Ouachita Variety

Last week's travel to the Ouachita Mountains delivered wonderful variety, not only in species caught but in the types of fishing experiences I got to enjoy in short order.

The species variety would be hard to argue. I added green sunfish, spotted bass, smallmouths, walleyes, pumpkinseeds and both black and white crappie to this year's catch list in three days of fishing. Experience-wise, I got to spend an afternoon and a morning on Lake Ouachita bass fishing, an afternoon wading the Ouachita River for stream bass, and a full day on the lake fishing Lindy's new Livebait Jig with crawlers and minnows for walleyes, crappie, bluegills and whatever else bit.

The bass fishing was made extra fun by the fact that I got to spend time in the boat with Alton Jones. That always equates to a lot of learning and great opportunities for gathering photos and story material. Far beyond that, I simply enjoy spending time with Alton and he invariably encourages me in many ways.

The jig/bait fishing was similarly fun because I got to spend a day with longtime Minnesota guide Jeff Sundin. I've spent several days fishing with Jeff, but mostly on the ice. He taught me a new approach, and based on all the fish we caught, you'd sure never know that he'd never been to Lake Ouachita before last week. I look forward to experimenting more with the Lindy Livebait Jig.

The highlight of the river outing had to be standing in a single spot and catching three species of bass (largemouth, smallmouth, spot) on the same Rebel Crawfish. None were big, but all were big fun!

Bank Beating Boy

Asher has been pounding the pond this week. For the past couple of days, he's gotten to spend a couple of afternoon hours per day walking the bank and slipping a cast everywhere he can squeeze between the trees. If Asher is fishing, he is happy, but to make a good thing even better, the fish have been pretty cooperative. I believe both days produced five or six fish, and yesterday's catch included one 15-inch bass. (He toted around a cooler lid that had a measuring rule on it.) He has caught a few bluegills, but most fish have been bass.

Asher's approach has been simple. He has stuck with a Lindy Watsit Grub and mixed swimming it and hopping it along the bottom. Normally we have to vertical fish in the deepest part of the ponds to catch much during mid-December, but the weather has been so mild that the fish are still acting like it's mid-autumn.

Meet You Halfway Crappie

As much as I like playing the coaxing game and trying to figure out what combination of lifts and twitches will make a fish bite, I like it even better when they are super aggressive, like they were this morning. The crappie did get fussier as the day wore on, but for the first couple of hours, if there were fish on the graph when I began lowering my bait, chances were good that at least one would start coming up before the lure got very far down, and if I just stopped it halfway down, they fish would come all the way up and attack it. It was that simple. No waiting. No coaxing. No rejection. They'd just come up and grab the bait, which is just plain fun.

I had said yesterday that we would be walleye fishing today. Plans shifted a bit, and the walleye day is now tomorrow, but Plan B, which was orchestrated by Jeff Sundin, worked out far better than most people's A plans. I really don't have any idea how many fish we caught -- most of which were released like the one in the clip above. I actually wish I'd kept a rough tally of my own fish, just to know. I only know we caught a bunch. I caught almost all my fish on a Watsit Grub body rigged on Lindy Bug or Toad jighead.

Pan-Tastic Ice Season Start

Spent a mighty fun day today catching bluegills and crappie with Jeff Sundin and Jon Thelen of Lindy Fishing. We caught a lot of fish, and while the temperature was pretty low (mid teens, I think), the breeze was only slight and it was plenty comfortable fishing on the open ice. It also snowed just enough last night and today that the ice had some snow on it for traction, which is good because I forgot my cleats at home. Mighty good start for an ice season, I'd say.

I used a Lindy Fat Boys jig all afternoon and caught a nice mix of both species. The fish were in fairly deep water, but the most active ones were at least a few feet off the bottom. Through mid-afternoon, the bite got really steady, and the crappie especially were charging hard when they decided to eat. Just before dark, we had to work a little harder to persuade fish to bite.

Walleyes tomorrow and Thursday.

Arrived in Ice Country

Seventeen hours later and 62 degrees cooler I'm settled in a Northwoods cabin, and my rods are rigged for tomorrow's ice adventure. It's going to be cold, but apparently the walleye bite has been red hot, with the fish slamming noisy baits like Lindy Rattl'N Flyer Spoons and Darters. I'd better sleep a while now, I suppose.