A Little Heads Up For Bass Pundit Readers

Major League Fishing gives away the juice.  And when I say they give away the juice, I'm talking waypoints, lures used, size of fish and time of day for each anglers catch all on Google Maps/Earth.

I was unable to locate the dock that Evers caught his 5lber off of on Pokegama.  Maybe you will have better luck than me at finding it.  Good Luck.

They don't have the round that KVD fished up yet or maybe I'm just not finding that info.  Using the MLF website can be a bit tricky to get the info you want.

I've Added A Livewell for 2017

After trying to get it done the wrong way for 15 minutes I finally figured out what I was doing.  Click on the Livewell 2017 link under the header at the top of the blog to see my best catches so far this year.

In other Bass Pundit Blog news, I will release my goals for 2017 on March 1st.

Skunked at the Grumpy Old Man Hole

The GOMH when the swans arrived

4:30-5:00PM GOMH both sides
Conditions: 44℉, Mostly Cloudy, Windy NW, water level low

When I arrived at he Grumpy Old Man Hole the wind had come up and it was cloudy.  I'm surprised I didn't get rained on.  There was an otter laying on the edge of the ice that jumped in the water when I turned to truck around.  As I was getting ready to take pictures two swans arrived.

I tried a Piranha and a couple of different STX's.  Didn't have a hit.  I'll be back.

Went Fishing With Pete, I Got Skunked

Looking SW

4:00-6:30PM Sullivan Lake West Access
Conditions: 48-40℉, Mostly cloudy, Wind SSW, Fished from 7' to 42'

We were not fishing very close to that point at all

Pete decided to stay another night and go fishing, lucky me.  So I didn't go to the Grumpy Old Man Hole like I planned.  Dad using the Kia had something to do with that as well.  I ended up choosing to go to the West access on Sullivan.  I didn't put a whole lot of thought in to what we were trying to accomplish.  It would have been nice had Pete remembered to grab his jacket.  I gave him my hoodie and fleese sweatshirt, thus leaving me with two base layers and my Clam Jacket.  There was enough of a wind that I ended up getting pretty chilled.

There was a guy with a four wheeler fishing the area I wanted to go to.  I didn't think to go and talk with the guy and amazingly enough Pete didn't either.  We started out fishing open holes we found.  Pete started getting a few perch and he kept a couple that he found acceptable size.  He moved holes and an eagle came and stole the biggest one.  I couldn't hook a perch for some reason.  I wasn't detecting any bites.

As the sun started going down I took notice of the beautiful sky.  I went out and drilled some holes over 40' of water.  I marked some suspended fish, but once again couldn't feel if they were biting.  They just weren't aggressive and didn't stay long.  Pete couldn't get the suspended fish either.  The the guy with the 4 wheeler left and Pete went over in that area and marked a ton of fish.  Couldn't get them either.  The batteries on my GPS had quit and I forgot that I had the battery back up in my coat, duh!

I was cold and it was pretty dark so we left.

Skunk

How Bow Dah!

19.75" VMC Fly w/Maki Jamei (purple)

4:00-7:30PM Rock Lake My Spot

Conditions: 56-40℉, Mostly Sunny, Light SW wind,  16' mostly the waypoint holes.

I drilled a total of 4 sets of holes with the one's at the waypoint being triples, instead of my usual double, so I could put the new Aqua-Vu Micro 5c down.  When I went to use the MoPod the batteries were dead, so I had to position the camera manually.  Today there was better water clarity than the first time I tried it;  On that day it was basically unusable visibility was so poor.  I had a few sunfish and perch come in at first then nothing.  I stopped looking at the camera for a minute as I straightened out some things in the Fish Trap.  Next time I looked at the camera there was a fish looking right at the camera.  It was far enough away I couldn't tell if it was a pike or a bass.  It then swam right up to the VMC Fly as I was jigging it.  It sucked it in and spit it before I could react.  I kept jigging it and it sucked it in again.  The battle was on.  I pulled out the ducer and got the camera pulled up as well.  It did get tangled in the minnow line, but I was able to land it without a problem.  She put up a great fight.

19.75" VMC Fly

I was like dang, this fish is a really good one, almost 20 inches.  Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture of it in my measuring cradle.  I released her down a different set of holes.  I would say it went a bit shy of 4lbs.  

I went back got the lines untangled and put on a new minnow and got the camera back down the hole.  I put the Rippin' Rap down the hole for doing the camera centering.  I had it almost right on, just needed to make one little adjustment.  When I got that done, low and behold there was another good bass staring down the Rippin' Rap.  Sure enough it could't resist and took a bite. I had it hooked for about 5 seconds then it got off.  

I'm not sure if it was the same fish or not, but almost immediately after it got off a fish came through and took my minnow.  I  set the hook and the battle was on.  I thought to switch off my anti-reverse switch so I could back reel my baitcaster.  There was not going to be a repeat performance of me breaking a fish off like a couple of weeks ago.

17.75" Glow Demon w/minnow

This fish was much more chunky and I thought to get the picture in the measuring trough.

I went back to fishing.  The visibility started getting more difficult due to little things in the water, not because of lack of light.  I missed the first crappie that came through and I started catching some sunfish and perch.  Mostly I just played with sunnies because they weren't very big one's.  I did get this 7", which was my biggest for the night.

7" VMC Fly w/Jamei & spike

I finally landed my first crappie for the night. Didn't think to take a picture of it.  When it bit I thought it was a sunfish I was looking at on the camera.  Not long after that I gave up on the camera because the visibilty was so bad.

    I caught this one potato chip.  I started moving around to my other holes and picking up crappies on the Fly and the Demon.  I finally thought to take a picture of a crappie.

9.25" Demon w/minnow

I decided I was on my last minnow at 7PM.  I caught a couple crappies on the Fly before a crappie came and took the minnow; I landed that fish.  I got a couple more crappies on the Fly and then I packed up.  I think I got fish in each set of holes.  It was a bit sloppy on the ice, but not to bad.  All in all a good night on the lake.

13 Crappies

19 Sunfish

8 Perch

2 Bass

My Eventful Valentines Day Trip To Rock

16" VMC Fly Jig w/Maki Jamei (purple) & spike

I had a close call on the way to the lake this morning with some deer.  I was really lucky to the first one crossed so far in front of the others, so I slowed way down quickly.  I had to come to a complete stop to avoid hitting the second one.  There were several other deer in the ditch looking at me.  Whew!

7:15AM-1:30PM Rock Lake mostly at my spot.
Conditions: 31-28℉, Mostly Sunny, Windy to Very Windy NW, waypoint holes to 11'

When I first got out of the truck

I fished in the morning because of the forecast for high winds in the afternoon and evening.  The plan was to fish with my old Aqua-Vu so I drilled out the waypoint holes first thing.  I sent the transducer down the hole and immediately was marking fish.  I sent down a minnow on the Glow Demon and was bit immediately.  I maybe got a little anxious with the hook set and lost the fish and minnow halfway up.  I quickly put on another minnow and immediately got bit again.  I landed a 9.5" crappie and thought to myself.  It's AWWWWWWWWWWN.  By the time I got the next minnow down the crappies had moved on.  That was my only crappie for the morning.  I saw one other come through on the camera.

7" Tubby Jig w/Jamei and wax

 I started getting some sunfish and also had spottail shiners nibbling at me.  The sunfish started only pecking and staring at my bait and a few perch showed up as well.  I had a pike come in a couple of different times, but it didn't show any interest in hitting my baits.

I went and drilled holes on the four-hole house spot and in 11' of water.  There was nothing but perch in the four-hole spot, so I moved on to the shallow spot.  I was seeing perch and had a small pike come through once again showing no interest in hitting my baits.  The wind started cranking up and I was just about to give up when a bass appeared out of nowhere (it came in from behind the camera) and came in and hit the Fly.  I set the hook and she immediately started peeling line (2lb test Gamma).  I went to pull the transducer out of the hole and the Fish Trap started moving so I had to sit down immediately.  It was a real challenge getting the transducer out of the water.  I thought the bass was possibly hung on the Aqua-Vu cable because something didn't feel right, so I pulled that up as well.  The bass finally came up the hole.

16"

I stayed and fished for another hour hoping another bass might come through, but all I saw was perch.

I then decided to tow the Fish Trap just to the South of the access.  I fished there in 11' to 6' of water and didn't see any activity on the Vex.

I brought the Fish Trap back to the truck to pack up.  It was pretty warm out so I wrote in my notebook when I quit fishing and went to put my jacket in the truck and pulled the iPod out of my pocket so I could continue to listen to it while I broke things down.  I decided to reposition one of my pole clips, then got everything in the car.  I went to put the iPod back in my jacket's inner pocket and my cell phone wasn't there.  What?  Crap!

I went and looked around the holes I had been fishing, nothing.  I went back to the truck and my notebook wasn't in the pocket either.  I could have sworn I put it back in the pocket.  I looked around outside and didn't see anything.  I was really puzzled.  I was in a semi-protected area and it wasn't really windy enough there for my notebook to get blown away.  I got in the truck to go and drive back to where I started to look for the phone.  I grabbed to inspect my jacket one more time.  That is when I realized there are interior pockets on both sides of the Ice Armor Jacket, not just one like the Arctic Armor jacket.  The phone and notebook were right where I left them. Doh!

1 Bass
2 Crappie
2 Pike
5 Spottail Shiners
12 Sunfish
14 Perch

Disappointed In The Second Mystery Tackle Box

This Months Mystery Tackle Box

What I got

Lucky Craft D-9 Slim Shad: Of coarse they would give me the deeper diver of the two options for a Slim Shad.  I don't know that I have any use for this bait.  It dives too deep.

Nichols Mojo Jigging Spoon:  I have never been much of a spoon chucker, especially for bass.  Was so disappointed to get a spoon.  I'm giving it a try for ice fishing, maybe the pike will like it.

Lunkerhunt Hatch Spin: Tail Spinners have never really caught on here in the North country.  Who knows maybe it will be a sleeper for smallies and walleye's.  I'm also giving this lure a try ice fishing.

Buddha Baits Swagger Worm:  Basically it's a big fat Zoom Speed Worm.  I was unable to get Speed Worms to work for me a few years ago when I tried them. I'll give these a try, but not optimistic.  It will get bit at the Grumpy Old Man Hole.

V & M Baits Wild Worm: A unique shaped 8.5" worm.  I though maybe it was designed to be swam, but they say it's for a shaky head.  Whatever, it's a worm and will catch fish.

Daiichi Hooks: Not a big fan of these style of hooks.  I prefer EWG.  I'll give them a shot.

Was even less impressed with this box than I was with the first.  I'm giving it a D.

Did I Win This Aqua-VU???

So out of the blue a couple of days ago I get a couple of emails from Outdoor Insights.  I just figured it was spam and didn't think anything of it.

Then this arrived at the house today.  I have no clue how I came to be in the possession of this Aqua-Vu underwater camera with motorized camera positioning system.  I must have won it in a contest from someone, but who?  

Not going to look the gift horse in the mouth.  

Thank You Jesus!!! 

The camera and cord are tiny compared to my 25 year old Aqua-Vu.

Update: Turns out I didn't win this stuff in a contest, but it was shipped to me by accident.  They are letting me keep it.  That Mo Pod is really slick.  Definitely a nice accessory to have.

C.O. Kuske is Retiring

Congratulations Officer Kuske!

Hopefully his replacement will be equally as professional.  The guy that was here before Kuske was apparently a real piece of work and not in a good way. 

Snatcher Tournaments Set For 2017

No changes were made. Here are my thoughts on the lakes this year,

Platte/Sullivan:  For only the second time since I have been a Snatcher we will be fishing my home lakes.  Last time was back in 2011. Platte/Sullivan has a history of giving me the finger on Tournament day.  It seems like things almost always go wrong for me out there on tournament day, especially equipment issues.  I broke off a big fish on a hook set and also broke a rod at the 2011 tournament.  I also caught a 17.25" fish that day that only weighed 2/10 on that day.  Hopefully this will be the year when things line up for me out there.  Thanks to the catch and release season I should be very dialed into the fish.  I am just so stoked to be out fishing the lakes again in the Trophy after not doing that the last few years until last Fall.  I can see me being out there every day I am allowed to pre-fish; I've got two lakes to rediscover.  Hopefully the wind will die down tournament day and a topwater bite will be on.

Zebulon Pike Reservoir Mississippi River:  This will be the first time the club fishes this stretch of the mighty miss.  I've never been on this section of the river myself either.  I believe this part of the river is dominated by smallmouth.  I know some river smallmouth tricks.  Hopefully I'll draw someone who will take me pre-fishing.  Who knows maybe I'll get up the gumption   If the fish are going on topwater I could be a contender.

North Long: This will be the 3rd time the club fishes this lake since I joined the club.  I wasn't able to fish it in 2012 due to back issues.  Pretty much every boater in the club knows this lake and Gull well.  Hopefully getting a limit here won't be difficult.

Gull Lake: Ditto for what I wrote about North Long.  This will be my 2nd Snatcher tournament on the lake and my 3rd over all.

Thunder Lake: Won't make this one due to a family conflict.

Little Boy/Wabedo:  This will be the 2nd time the club visits these lakes since I've been in the club.  We fished it at the same time of year the last tournament and I did well.  The lakes set up a lot like Platte/Sullivan and because smallies are no longer eligible to be weighed I expect frogs and toads to be a big part of my game plan. I'll be looking for big fish in this one.

Other than missing Thunder, which is a lake the club has never fished a tournament on before, I'm pleased with this years slate of venues.  

Tomorrow's Snatcher Meeting

Tomorrow is the meeting where we will finalize lakes and dates for the year.  This what we have right now.

The only thing I might like to see changed is the Sept. 9th tournament going to a different day. My older brother is getting married that day, so I won't be able to fish.