0 for 1

The final morning of my recent Florida trip brought tough fishing in a place where the bass action can be very good. After a couple of hours of having no fish come up for topwater, I tied on a Cotton Cordell Big O amd started cranking.

I'd probably been cranking the Big O for 10 minutes when I felt resistance that I at first thought was from grass. Then the grass started moving toward me faster than I was pulling it, so I snapped my wrist and announced, "Fish."

That word had barely escaped my mouth when a big head emerged, followed by the rest of a hefty bass. With one big head shake it tossed my cranking before returning to the water, and in a moment my opportunity was gone.

I realized too late that with the fish swimming toward me, I should have done much of a hookset. We guessed that bass, which turned out to be the only one to have bit that morning, to have been in the 6- or 7-pound range. Not a Florida giant, but a stout fish and one I sure would have liked to have landed.

Instead it was just another "big one that got away," but I suspect I'll be replaying that jump in my head for a very long time.

A Most Memorable Bass Strike

Do you have favorite fish strikes etched in your mind - ones you remember as if they occurred 10 minutes ago? One of my favorites recently came into my mind, although I'm not sure what triggered the memory of a fish I caught 25 years ago.

The setting was a small lake in Barnwell State Park in the South Carolina Lowcountry. I suppose I had found a bit of free time while traveling somewhere by car and had stopped by the park, which I'd never been to before, to rent a johnboat for a couple of hours and try fishing the lake. I'm pretty sure I only had one bite, but that's no complaint. The bass was a good one, but not a giant (maybe 6 pounds). The strike itself was the memorable part.

I cast a weightless worm through a gap between two clusters of reeds and line draped over a strong strand of spider web between reeds. As I started reeling, the web strand held strong, keeping the worm high so it was skimming the top. Suddenly the surface bulged, like a folded piece of paper, about 6 feet from the worm. The bulge surged toward the worm, and the worm disappeared in an eruption. I set the hook solidly and connected.

Since I was alone and this was long before the era of cameras that shoot good selfies, when I released the fish, only a memory. It was (and is) a good memory, though!

Middle of Nowhere Bluegills & Blog Reawakening

For starters I must acknowledge that the pond trip I'm reporting was more than a week ago. I've fallen woefully behind with posting blogs. More so than since I started this blog, I'm pretty sure. Plan is to fix that, beginning immediately. I also haven't fished enough since my return from the Trout Trek as I've been playing catch-up on writing. Plan is to fish at least three full days this week, so that part should be reconciled too!

On our most recent pond outing, Asher and I weren't getting much action by throwing the usual stuff around the usual cover. Then I randomly threw a Lindy Watsit Grub toward the center of the pond, let it sink, and started to work it a little deeper than we had been fishing. Almost immediately, I caught a bluegill. Naturally, I repeated the cast, and the result was the same. That showed Asher and me what we needed to know, and we proceeded to catch a bunch of bluegills and a couple of bass.

I found no rhyme or reason to what the fish were relating to, and they weren't in the deepest water, near the dam, like they sometimes are during the summer. They were in the middle, but up the pond, maybe relating to the channel that divides a shallow flat. The pond is small enough that you don't have to get really precise to catch them if you find the right general area. I've never really noticed the fish positioned the way they were on that day, but maybe I haven't cast to that area enough to have found them when they've been there. You can bet I'll try it again when the fish aren't around the regular stuff!

Birthday Fishing x 3

I awoke a little later than normal this morning, and Nathaniel's truck was already gone. He had left just before daylight to meet a friend for a morning of fishing at a lake just up the road. Nathaniel turned 17 today, and birthdays and fishing tend together around here. He and his friend each caught one bass.

It was a little odd having Nathaniel already gone for his first round of birthday fishing, but I got in on round two. Traditionally, assuming everyone is in town, we'll do at least a lap around the ponds nearest home on a birthday, and Nathaniel, Asher and I did that this afternoon. The bite wasn't crazy good by any means, but the boys each caught a bass and I caught a few bluegills.

About half an hour after we got home from that outing, the same friend Nathaniel fished with this morning picked him up for round three, at another pond. He's still gone and I've heard no word, so I don't yet know what they caught. I know he's be happy to be fishing for the third time on his birthday, though.

Fish Before the Storm

I'm out of sequence with reports from recent fishing days because I got behind on blog posts, but a few days ago, Asher and I enjoyed a quick afternoon outing and had fun catching some bass and bluegills before a big evening rain and thunder not far from us pushed us off the pond.

Late in the afternoon, we decided to slip out after dinner, if it wasn't already raining. From the radar, I had my doubts, but I planned as if we would go and gathered a bit of gear when I had the chance. It was one of those patchy summer systems that was hard to gauge, so even as we got in the car, I wondered whether we'd have to turn around when we got to the pond, which is only four miles from our house.

No raindrops when we arrived, to we grabbed our junk and launched the johnboat. The pond is pretty small, so it's reasonable to retreat when needed. We only got in about 2/3 of a lap before the rain hit, and when it came, it came hard in a hurry, and we had to scurry. In an hour or so of fishing, though, we caught several bass and bluegills, including a bass of a couple of pounds that Asher spotted cruising and cast a few feet ahead of to draw the strike.

We were across the pond when the rain came, so it got up pretty wet. We returned home soggy but smiling.

8 1/2-hour Fish

I'm not sure what Nathaniel and Caleb did with the first 8 1/2 hours of this year, but sometime around 8:30 this morning, they tallied their first fish of the new year. Nathaniel guessed that they caught 15 or 20 fish, all close to the bottom and on little jigs, and pretty much all from one corner of the pond. Bluegills dominated, with good quality overall, but they each managed to catch a bass or two as well.

As for me, I stayed home and worked on fish stories and did stuff around here, so I remain fishless in 2015. I'll have to rectify that soon.

Birthday Bass & Bluegills

Birthdays and fishing often go together around my house, as I fairly commonly take my children to a nearby pond for a while on their birthdays. Yesterday we sort of turned things around, with Nathaniel, my 16-year-old-son, taking me to the pond. We fished out of his johnboat and he ran it. I just sat in front cast. He also dragged a canoe down the hill and launched it in the next pond down so we could make a lap down there and hit some different water. (Bass in photo came from the middle pond.)

We enjoyed perfect fall weather yesterday, and the fish were even kind enough to join the celebration. We caught a dozen or so fish, most of which were bluegills, in a couple of hours of pond play.

I also spent a bit of my birthday with my wife at Lawrenceville Bass Pro Shops, picking out some bug-tying stuff that was a present from Sarah, my oldest daughter. I hope to wrap a bit of the new stuff on hooks today and use it to catch trout tomorrow, but maybe that's a different story!

Johnboat Move

Nathaniel's johnboat needed to get back to the side of the pond, where it would be handy for quick outings, and he and I both had time on Friday afternoon. So we loaded the boat into the back of the Expedition and drove to the pond, which is only a few miles from our house.

Of course once we got pond-side with boat, we thought we decided make sure it still worked by making a lap around the pond. Fortunately, we'd brought a few rods and reels, so we were equipped.

The fish bit less than I would have expected as a hot day cool and the sun dipped over the trees. I mostly fished for bream -- as I tend to at the pond -- and Nathaniel mixed his offerings. We caught a did handful of fish (three apiece, I think) but I would have expected a few more strikes than we got.

That's not a complaint. It was a beautiful afternoon, and a nice lap around the pond with Nathaniel was a mighty nice way to wrap up the workweek. And now the boat is back where we like it to be and handy for the next afternoon outing. Will that be today?

Changing Gears (and Gear)

Today I'm trading 12-inch worms for 1/32-ounce hair jigs, 50-pound braid for 4-pound Nanofil, and a Revo Beast and heavy baitcaster for an ultralight spinning outfit. Last week's fishing was from a boat for jumbo largemouths in Mexico's Sierra Madre Mountains. This weekend, my boys and I are head for the Great Smoky Mountains, where we'll wade clear mountain streams and cast for trout and smallmouth bass.

I enjoy fishing for everything that swims, and variety in the gear, the techniques, the terrain and the fish themselves is part of what keeps every trip interesting. In Mexico's fertile lakes, my lure disappeared a foot or so down in the water column. In the Smokies, I'll be able to count rocks on the bottom of a 10-foot deep pool.

I actually haven't figured out our specific plan yet. We may do a little smallmouth fishing in the North Carolina mountains before we get to the national park. Within the park, we may fish bigger streams for browns and rainbows or visit some headwaters branch with wild brook trout in mind. If we do go for brookies, any fish we catch is apt to be smaller than most of the lures I used in Mexico!

We're staying two nights in Townsend, Tennessee, where Nathaniel will play music on the Pickin' Porch at Wood'n'Strings Dulcimer Shop on Saturday evening, and we'll fish our way there, spend some time in creeks on Saturday, and then fish our way home on Sunday.

One is Better than None

OK. We're not in Ohio to fish. We're here so Nathaniel can teach and perform at a dulcimer festival. But, hey, it never hurts to throw a few rods in the car. Right? You never know.

Turned out we got to town just early enough to make one quick walk down the bank of a lake right in town before Nathaniel had to get to work. It didn't yield much, but one is better than none. And I think I figured out my strategy for catching bluegills a little later. I'll report whether it works!

Pond Play & Child-Friendly Rigs

Three of my children (Asher, 9; Autumn, 7 and Eli, 5) often go with my wife for an hour or two of afternoon pond play, usually with swimming as the primary focus. On Monday, I decided to tag along, and of course I toted a few fishing rods. I rigged simple hook/bobber rigs for Autumn and Eli, and we dug up some worms before we left home. I gave Asher a 4-inch YUM Dinger, rigged weightless and nose hooked with a 1/0 Daiichi Circle Wide Bleeding Bait Hook.

Next time, I might rig all three with the latter, especially if the bass are still up shallow. The worms produced some gills, but bobber rigs get twisted around the ends of rods pretty easily and hooks require nearly constant rebaiting. As long as weeds or brush aren't too thick for an open hook point, it's tough to go wrong with A Dinger on A small circle hook. a child can cast out a Dinger, and whether he simply lets it sink, reels it back or hops it, a bass it apt to bite, and with a circle hook, by a child realize a fish has hit, it usually is hooked.

Durability Lacking

Well, I guess need to work on my tying mechanics. The fish made pretty quick work of an Ugly Bug yesterday. The good news is that the damage was done by a dozen bream and bass landed in about 45 minutes. So apparently it looked OK when we started the afternoon. It just wasn't put together very well. And it wasn't just that the fish were so aggressive that anything would work about the same. Nathaniel and I each tried other miniature offerings -- proven 'gill getters at times -- and those didn't do the job nearly as well.

A little better finish and a dab of cement would have served me well, I suppose. In fact, I ought to invest a bit of time watching a few videos about tying mechanics. One way or another, I know I need to get some more feathers on that jighead soon! Maybe before tomorrow, in fact. Trout waters await, and I sort of think the trout might like the same pattern.

One Quick Pond Lap

The primary purpose of today's pond visit was to slide out in the canoe and grab a few jigs and bobbers we left hanging in trees and bushes yesterday when I bank-fished with a few of the smaller members of my crew. But as long as we were headed that way, Nathaniel and I figured we should tote along a rod apiece. Always time for one quick pond lap, right?

It was indeed a quick lap -- half an hour at the most -- but we did manage to each catch a fish. Nathaniel caught a nice bluegill on one of his first casts, and I snuck one bass out of the corner of the pond. Of course my favorite thing about the fish I caught was that it ate an Ugly Bug (my hand-tied jigs) -- one with a sparkly white body and a pink tail that was already tied to the rod.

Now back to writing fish stories.

Bass-Style Slab Crappie Fun

TJ Stallings with a Rollin' Runner slab.

I thought I was casting for bass when I picked up my baitcaster and made a long cast with a 4-inch swimbait on a Road Runner Rollin' Runner head and began swimming it slowly along the bottom. After all, the same combo produced great bass results yesterday at Noxubee Lodge. Even after I caught my first crappie, an easy 2-pound fish, I figured that was the oddball in the group. Nope. Not even close. In fact, TJ Stallings and I put a bunch of crappie in the box, and only one was small, and all except a couple of the fish hit our big swimbait rigs. In case you've ever wondered, catching 2-pound-plus crappie on bass tackle is really, really fun!

We also managed to land a handful of bass, including one really good one. I caught one largemouth that we estimated to weigh 7 pounds. It's funny, though, because even that big a bass was absolutely trumped by the jumbo crappie, their hard fights and the gear we were using to catch them.

Favorite Fishing Days

When I consider some of my favorite fishing days from the year that's about to depart, they seem to have something in common. I just can't pinpoint what that something is.

A couple of days that come quickly to mind occurred on a pond near hom. One was on Eli's 5th birthday, when he went to work catching birthday bluegills while sporting the colors of Cheetos and Powerade on his face. Another was with my 7-year-old daughter Autumn, when she not only helped with the fish-catching duties, but she did a fine job taking pictures of a surprisingly big bass I caught on a little lure.

Another pond outing of note was with Nathaniel, my 15-year-old son, but on a different pond. The fishing was crazy good that day, and we caught bluegills, bass and crappie. I don't recall the tally, but I believe we concluded that it was as many fish as he and I had ever caught together in a day, and it all occurred in only a couple of hours.

A few other favorite days took place on streams. Two were with Asher, my 9-year-old, both on the same stream. One yielded his first trout, a pretty brook trout. The other, which was a dark an oddly warm afternoon only a couple of weeks ago, resulted in his first brown trout. Two of my other favorite trout outings were with Nathaniel at the Nantahala River in North Carolina. One was in May and one was in November, but both involved him systematically targeting extra big trout and succeeding in finding what he was seeking

Ponds, streams, bluegills, bass, brook trout, brown trout, warm weather, cool weather... I just can't quite put a finger on what all those favorites fishing days in common.

Full Force Flannel Season

Looking at photos from my last few days in the creek, I can barely tell one day from another. It hasn't been intentional, but it seems that with the cool mornings that are the norm this time of year I've repeatedly reached for the same shirt. Freshly delivered from Duluth Trading Company, I suppose my new plaid flannel has just stood out as the best shirt to wear when I've open the closet. I like the classic look for photos, which is an important consideration because any time I have a fishing rod in my hand I'm thinking about gathering materials for stories. Beyond that, it's warm, soft and comfortable and therefore well suited for the any fall fishing trip, and the pockets are just big enough to hold the little lure boxes that I like to have handy when I'm trout fishing.

When cool turns to legitimately cold (as it looks like it will for a couple of days this week), I'll switch to wool or fleece, at least for stream fishing, because wet cotton cuffs and really cold temperatures are not a good combination. As long as it's fallish and cool, though, I suspect I'll keep reaching for the flannel because it does the job mighty nicely.

I actually grabbed the same flannel shirt again fishing this morning, but those photos won't look like the ones from the trout outing because I was out in johnboat fishing for bluegills and bass.

Birthday Outing & Big Brother's Bonus Bass

Nathaniel says he got the present when he took his younger brother Asher on a bass fishing outing for Asher's birthday. In truth the outing itself was a great gift for Asher, now 9, and he did catch a bass of his own, which he unhooked by himself with just a bit of brotherly coaching. And Nathaniel even let Asher drive the boat a bit for added fun.

Nathaniel did get a gift of his own when a big bass decided to eat a little worm and served up a pretty serious tussle on 8-pound test and medium spinning gear. The boys estimated Nathaniel's bass to weigh about 8 pounds, and having looked at several photos, I think that's a good guess. It had a huge mouth and was thick bodied and well conditioned.

The fish hit a 4-inch Green Pumpkin YUM Mighty Worm, rigged on a Jewel Squirrel Head and fished on a Lew's Laser SL Speed Stick combination and 8-pound-test line.

As soon as Nathaniel hooked the fish and realized it was a good one, he slipped the camera off his neck and gave it to Asher (which I appreciate), and Asher did a nice job of documenting the fight, along with getting some good hold-up shots of Nathaniel with the fish before they slipped it back into the pond. Since I can use some of those photos with my stories, you could say that I too get a present from Asher's birthday bass fishing outing, and I wasn't even there!

Rescuing Roscoe

"See, Roscoe. That's why we want you to stay in the boat," Nathaniel said in a parent-like tone to the lizard that had opted to join us on the water as I unhooked a bass and showed its big mouth to our new friend.

Nathaniel had noticed the lizard about 15 minutes into our beaver pond outing, so we assume he was on the boat when Nathaniel pushed the johnbaot into the water. At first he just hung out on the back corner, next to Nathaniel, but eventually he began moving about the boat and acting more nervous, seemingly realizing there was nowhere to go. On a few occasions, Roscoe jumped out or fell. We couldn't tell which, but on each occasion we rescued Rescue from the drink and issued a warning. I believe it was on one such occasion when Nathaniel dubbed the lizard Roscoe.

Toward the end our short outing, keeping Roscoe in the boat till we got him safely to shore became more of an effort. The water was exceptionally low, and Nathaniel had to push pole us across an inches-deep backwater to reach land. The only path to shore was surrounded by high emergent grass that Roscoe really wanted to jump out onto. That grass wasn't connected to shore, though, and we were pretty certain Roscoe would drown or become bass candy if we let him escape short of the bank, so we kept sliding him back down to the bottom of the boat until we got all the way to shore, at which point Nathaniel gave Roscoe a rod tip ride to dry ground.

The bite was slow on the beaver pond yesterday. In fact, that fish I showed Roscoe represented our lone hit. Therefore discovering a lizard aboard and keeping him in the boat really was the highlight of the beaver pond outing.

Thursday Tips: Finding Fish that are on the Move

Fall is a transition time.

How many times have you heard that? It gets said a lot because for many kinds of fish it is true. But what exactly does that mean to you as a fishermen, and how do you use that truth to help you catch more fish? The simple answer is that with the season changing, the fish are moving from one place to another, so you need to be wise about searching for them.

With bass in reservoirs, as an example, the early fall move often is from main-lake structure up creeks and onto flats, usually behind shad, which are also on the move. Other fish might move up rivers, move from deep holes to shoals, move from the beaches to inside water, or make other types of moves.

Your job as a fisherman is to learn enough about the fish's behavior to know where they are leaving and where they are headed and then identify the highways in-between. Often the highways are either breaklines, which follow creek or river arms and offer access to deep and shallow water, or points, which bridge deep areas and shallow areas, proving structure at the whole range of depths in-between.

Once you've figured out the highways the fish are apt to be using, you just have to figure out where they are along those roads, which can be accomplished by riding and searching with electronics, using fishing strategies that allow you to cover water and search with your lures, or, for the best of both worlds, you can troll or cast fast-moving search lures while keeping the boat in motion AND keep a constant eye on your electronics.

Whatever strategy you select, where you find one fish, you're apt to find many more because fish on the go commonly travel in packs.

Where Do They Go?

The beaver pond bass left Nathaniel and me baffled today. We don't know where they went.

I'm never that amazed to not catch fish -- even in really good waters. Fish are fish, and sometimes they just don't eat or I just don't figure them out. We didn't see much sign of the fish at all, though. I caught one small bass, Nathaniel had one strike, and he saw one other fish swim past the boat. That was it.

What makes that noteworthy is that the pond only covers a couple of acres and it is extremely shallow, even at normal levels. It was ultra low and clear today, leaving the almost all of the pond less than two feet deep. As many fish as we catch from the same pond when the bite is going, it's hard to imagine where so many fish could go to keep us from even seeing them.

The pond does have some backwaters around it that we can't get to, and a passing creek does connect through brush, so maybe the fish somehow get into those waters where the boat can't go. And maybe they were simply laying low at the bases of stumps or way up under trees. Even so, it seems like there are more bass than available hiding places, so I really don't know where they all went.