readings around the table every evening this week.

I'm looking forward to a couple of ice trips this winter. The first is to Northern Minnesota, with assorted panfish being the main objective. The second (in mid-January) is to Devils Lake, North Dakota, where I'll fish for walleyes, yellow perch and northern pike. I took three separate ice trips last year and really enjoyed the experience. I also got a lot of good story material and photos and have had fun learning about and writing about ice fishing.

Next stop, though, is the Niagara River, where I get to spend a couple of days with Frank Campbell. Steelhead are tops on the list, but it's hard to fish the Niagara with Frank without catching a variety of fish. Winter is an exciting time because the steelhead and trout pour into the river from Lake Ontario. It can be seriously cold, but the fishing can be fabulous.

It seems like I should learn to find trips that begin in an airplane pointed SOUTH this time of year, but I really am looking forward to this winter's great northern adventures.