A Pretty Good Week

A good week indeed, considering the slump I'm coming out of.  After a few other failed attempts at landing a carp on fly gear, I finally brought one to shore in the concrete section on the Menomonee River over Memorial Day Weekend.  The fish wasn't as big as the one I hooked in the marina a while back, but this river carp took off downstream and led me on quite a chase!  It was like trying to slow down Juggernaut from X-Men with a 2X tippet!  I never really did slow the fish down,  it circled back upstream and looped around.  As the fish came back down, I scooped it with the net.  I snapped one quick picture and released the fish.

I think my 9 weight is a little bit too heavy for a size 8 streamer.  The Juggernaut started to straighten my hook!  

A little later on, I was making casts at a pike, and what I thought was a pile of goose poo jumped in and attacked my fly.  It scared the hell out of me!

Bullfrog on a Woolly Bugger, that's a first!  the frog was very upset with me, but he seemed fine once he got back in the water.

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, I made a last minute decision to make one last trip into Waukesha County for the season before it's unfishable.

The grass is already getting tall, but the water isn't overgrown yet.  The ground is still very swampy downstream, and I had hits, but no takes.  I decided to try it out upstream on more solid, manicured ground.  I was able to find some nice fish in the relatively short period I was there.  I fished about an hour, landed three trout and missed about a half dozen or so.  Two of them were really close to ten inches, one was about five.  All were beautiful

I took one of the nature trails through the wilderness back to my car.  Everything turned green so quick this spring.  Soon it will be unbearably hot and humid.

When the dog days come, I'll be waist deep in the Milwaukee chasing smallmouth bass.

The One That Got Away

Saturday morning, Cleo and I went to the Washington Park Pond to test out her Ugly Stik.  We found a worm in the leaves and fished under a bobber.  We caught no fish, and neither did the other dozen or so people around the pond.  Little Cleo sure had fun though.

Later on after dropping Cleo off, I drove down to Lake Michigan with my 9wt to catch some warmwater fish or whatever else.  There were a few bass, some pike, many very small hatchery trout, and schools of very large carp.  I went for the carp.

I had a hit early on, but most casts toward the schooling carp went unnoticed.  The hit was enough to let me know I was on the right track though, so I kept at it.  Eventually I put my fly right in front of a carp.  As it sank, he dove for it like I had just thrown in a piece of chocolate cake.  I set the hook.

My 9wt  held up to the fight perfectly but I lost the fish at the shore trying to land it without a net.  It counts, right? a long distance release?  I caught a little video right before I tried to land the fish.

My First Carp

Monday, 4-12-10, 8:10 a.m.

I forgot, my Monday class starts at 8:30, not 8:00.  So I got to class a half hour early.  Oh well, I've done stupider things.

I went fishing yesterday afternoon.  I went near the yacht club.  I saw a few really nice bass, but they were mostly uninterested in what I was offering.  One showed moderate interest in a Wildeye Bluegill.  I caught a big carp on the same Wildeye Bluegill.  Hooked him right in the mouth!  I thought I snagged him, but he was legal.  I saw a walleye laying motionless on the bottom, I could not get him to bite anything!  he looked to be a good size too!  I'd say bigger than 18".

I Can't Figure Technology Out

I was just looking through my phone and I came upon a lot of pictures of fish going back quite a ways.  I don't have a very smart phone, and I just learned how to get photos onto my computer by texting them to my email.  I need to delete some pics to make more room for pictures of my baby girl, so here's a bunch of random pictures!

I caught this carp in October
2011 on a black Mister Twister

I found this wild melon growing streamside just
before halloween.  I knew what I had to do.

This is the coho that broke my rod

That was a beautiful fish.  Does it look
like a steelhead?

Many salmon in the Menomonee that day

My Little Cleo watches crows fly over

My father in law takes it all in

Really? Budweiser?  this is Miller country!

I took this kid from work fishing I think I lost
2 that day.  I think he was using Thundersticks.

All the fish pictured that I caught were released, but the kid kept his two.  The Budweiser salmon probably died of natural causes and had the beer bottle added later.  There were many dead salmon at that particular spot for a long time.  That coho was probably the hardest fighting fish I caught all season.

Keep Calm And Carry Wildeye Swim Baits

I’m positive that you will enhance your fishing experience once you’ve gotten the hang of fishing with curly tail grubs.  When you fish with live bait, the bait does the fishing, but when you fish artificials, you do the do the fishing by making the lure resemble something they want to eat; you have to know how the fish think.  The next fishing lure every angler needs in their tackle box uses the slogan, “Think Like A Fish,” it’s the Storm Wildeye Swimbait.  They are soft plastic bodies molded around an internal weight.  There are some pros and cons to these lures, let’s just get the cons out of the way and then we will be free to discuss how truly awesome these things are.

My current Wildeye collection.  Note the sunfish
on the right with the missing tail.

Most Wildeye Swimbaits have a single dorsal (back) hook and a ventral (belly) treble hook.  The treble hook tends to get snagged a lot.  When fishing in areas with a lot of snags, you can take the treble hook off; it’s only attached with a split ring.  The lure isn’t quite as effective without the treble hook, but it’s better to lose fish than to lose lures.  Also, a big fish tends to wreck these lures in a fight.  The soft portion may be torn from the solid center, the tail may be bitten off, or the lead weight may be knocked loose from the dorsal hook.  Honestly, any fish you can catch that’s big enough to wreck a lure is something to be proud of.  Release the fish, and keep the lure as a trophy.  And the final issue has to do with quality control.  Sometimes you will get a lure that won’t swim straight, or the tail won’t move during the retrieval.  I’m not sure if it’s the packaging or the production.

Ventral hook removed.

Despite these setbacks, Wildeyes are amazing lures!  They are usually sold in packs of three, and usually cost around $5.00.  They are shaped and painted in many different body styles to resemble a wide variety of small fish that big fish eat, so these things attract just about any kind of fish that may occasionally eat smaller fish, and they are pretty easy to use, just cast out and reel in.  The tail paddles on the retrieve making it look like a swimming bait fish, hence the name swimbait.  You don’t have to work too hard to impart action into the lure, since the tail does it for you.  The final reason you should have Wildeye Swimbaits in your tackle box is because of the size of the fish they catch.  I am consistently shocked by the monsterous fish caught on these!  The smallest fish caught with these was a 10” musky while bass fishing; to this day, it was the only musky i’ve ever caught.  Here’s my list of fish caught on Wildeye Swimbaits.

• carp
• chinook salmon
• freshwater drum (sheephead)
• largemouth bass
• muskellunge
• northern pike
• rock bass
• smallmouth bass
• splake (brook trout X lake trout hybrid)

Suspending Wildeye
Swim Shad.

In streams for smallmouth bass, I like to use a suspending Swim Shad much like I’d use a Mister Twister.  Cast upstream ahead of pools, or along cover likely to hold fish.  The suspending Swim Shad sinks ever so slowly as the current carries it through the pool and into the mouths of hungry fish.  When I “Think Like A Fish,” I imagine the bass think it’s a dazed minnow, and they can’t pass it up!

In the Great Lakes region, when the salmon are running up the streams in late summer, I like to cast a weighted walleye Wildeye (walleye Wildeye, walleye Wildeye, walleye Wildeye) into deep holes just before dusk.  The eyes of the walleye pattern glow in the dark, and this drives the salmon crazy, and they will strike out of anger!  A lot of times there will be deep holes under overpasses that hold big chinook.  If you’re ever driving over a bridge in the fall and notice cars parked all along it, chances are pretty good that the salmon are running.

West Michigan's White River under the countyline bridge.

White River from the bridge.

This beautiful chinook took a Wildeye walleye.

My cute little wife talks to seagulls
along the inner Muskegon Channel pier.

Another place I love Wildeye Swimbaits is deep channels and harbors.  Use a sunfish pattern; you can cast them along the rocks of the breakwater and reel them back in to try to lure out largemouth or pike.  You’ll want to retrieve right away when the lure hits the water to avoid getting hung up on rocks and driftwood.  Fishing along the rocks is fun and effective, but what I usually do in the channels and harbors is cast out as far as I can and let it sink to the bottom.  Reel back just fast enough to make the tail move, give some little rod tip twitches, and HOLD ON!  You’ll never know what you’re going to catch, but you’ll definitely know when a fish is on.  I caught so many big sheephead out of the Muskegon Lake Channel on these.  I know sheephead are not the most sought after fish, even considered “rough fish” (more on rough fish in a later update) but they are among the strongest fish I have ever caught!  The long casting technique was how I was fishing when I caught a 24” splake. Such a beautiful fish, and I didn’t have a camera with me.

In Great Lakes marinas, like Milwaukee’s McKinley Marina there are usually some nice fish, like bass, brown trout, carp, pike, walleye, and in the fall, salmon, but lots of snags.  If you get hung up, make a mental note of it.  You don’t want to lose your lure on a picnic table that someone used for ice fishing that didn’t get removed before the thaw, but it probably provides cover for a really nice bass, be careful!  Fish love the shade provided by docks, and the shoreline has some nice rocks for cover.  “Think Like A Fish” and have fun, I bet you can figure it out!

even carp will strike these! notice the sunfish
Wildeye in his mouth.

same fish, Mckinley Marina, 2010

There is one more lure that everyone needs in their tackle box that I will talk about in my next post.  It’s sort of a last resort, when you don’t know what the fish will strike, you’ll be glad to have this Jedi Master of a lure in your arsenal.  Hope the suspense doesn’t kill you!

WHAT THE KARP!?!

When I decided to start a blog, the hardest part was coming up with a clever name.  Weeks were spent trying to come up with something clever and catchy.  It had to be related to fishing, but not so serious, like “EXTREME MIDWEST BASS FISHING,” because, if you can’t tell, I’m rarely ever as serious as a heart attack.  But a recent fishing event came back to me and provided all the inspiration needed for a name for a blog.

Milwaukee River

It was a warm July evening.  My wife was putting our little girl to bed and I had a couple of hours to sneak out and wet my line; I had recently tied a batch of black Woolly Buggers that I was excited to try out.  I drove a little north of downtown Milwaukee to fly fish a stretch of the Milwaukee River near the Capitol bridge.

This July was hot and dry, so the water was low and warm, so warm in fact, that as I put my feet into the water, I had to look down to see if I really was in the water.  I was.

I waded across the river to a boulder at the head of a deeper pool that usually holds fish.  This day it held suckers, but no bass.  An overhanging willow tree also failed to produce fish.

I made my way toward another spot a few hundred yards upstream and across the river.  A pool with numerous boulders and a couple of fallen trees in it.  Plenty of cover for bass.

The first few casts drifted and swung through the pool with no strikes, but eventually there were hits and misses, there were fish in this hole!

Milwaukee River smallmouth

Finally, there was a strike and a successful hook set, and an eight inch smallmouth bass was reeled in and landed.  A few more followed, ranging in length from about seven to twelve inches.

After the bass stopped hitting, I started to head back downstream.  There was a pocket of still water completely cut off from the current by boulders, and I could see bass in there. There were a lot of weeds between me and the still water, but I decided to trod through rather than circumvent them.

I started casting into the pocket and stripping back, but had no hits.  The bass in there were rather small anyway.

At this point, I started to walk back to the point where I initially entered the river to try one last pool, usually the best pool.  I began to trod through the growth again, and just as I reached the edge of the weeds, I kicked what I thought was a large log.  But this was no log, as it began thrashing about, scaring the hell out of me!

My heart felt like it was going to go all Alien on me and burst through my chest!  I’m scrambling to get away!  What is it? Is it a longnose gar?  A snapping turtle?  A walleye?

The monster made it’s presence known from under the weed line, it was, in fact, as they say, more afraid of me than I was of it.  It was a great big common carp, about the largest, most harmless fish in the entire Midwest, if not the world.

I was relieved, and I kind of thought to myself, “What the karp!?!” as I thought about a Magikarp evolving into a Gyarados and using Dragon Rage.  I laughed a little, and texted my dad about it, still shaking so bad that I almost dropped my phone into the river. 

I continued up to the next pool and caught several more nice bass, all on my hand tied flies.  Some on a San Juan Worm, some on Scuds and some on Woolly Buggers before calling it a good day.