1st Topwater Fish Of the Year

18" Big Head, Little Body on the Stanley Phantom

7:40-9:10PM Rock Lake
9:20-9:50PM Bulldog Lake
10:00 to 10:45 GOMH
Conditions: Mostly Sunny, Cool, No wind

I didn't plan on catching topwater fish tonight as it only got to 52 degrees today,  but after hearing something get hit on the surface for about the 5th time, I thought what the heck I've got my Phantom's in the car and rest is history.

I got out a little later tonight thanks to a call from Pete and me eating ice cream.  I didn't get the boat ready today because I got tired around 1PM and I slept until 4PM.  I decided to hit Rock Lake first again tonight.

Mr. Beaver swimming North

When I arrived and was doing my stretching I noticed Mr. Beaver down the shoreline.  I didn't grab my camera quick enough and he slipped into the water.  I started out throwing a D & M Piranha that I don't think I'd even thrown before.  I had a hit on the first cast but didn't hook up.  I fan cast from North to South,  when I got to almost as far to the South I would be willing throw it was fish on.

14.5 D & M Piranha w/chart twister tail

On my very next cast to the same general area I got another bigger one.

16.5"

I thought school maybe, but those were the only two I got.  Next I went to the H2P XPress Jerk Shad, nothing on the chrome, but I got a hammerhandle on the chart shad.

20" H2O XPress Ultimate Jerk Shad

Then I started throwing a craw tube.  That's when stuff started getting hit on the surface.  Two fish swirls in close succession to my South with the closest being just out of casting range convinced me to give the Phantom a shot.  I tried to the South first with no luck.  I made a long cast to the North about even with where I was standing on the dock parallel to the shoreline.  When I was letting it sit on the initial cast the 18" blew up on it.  I could tell it was a good fish because I got a good look at it when it struck.  The fish ran straight for me and I had to reel furiously to keep up.  I was a little disappointed that it's body wasn't filled out.  I had another fish blow up and miss to the South as I was retrieving.  I let it set and it came back and smacked it.

16" Stanley Phantom

That was my last bite at Rock.

I missed a good fish at Bulldog again tonight on a craw tube.  I pretty sure I had it hooked, a dogfish maybe???   I didn't hook up on a couple of other bites on the CT.  I switched to a Chigger Craw and got a 14.5" on that as well as missing a couple of bites.

Peter was the only person at the GOMH.  Willard and another GOM had been up there tonight.  He wasn't having any luck, not even bullhead bullheads.  No current, no fish, no good.  I didn't get a bite either.  Didn't see any activity with the spotlight.  That sucks!

Morning Skunk, Rock Redeems Me (Barely)

Mille Lacs This Morning Around 8AM

I headed to Mille Lacs this morning in the fog around 5:30AM.  I was fishing by 6.  The fact that I didn't see any little walleye's swimming around was a bad sign.  When i t got light out I saw one baitfish jump, compared to dozens I saw on Monday morning.  I did some exploring, saw some ducks and seagulls and left around 9AM.  I tried Erskine, Bulldog, Rock, and the GOMH with not even a single bite for the morning.

I spent the afternoon getting my tackle organized.  The last couple of years I neglected to do this after my last tournament of the year leaving organizing until Spring.  It's a good thing. I needed to do some work on the Tackle Warehouse that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

I ended up not getting to Rock about 6:20 or so.  It was dead calm.  I decided to throw the Stanley Phantom Topwater.  Sure enough what I'm pretty sure was a nice bass nailed it but didn't hook up.  I tried throwing the craw tube as a follow up bait, but she gone.  On pretty much my next cast with the Phantom I had a fish hit me beyond the weed clumps to the South.  I stuck this one.

21" Rail of a fish with weird light and dark coloring

That was all I got.

I then headed to the GOMH.  I grabbed two rods and headed to the NE side.  Somebody spoke to me and it was then that I noticed somebody was fishing off the bridge on the South side.  Turns out it was Peter.  After throwing a few casts on the NE side I joined him up on the bridge.  I told him what I've been getting lately.  He didn't get anything, not even a bullhead.  We talked about going ice fishing this winter.  Looks like I am going to have to get my ice fishing gear figured out.

What I Caught Fish On in 2013

2013 was the year of the swimbait for me.  The Havoc Grass Pig was the #1 bait, but I caught a lot of fish on 1 pack of Yum Money Minnows, a couple of sample Berkley Powerbait Ripple Shads, and what I had left over from a pack of  Gambler EZ's and Big Bite Baits Cane Thumpers.  All in all swim baits accounted for 427 fish and a few more caught on chatterjigs and jigs.  I only got 102 fish on Crawtubes this year after getting 221 on them the year before.

Stanley Phantom was my #1 topwater bait with 111 fish caught.

Here is the full list of what I caught fish on in 2013:

My New Phantom's

I spotted these Stanley Phantom's in an Ebay auction for 70 assorted lures.  I asked if he was willing to sell me all the Phantom's separate and he was, so we agreed upon a price.  The bone and white one are back ups for one's I already have.  The blue one is the same one I lost these summer when I got broken off.  The black, bullfrog, rainbow, and white with the spot and scales are ones I've never seen before.  With the way the weather is looking I probably won't be trying any of these until next year.

New Topwater Lures For Me

Another Stanley Phantom came up for bid on Ebay.  I snatched it up and I was the only bidder.  As you can see it's close to the same color I crushed them on earlier this year.  The new one has red gills and a black top and the black dot instead of black stripes, otherwise they are the same.  I'm going to just leave it in it's package for now.  It's always nice to have a back up lure.

I also picked up some Strike King KVD Sexy Dawg's.

Rabbit Lakes Tournament Quick Report

Well today far exceeded my low expectations.  I caught a quality limit and got Big Bass with a 4.25lber.  I was reminded that I have yet to do my full report from Rush Lake two weeks ago.  I'll probably get on that tomorrow.  This is the 2nd time I have gotten the clubs Lunker Award.

I also won another Stanley Jigs Phantom on Ebay today.

I Hardly Knew Ye

Good thing I got this photo of that Stanley Phantom in a jumpin bullhead, because this was one of two it hooked.  The second one dived into the rocks and broke my line.  Total freak occurrence.  I don't know maybe a pike tried to take it out of the bass' mouth.  All I know is I had a pretty good bass on, it dove hard into the rocks and then my line broke while it was pulling hard.  I thought maybe the Speed Clip came off, but my line was broken.  The bass never tried to throw the lure, maybe it got eaten by a big pike, who knows.

I also got a small toothy bullhead on the purple/yellow Phantom.  I got this silver bullhead on a Chigger Craw.

10.5"

 I also got an 8.5" jumper on the Chigger Craw.

I missed two hits at the Culvert and didn't get anything at Jenny's..

 I fished from 5:50AM to 8:20AM

My New Stanley's Jigs Phantom's Catch Fish

Here are two of my 3 new Stanley Phantom's that I won on Ebay.  The other one is bone color, which I already have one of, so I left it in it's package and put it with my extra's in the Tackle Warehouse.  I didn't have to wait long and I was pulling in a bullhead, toothy bullhead that is.

I switched to the purple/yellow one and threw it under the bridge.  I missed the first fish that hit it, but on the same cast I  had this fish crush it.

16.5"

I also got a 16" and 12" under the bridge on a Tonka Tackle Craw Tube.  I got a 15" bass on a black Horny Toad at the Culvert.

I fished from 6:15AM to 8:15AM.  I did miss a couple hits on the Craw Tube at the GOMH as well.

101 Bass On the Stanley Phantom This Year!!!

106 fish total when you count the pike.  Most of them came on this color, but I've got a few on the white one and bone color as well.  I've been watching for them on Ebay, but none have come up.  I wish I would have put them on my saved searches years ago.  I've been keeping an eye on Spooks and  I think I may have found them under another companies name that sold them for the saltwater market.  That would explain the saltwater hooks. I think that company changed the way they made them, then went out of business.

BAM! I just did an Ebay search under Stanley Jigs and it turned up 3 of them.  Two in colors I've never seen.  The Bait Monkey was all over it.

They Missed Me!

After not getting out for more than a week I headed to the GOMH this morning, arriving just after 6AM.  I put on the Stanley Phantom and got a bite on my first cast.  I was a little rusty and he got off in the lily pads.  Not to worry I got a fish on my next cast as well.

 I pretty much crushed them on the Phantom getting 10 jumpin bullheads and 1 toothy bullhead before they finally stopped.  The biggest jumper was this 15.25"

I got a couple of small ones on a Horny Toad and 4 small one's on a Zoom Super Fluke and 1 small one on a Craw Tube.  I then moved to the SW side.  I got a 14.25" on the Horny Toad, a 15.5, my biggest fish of the morning, and another 11.5 dink on the Craw Tube.

I then went to the culvert and got a 12.5 and 2x 15"'s on the Horny Toad.  I was done at 8:20AM

23 Bass
1 Pike
Biggest 6 bass
15.5", 15.25", 15", 15",15",14.75"

My 1st Broken Rod Post

I didn't realize I only published this at the Fishing Log Blog, not here at mother ship blog.

I wrote this on 6-26-13

Kind of had a feeling this might happen thanks to my cat climbing were it shouldn't have been. He shut the Explorers rear window on it and 2 others. I'm hoping the heavy rod makes it through the season at least. The good thing is they were all St. Croix Avid's, so I can replace them with a new rod at more than 50% off what a new one costs. I'll have this rods replacement before my next tournament.

17.5"

I had caught this jumpin' bullhead, my best of the morning, and 10 others on it between this morning and my last two outings before the rod cracked and broke in two. 

 It was a good morning of fishing.  I hit the GOMH, the PRO Culvert, and the inlet getting fish at each and missing a bunch as well. I arrived at the GOMH at 5:50AM.  I started off getting them on topwater on a Lucky Craft Kelly J (12.5"), a Frenzy Popper (2x14", 15") and the Stanley Phantom (2x13", 3x14", 15", 16" and two little toothy bullheads).  Then I got them on the Fluke until the rod broke (2x14", 17.5",11.75" and a small toothy bullhead).  I got 1 (14") and yet another small toothy on a Chigger Craw.  I left to go to the culvert around 9AM.

There I missed my first several hits on a Horny Toad before finally getting a 13", I also got 1 (14") on a Chigger Craw and 1 (14") on a Subwart in the culvert.

I then headed to the Inlet and missed two good fish on the Grass Pig before connecting with a 15.5".  That was my last fish of the morning.  I quit at 11AM.

Best 6 Fish
17.5", 16", 15.5", 15", 15" and 14.25"
20 bass Total and 4 Pike

TWOnight's

18"'s Good Side

18's Bad Side

 Monday June 17th:
This was by far the better of both night's, although neither one were bad.  I just crushed them this evening.  I fished from 5:30PM to 8:30PM the whole time on the "new juice."  It started out sunny with a bit of a wind coming out of the NE.  I got three 14" jumpin bullheads on my first few casts on the white Stanley Phantom.  I didn't get anymore hits on that, so started throwing a green pumpkin Grass Pig which I crushed 'em on.  After I had been there half an hour the wind really cranked up out of the same direction, so much so that  I had to adjust the breaks on the reels.  The fish just kept biting and I got 15 total before the fish finally quit biting for me around 7:30PM or so when the clouds moved in.    From that point on  I got one good 15.25" on the Huckleberry and a dink 9.5" on the Phantom.  A guy fishing in the channel with leeches caught a bunch of small fish when the clouds moved in.  These fish were much smaller on average than the one's I had been catching, so I don't think the school moved.  

It started getting pretty cool and the fish stopped biting so I left at 8:30PM

My best six were 18", 15.75", 15.25" and 3x 15"'s  and it was total of 20 jumpin bullheads.  I gave a few of my smaller one's to a guy with a cute girlfriend who went swimming to retrieve a stuck bait.  That was when it was still sunny out.

Tonight:
I got there an hour later this evening at around 6:30PM.  The wind was still out of the NE but much lighter. It was mostly sunny.  Once again right out of the gate I got them on the Stanley Phantom, but this time on the bone color.  I had to work for them a bit but  I got 5  before I finally switched up to a breen Chigger Craw.  I got 3 bullheads on that.  Then the action cut off, once again around 7:30pm just like last night.  But tonight there was no difference in cloud cover.  Eventually I gave up around 9:15pm and headed East of the GOMH
where I landed my last fish of the night, a chunky 16" on the "Big Sexy" Mad Maxx Frog.  Here are the two 16"'s I got.

Chigger Craw 16"

Big Sexy 16"

 My six best tonight were 16", 16", 15.25",15", 14", and 14" with 9 caught total.  All but the one were caught around the "new juice"

My Lucky Night! (A Good True Fish Story)

But it didn't look that way to start out with. I arrived at the GOMH at about 8:30PM and started casting my white Stanley Phantom just to the left of "the juice."  The "juice" is now plugged up with weeds. On about my third cast a fish was hitting my lure and I jerked.  My Phantom came off of the Norman Speed Clip.  I must not have put it on correctly because that has never ever happened to me with a topwater lure;  Spinnerbaits more times than I care to think about, a couple of times with diving plugs, but never a topwater.  Anyway I hadn't hooked the fish, so I could see it floating out there. I immediately grabbed the chartreuse firetiger Phantom and started casting for it. On about the 3rd attempt a jumpin bullhead jumped all over the chartreuse Phantom. Keep in mind I was not working the bait, just trying to catch my lure.  I quickly reeled it in the discover it was a 19" Derby Fish.

 I got the fish back in the lake.  The current was not pulling from the area my Phantom was sitting, so I re-spotted  it and tried in vain to hook it.  But after about 10 minutes of that a boat came through the channel and agreed to try and get it for me.  Being that it's such a big bait he spotted it no problem when I cast to show him where it was.  I got my Phantom back!  I do have one more in that color, but all the same I don't want to ever lose any of them.  I may never be able to find another one of any color.

My hero driving away

gSince he went through the "new juice" I cast a Spro Poppin' Frog off to the East and got a 15.5" on that.  I went back to throwing the chartreuse Phantom and got four more jumpers from 13" to 15.5" before the mosquito's chased me out at around 9:35PM.

Morning GOMH Trip

I got out early enough to catch the sunrise this morning.

I started things off with a jumpin bullhead on the Phantom on the North side.  Then I got a 14.25" on the Frenzy Popper from "the juice".  I then switched to the bridge on the South side.  A guy was already there fishing the SE when I arrived this morning.  He was fishing with leeches an had gotten a few jumpin'bullhead. I got a 13.75" right away on the Chigger Craw.  Then about 20 minutes later I got this 16.75".

What is with the 16.75" fish this past week.  That was all I got on the South side.

I went back to the North side and got a 13..5" jumpin bullhead and a 20" and 24.5" toothy bullhead there.

I did go down and fish to the East, had one fish boil on Mad Maxx, but not get it.  I left around 8:30AM.

Quality at the GOMH Tonight

Tonight I got out at 8:40PM.  It was heavily overcast. I wish I would have gotten out a half hour to an hour earlier.  I started out fishing in the opening 100 yards to the East of the GOMH.  I quickly had a pike miss my frog, but then I got this close to 16" fish on Mad Maxx in Big Sexy.

The ruler was back at the car and I didn't want to go get it, so I don't know the exact size of the 3 bass I got.      One of them had to be pretty close to 17" if not over and the other one was about the same size as this one.  The mosquito's were getting bad as that the spot I was fishing was close to the woods.  I got this pike and headed back to the car.

Next I was off to "the juice".  I got 4 jumpin' bullheads there with two of them being at least 16".  All of those fish came on the chartreuse firetiger Stanley Phantom.

16.5"

I missed a couple of bites as well.  It got to dark and the mosquito's came out by 9:40PM so I bailed.  I bet I had a 3lb average for my five best tonight.

This morning that was not the case.

Before The Mosquito's Carried Me Off...

... I caught a few fish.

I hit up Bulldog for a few minutes getting a small bass on the Pure Poison and a small pike on the Cane Thumper.  I was there from 8:30-8:45PM

Next I headed to Jenny's had a couple of swirls on the Horny Toad, but didn't get anything.

Last I hit up the GOMH and got a 16" jumpin bullhead on the Horny Toad.  Right after that I got this 17.25" jumper on the Stanley Phantom.

Got both of those on "the juice"

I got this nice 26" toothy bullhead on the Phantom well to the East of "the juice"

The mosquito's got horrible, so I left a little before 9:45PM

June 1st Bass Snatcher South Long Lake Tournament Full Recap

The Weather:
The weather forecast was for it to be raining from the get go and winds out of the NW gusting upwards of 20mph.  Fortunately the rain held off and the wind stayed fairly mild as well out of E NE for the first couple of hours.  It then rained for about an hour or so and the wind was really blowing by the end of the day.

The Tournament:
We were first boat out at around quarter to 7AM.  We would have got out sooner but a certain boat put there plug in the wrong hole.  We went right to our starting spot and my boater Owen had his big bass of the day in the first five minutes.  I decided the conditions might be right for topwater so I had put on my Stanley Phantom.

Right after Owen got his fish in the boat.  I had my first keeper on, a solid 15.25" fish that I would hold onto all day.  I caught the next 3 fish as well landing a 14.5", 16", 14.75".  By this point we started getting crowded by a couple of different boats; All of them catching fish as well.  Owen landed a few to catch up with me.  I got a 15.75" and 13.50".  We were now in a calm area and I got my big fish of the day a 17.5" , 3lb 1oz bass also on the Phantom.  Unfortunately we didn't really stay in that area to work it over and headed back over the water we had just come from.  The wind had come up a little bit more at this point and when we got back into the wind the topwater bite seemed to have died.

Owen caught one off a dock so we did that for bit, but that was totally unproductive.  It started to rain so we headed to our secondary area.  I think I landed one that didn't help then I got a 16 incher getting both fish on black blue Strike King Pure Poison with black blue Berkley Havoc Grass Pig Jr. as the trailer.

This is what I would get the rest of my fish on for the day.  Other than that one fish that area was a bust.

We then went to an old reed bed that was in the wind.  I had a good feeling fish on right away but it came off half way to the boat.  That was it for that area, so we went back to our starting spot which was quite crowded at this point.  We started catching fish almost immediately, so we worked the area for the rest of the day.  However we did go up into the calm area that was still calm and I culled a couple of times with a 15.25" and a 16.5" and I got several that didn't help. Owen culled a couple of times as well.  I did try throwing the Phantom some scaring Chuck Steinbauer in the process, but didn't get any hits on it.

Results:
My 6 fish weighed in a 14lbs 7ozs which put me in a tie for 5th place, which I won on the big bass tie breaker.  I got lucky because the other guy had a dead fish penalty.  Owen had 13/7 and came in 10th.  We broke the record for the best first club tournament of the year in terms of total weight caught.  Our average bag was 12.65lbs.  Chuck Steinbauer won with 16/15 beating Ed Ott by an ounce.

Analysis:
I'm happy with how things went for the most part.  I had fun, it was a good day with the topwater to start.  It's pretty clear we wasted time fishing those docks, but one fish sent us off on that mission, so what are you gonna do?

Two Trips Today, One with Dad.

Dad and I got out to the GOMH from 5PM to 6:30PM.  I mostly caught jumpin bullheads at "the juice" on the chartruese firetiger Stanley Phantom.  I got eight of them doing that and one on the Chigger Craw. I also got one toothy on a watermelon red fleck Big Bite Baits Cane Thumper.  Dad got a jumper and a couple toothy's on the Grass Pig Jr.

I got out again by myself at 8:30PM. I went to Bulldog first and got 4 small bass and a pike on the Cane Thumper and a 15" bass on the Chigger Craw.  I then went to Jenny's for five minutes and got nothing.

I got to the GOMH at ten after 9PM.  I got a couple of jumpin bullheads at "the juice" and a 16" off the NE side.  I then landed these two golden bullheads on the Cane Thumper.

My back was giving me issues, so I quit at 10PM.