6 Favorite Fish from 2014

Toward the end of the year I always like looking back at favorite fishing trips, days on the water and specific fish. For the moment, I'm going focus on specific fish and what made each a favorite. And I'll just go ahead and apologize now to any extra cool fish from this year that I'm not thinking about at the moment.

Northern Minnesota Tulibee - It was neither a trophy nor a kind of fish that most anglers even target. So why was it one of my favorites? Mostly, I suppose, because I'd never caught a tulibee, and being sort of a wannabe northern woodsman during the winter, I'm intrigued by all things ice. It also was a fun catch because I marked just inches beneath the ice when I was fishing near the bottom for bluegills, so I reeled up quickly and started jigging with a very short line. It hammered the bait and just about pulled the rod out of my hand.


Green Bay Smallmouth - We didn't have scales, so I can't assign an actual weight. I'm guessing high 5s, at least, though, and it may even have outweighed a 5-11 (my biggest weighed smallmouth) that I caught from Erie about a month later. This particular fish, which came from a small Green Bay tributary, was an extra prize and very satisfying because enduring winter weather made fishing unusual tough that week. I caught it on a Get Bit Baits Crawling Tube.

Lake Pactola Lake Trout - The cool thing abut the laker was how similar it was to another lake I caught a few years ago while ice fishing on the same lake. Both days I was fishing with Tyler French on days based out of Deadwood and we were jigging over deep points, and I caught both fish on minnow-tipped Lindy Watsit Grubs!

Niagara River Brown Trout - My biggest brown ever - right around 10 pounds - and I caught in the midst of catching a gazillion jumbo smallmouths on tubes at the mouth of the Niagara River with Capt. Frank Campbell. Again, it was a Get Bit Baits Crawling Tube that did the job. That day was actually one of my favorites from last year, but I suppose that's another story for another time.

El Salto Largemouth - It was my first trip to Angler's Inn at Mexico's Lake El Salto in about15 years, and the 9-2 largemouth I caught on the first full day of the trip might have been my biggest bass since last time I was there. I've caught a few big pond bass that I haven't weighed, so I'm not sure about that, but it was sure one of the biggest in quite a few years. It was a classic El Salto fish that hit a big Power Worm fished through flooded trees. My first trip to El Salto, by the way, yielded a 10 1/2, which remains the biggest bass I've ever weighed.

Red Lake Walleye -The best walleye from my most recent trip wasn't a genuine trophy by Minnesota walleye standards -- just a good quality fish. However, I caught it from the first sleeper ice house I've ever spent a night in, and I caught just moments after arriving. I probably hadn't been fishing two minutes when the fish hit, and I was surprised to bring up a thick-bodied walleye that landed right in the middle of the Red Lake slot and therefore went right back down into the hole almost as quickly as it came out.

Delight & Dread

Little in fishing blends delight and dread quite like a jumbo smallmouth going fully areal. I experienced that in a big way today. As soon as I set the hook, this fish came straight up, and as she flopped in mid-air, well out of the water, we actually thought her to be even bigger than she was. And of course she wasn't done. Despite my best efforts to hold her low with the rod, she jumped two more times (although neither of the others was a high as the first).

Dread, of course, was magnified by the fact that big fish haven't come easy this week. My fish was one of four smallmouths that came in the boat, and that was better than most people have been experiencing for the past couple of days. Normally, you wouldn't think twice about losing a smallie -- even a big one -- in this area during opening weekend because it would be one of dozens. However, this year's Wisconsin bass opener has been tough on virtually everyone in the Sturgeon Bay area and even south through the lower Green Bay area, where we were today. Winter was so cold that everything is behind and most fish seemingly just haven't moved up into the bays yet. One day soon it will be amazing. Hopefully tomorrow we'll see a good hint of that. We're fishing Little Sturgeon Bay.

My big jumping fish hit a Get Bit Baits Crawling Tube, fished on a 1/8 ounce head inside-style tube head.

Ice Out?

Earlier this year I was watching weather in the North, pulling for serious cold to lock up good ice for my January trip western Pennsylvania. A few months later I'm thinking about northern weather and ice again, but this time I'm pulling for the opposite. On Friday, I fly to Green Bay to fish for giant smallmouths in the legendary waters that bound Door County with the folks from Get Bit Baits, but as of a couple of days ago, a couple of the bays we would most likely fish still had ice on them. They are starting to break up. so hopefully by the time we're ready to fish...

The good news is that some bays are open and -- worst case -- we could fish in rivers that supposedly are loaded with 3- to 5-pound smallmouths!

From Green Bay I fly Buffalo to fish Erie and the Niagara River and apparently Erie's Eastern Basin still has ice on it, too, but those waters have a few more days to thaw before I arrive, so I feel pretty confident that we'll be in good shape there. And if we could only fish the river, which is full of brown trout, steelhead, lake trout and salmon, that wouldn't be the worst thing that's ever happened.

There's nothing I can do about any of that anyway, so I'll just pack plenty of warm clothes and be prepared for whatever happens!

Fishy Days Ahead

Eli Moscul hoists a beautiful Niagara River brown trout caught
with Capt. Frank Campbell a couple of days ago. Photo courtesy
of Niagara Region Charter Service.

 

I caught myself daydreaming about fishy days ahead, so I figured I might as well blog about upcoming fishing travel and make the daydreaming at least sort of productive.

Capt. Frank Campbell is largely to blame for my straying thoughts. He sent a note about an upcoming trip to the Niagara River and included the photo at the top of this page. One of his clients caught that brown trout only a couple of days ago. I'll be up there in early May, fishing Lake Erie out of Buffalo for giant smallmouth bass and the Lower Niagara River for brown trout, steelhead, lake trout and whatever else wants to bite. It is one of my absolute favorite places to visit.

I'd better not get too far ahead of myself with a New York state of mind, though, because before I get to the Niagara, I'll be fishing on Norfork Lake in Arkansas for stripers, largemouths, crappie and whatever else wants to bite, floating Arkansas' Spring River for smallmouths, rainbows, browns, rock bass and more and then flying to Green Bay to fish the legendary waters of Door County (Sturgeon Bay area) for jumbo smallmouth bass, jumbo smallmouth bass and jumbo smallmouth bass.

As if that weren't enough to distract me sufficiently, spring and early summer travels will also take me to Deadwood, South Dakota to fish Black Hills rivers and lakes, mostly for trout; back to Green Bay for a big-water mix of smallmouths, walleyes and salmon; and finally South of the Border to Anglers Inn on Lake El Salto, where I hope to lock horns with some seriously big largemouths.

What all that tells me -- beyond the notion that I should enjoy some wonderful days fishing over the next few months -- is that I'd better quit daydreaming and get back to the business of writing fish stories so I'm ahead of the game when I point the truck toward Arkansas next week!

Familiar Names Top Tournaments

David Dudley and his family celebrate a win at Champlain, which was Dudley's second FLW Tour win this season. FLW photo by David Brown.

Dudley and VanDam. No surprises in the names atop the leaderboards at the end of the FLW Tour and B.A.S.S. Elite Series tournaments over the weekend. Except the Elite victory didn't go to Kevin VanDam. Instead, it went to KVD's newphew, Jonathon VanDam (JVD), and Kevin actually got to hand the trophy to his newphew .

David Dudley, who was already the top money winner in FLW history and currently tops the BassFan World rankings, added his second FLW Tour win of the season by topping the field at Champlain, along with locking up his second consecutive (and third total) FLW Angler of the Year title. Dudley fished for all largemouths in the northern end of Champlain and edged out friend and fellow Virginia angler Jacob Powroznik in both the tournament and the Angler of theYear race.

VanDam's win was his second with B.A.S.S., but his first on the Elite Series. In 2010 he won a Northern Open on Lake Erie enroute to qualifying for the Elites. This weekend's Elite Series win at Green Bay ensures VanDam a place in the 2013 Bassmaster Classic.

Although JVD is by far the lesser known of the VandDams and the victory was his first on the Elites, his win was no suprise to folks who closely follow professional bass fishing. In fact, he was one of the most popular picks among his peers as a favorite going into this event because of his prowess with Northern smallmouth bass and his familiarity with Lake Michigan. VanDam caught most of the fish he weighed with a drop shot rig, using Strike King Dream Shot worm. The color? KVD Magic!

Jonathon VanDam earned his first Elite Series win and a place in the 2013 Bassmaster Classic field by topping the field at Green Bay. B.A.S.S. photo by Seigo Saito.

Double Barreled Tour Action

Both the B.A.S.S. Elite Series and the FLW Tour are making stops this week, with both tours visiting storied northern destinations.

FLW anglers are fishing Lake Champlain, which invariably yields great mixed catches of largemouths and smallmouths. Sometimes one kind of bass dominates top catches. Often the winner has a pattern for each brand of bass or a spot and location that yield good mixed catches.

The Elite Series event, which is based out of Green Bay, probably would have been a smallmouth slugfest except that the Wisconsin DNR deemed a large portion of the best waters off limits. The pros still will  catch plenty of good fish, but the tournament clearly won't highlight the best the area has to offer. Kevin VanDam wrote an excellent column for Bassmaster.com that expresses his disappointment with the DNR ruling and in my opinion does a fine job of summing up the issues and the consequences of the decision.

Green Bay Announced

The "Mystery Lake"is a mystery no more. This afternoon B.A.S.S. revealed that the June 28-July 1 Elite Series tournament will be held out of Green Bay, Wisconsin, providing the pros access to a world-class smallmouth fishery in Lake Michigan. Most Elite Series pros agree that the fishing could be fabulous, although winds create a major question mark about how the event will actually play out. It appears the reporters for BassFan are good detectives. They speculated a week or so ago that the tournament would be held in Wisconsin and even listed Green Bay as one of two likely venues.

Shifting Seasons

With today's high forecast to approach 90, its sort of hard to believe that only a couple of months ago I was bundled in as many clothes as I could stand to wear, looking at white landscapes, walking (or riding) across the frozen tops of lakes and fishing through holes in the ice. Seasons shift with astounding speed. Soon summer will be fully in place, and it most likely will seem like it will never leave us; however, before we know it, the now-new leaves will be changing colors and falling from the trees. Before I fully settle into summer, I'm headed for Green Bay to catch some big smallmouths, and I'm expecting it to feel like spring. In fact, it's possible that it'll feel downrght winterish. And from where I sit this morning, that doesn't sound all bad!