Morning Cup of GOMH

I got up while it was still pretty dark and headed to the Grumpy Old Man Hole to see if I could maybe find a few more silver bullheads with the dawn bite. Basically that was a bust. My bobber went down once and I missed it. Once it got lighter out I caught 2X 17.25" jumpin bullheads on a grub. It very well might have been the same fish twice, same length and both were thin fish. I fished for maybe a little over an hour total and called it quits so I could get more sleep.

Silver Bullhead Appearance- Mark It!

What I learned last night was that I might want to pick some minnows up today and I did just that on my way to pick up Widow Jenny as we headed over to her church for a Spaghetti Supper. After the supper was over I dropped off Jenny and headed to the GOMH, I think it was right around 6:30 when I arrived. There was a guy and a lady fishing the SE side, there were two boats fishing out in the middle of the channel a fair distance out from the bridge, and Grumpy Old Man Willard arrived just before I did. Willard told me the docks were not out at the accesses yet and then I headed to the truck to get my gear and headed down on the SW side.

The guy and the lady hadn't caught anything and I watched a lady in the closer boat bring in a bass. I think I had a hit right away on the Storm Wildeye Swim Shad but then things got slow and the guy and the lady fishing the SE side left. I switched to a glow Cubby Mini-Mite and a minnow. As I was bringing it closer to an isolated piece of dead bullrush the bobber went down, but I got nothing on the hook set. About 5 minutes later my bobber went down in about the exact same spot and this time I hooked into a small jumpin bullhead.
Shortly after that a family with a Dad, Mom, and two teenagers showed up. I have seen them before and the Mom fishes off the bridge, the guy took up the SE side and the two kids were messing around mostly not fishing. A little while after they arrived two young guys showed up and they came over to fish the SW side with me. Basically nothing was happening, the boats took off and after about 20 minutes the two young guys took off. Just as they left the Dad fishing the SE side caught a jumpin bullhead. A little while later I had something slap at the Storm Wildeye right up by shore. The sun went down and it was starting to get just a little dark and I was fishing the Cubby and a minnow by that isolated piece of bullrush when my bobber went down. And low and behold I caught me a 9.5 inch bullhead (silver bullhead).

About 15 minutes later when it was sort of dark I was fishing by that isolated bullrush again and my bobber went down and I brought in this 11.75" bullhead.

It was getting pretty dark but I was able to tell my bobber disappeared about 15 feet out, so I set the hook and brought in a 13" jumpin bullhead. It was not the one I caught earlier; I know because the first one had a unique bottom jaw.

After that fish it was time to switch to the lighted bobber and Custom Jigs Glow Demon. After about 45 minutes of nothing I was fishing in the vicinity of that same isolated piece of bullrush when my bobber bounced moved and then went down. I was able to land a 10.25" silver bullhead and that would be it for tonight's action.

Not a total waste...

So I got back to doing a little fishing today, but the fish have pulled back with the cooler weather over the past couple of days. Still I did get some interesting information tonight that made my trip plenty worthwhile.

BP Update #2:

The angiogram went well and there were no developing blockages or trouble spots found, so it would seem my current issues are not heart related. I think my next stop is with the Chiropractor. I have had excellent results from Chiropractor's dealing with shoulder and back pain in the past, so hopefully he will be able to provide some answers and facilitate healing.

BP Update

I haven't posted in the last couple of days because I have not been fishing and was in the hospital. I suppose many of my readers do not know that I had a heart attack in March of 2003, when I was 33 years old, that left me with a heart that functions at about 50% of a normal hearts capacity. On Wednesday of last week just as I started fishing I developed some pain in my upper back. At first this wasn't concerned because I have been dealing with a similar problem for the last few years. However, later that night the pain lingered after I stopped fishing which had not happened before and I grew a little concerned. Basically things didn't start getting better like they thought they should have and finally on Easter morning at about 5AM I was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Onamia because of my back and chest tightness. The tests came back negative for heart damage/heart attack but I stayed in discomfort even with medication so I was held overnight for observation last night. Today I was feeling better and was released from the hospital, but tomorrow I will be going down to the cities to get an angiogram to check for developing blockages that could be causing the problems. If there are blockages hopefully they will be able to be fixed with stents and I should be fine in a few days. More serious blockages would most likely require bypass surgery and that would seriously suck.

There is also the possibility that my problems are not heart related at all, but are back/shoulder issues that are directly linked to and exacerbated by fishing seeing as how the problems started when I started casting again. I am none to thrilled with this possible outcome either.

Anyway, no matter what the outcome I probably won't be fishing or blogging for at least a couple of days.

Fishing Report from April 2nd

More GOMH Bullheads Tonight...

Bullheads!!!

Patti woke me up about 6:15 this morning and when I took the dogs out I was surprised by how warm it was, about 60 degrees. I got it in my mind that with these warm temps maybe some bullheads moved in at the Grumpy Old Man Hole.

I arrived at the GOMH around 7:30AM and there was a guy fishing the SE side with minnows, so I took up the SW side. He said he caught 3 nice sized largemouth but nothing else. About 20 minutes after I arrived he caught about a 18 inch jumpin bullhead.

I ended up switching lures to a 2" Storm Wildeye Swim Shad because I saw some baitfish activity and it got absolutely choked by a jumpin bullhead. Look at how far down in the mouth he was hooked.

This fish was on the skinny side but went all of 18 inches.

A little while later I had another hit and another bullhead was tugging away. As you can see this one was hooked right in the lips.

This fish went 17" but was a much healthier fish and probably outweighed bullhead #1

The guy had left by the time I caught my fish and there was a long lull, so I headed over to take casts on the SE side. I was over there for quite a while, but eventually did catch about a 13" jumpin bullhead.

Eventually I gave the NE side a try then call it quits about 10:15AM.

No Skunk For Me...

I thought for sure I was getting a skunk for the day. No activity at the GOMH and a wind from the wrong direction and no Rock Dock to fish from. Still I put my time in and fished all afternoon. I started out by checking for suckers, there weren't any. Then I headed to the GOMH as the sun was out, and it was warm but windy out of the NE, which actually was a good direction for the south side of the GOMH. CO Kuske stopped by again. He said crappies were being caught at Pierz as of today. I fished for about an hour, then headed to Rock. After seeing the futility of fishing Rock in that NE wind, I sat in the truck and listened to the radio, hoping the dock installers would show up. While I was sitting there, a guy who I might have met before came down in an ATV to go fishing. He gave me some interesting information, but he did not catch anything. It may have been info about suckers running. After that guy left, I went back out to try again, and while I was fishing, a boat came down to launch, so I got in the truck to move out of the way. I parked in the lot, and one of the guys with the boat motioned for me to roll down the window. He let me know my left back tire was just about flat. The tire wasn't totally flat, so I made the decision to limp the truck about 3 miles to Bear Traxx hardware and gas. I made it with no problems and got the tire filled back up. I could hear the leak, so I immediately drove 5 miles south to J&D's, which is a full service station. In 30 minutes Jeff had the tire patched and I was back on the road. Our place is less than a mile South of J & D's, so I headed home to check on the dogs and get them their supper. Once that business was done, I headed back to Rock. Nobody was there so I pulled up to the ramp and started fishing. The wind was just a bit better but had clouded up pretty well. I think I missed one bite but am not totally sure. I finally bugged out at 6:30PM. I was surprised when I arrived at the GOMH that nobody was there, which was not a particularly good sign. As I took my stuff down to the SW side, Grumpy Old Man Willard showed up. He gave me a hard time about how he would catch as many fish as me by just sitting in his truck.

Right around 7:30PM, Willard left, and I started seeing signs that some baitfish were around with predators chasing them. I made several casts to the area but didn't have any bites. It was getting pretty dark, and I was reeling in by some cattail stalks when I thought I was hung up, but the snag started moving quickly to my left. Sure enough I had a bullhead. I lifted him out of the water and before I could grab him my line snapped, but he was well over the shore so I picked him up.
As you can see in the picture, it was a male pike that was milting.

I didn't get skunked, the GOMH comes through again.

Wide Open!!!

Wide open is the description of all the lakes I looked at today except Mille Lacs. Shakopee open, Bulldog open, Rock open, and yes even Sullivan open.

My day started out with a trip to Onamia to pick up meds and check to see if the suckers were running in the Rum River just North of Shakopee Lake. Do you see any suckers in this picture:

If you do your eye sight is better than mine. The river was empty, therefore sucker fishing was out. I went to Subway for lunch and came back, still no sign of suckers. I hung out for about an hour and no suckers so I headed home.

I got out to the GOMH around 2PM and there was no bullhead action. So next I headed over to check out Bulldog then to the Rock Lake public access. No surprise the Rock Dock was not in the water yet, maybe tomorrow. The Rock access has been known to cough out fish even before the ice gets off the lake, so that is where I set up for the afternoon. Unfortunately for the fishing it was overcast and hazy for most of the afternoon keeping the shallows from heating up. The sky's started to clear a bit around 4:30 and sure enough my bobber went down and I caught my first open water fish of the year.
It went 17 inches.

A little bit later the sky's cleared up and a small school of little bass, a few sunfish, and a couple of crappies swam right up to me and then just as soon as they were there were gone. Didn't even get a bite. A little while later the bobber went down and my lure went bye bye. Stupid Pike!!! I fished until after 7 and occasionally there were sign's of fish swimming around, but I couldn't get any more bites.

I headed to the GOMH and Willard was sitting in his mini van and a guy, lady, and kid were fishing off the bridge and on the SW side. Willard informed me they had not caught anything and were fishing with minnows. I talked to Willard for about 15 minutes then headed over to the SE side which was open. While I was fishing CO Kuske and another CO showed up and did a fishing licence check. As the CO's were leaving I swear I got a bite on my drop shot power minnow but it got off right away. Felt like a silver bullhead. That was it for action at the GOMH tonight.

A Couple of Good Bass Blogs

Both of these are hosted at Gary Yamamoto's Inside Line

Beatin' the Bank with Bernie Schultz- This is the blog of Elite Series Pro Bernie Schultz. Looks like it is new for this season.

Pete Weighs In- I am not sure who Pete Robbins is, but he writes a pretty good blog.

Shocking Development...

The Ice is Out on Platte Lake!!!

I arrived at the GOMH around 6PM and to my astonishment there was open water as far as the eye could see as I looked North over Platte Lake. I thought maybe the ice was going to be off by Saturday, this is just stunning. I thought there was a pretty good chance I would catch a bullhead or two tonight but it was dead.

Tonight was the first Grumpy Old Man sighting as Willard was sitting in his truck when I got there. He didn't get out ice fishing this winter and is really looking forward to catching some fish to eat. Willard reported that the ice went out on Erskine today as well.

I left the GOMH while there was still a little bit of light out. I went to the Platte public access and all I saw was open water. Then I drove to Bulldog which is about 44% open at this point. Then I went to Rock which was fishable and maybe 25% open. There actually was a little bit of ice on the North end of Platte, but I consider Platte Lake open when you can get from Jenny Olson's access to the Platte Lake public access and there would be no problem at all making that trip.

2010 Ice Out by Easter Update #6

The MN Ice Out Status Website only added 2 lakes today.

Loon Lake (Waseca) out 3-30
Lake Gervias (Ramsey) out 3-30

Warm and windy conditions on March 30 have hastened ice out over southern and east central Minnesota. The next update will be March 31.

With today's winds, sun, and temps I would imagine a lot of lakes are going today.

4:15PM I think at 5PM I am going up to the Brothers for the Tuesday $3 Taco and then I'll head to the GOMH from there.

Hmmmm

Switched my computer monitors and now I think I am seeing the world the way it's supposed to look, which I wasn't before. This should definitely help when I make my judgements about how bright the pictures I take actually look. Things looked darker before so I was always editing the photo's to make them brighter.

2010 Ice Out by Easter Update #5

The MN Ice Out Status Website surprizingly only added 3 lakes today.

3-28 Kohlman (Ramsey) This lake is in the Twin Cities
3-29 Cannon (Rice)
3-29 Zumbro (Olmsted)

So according to Minnesota Climatology all the SE MN lakes are open, while none of the S. Central and SW lakes are open, which I find hard to believe.

Word from FishingMinnesota.com is that Nokomis in MPLS is open.

GOMH 4/29/2010

As can be seen in this first picture open water has made a serious expansion on the South end of Platte Lake (Click on picture to enlarge to see where the ice starts). I would say there were pretty close to 4 football fields worth of open water. I am pretty sure at this point the whole Platte River Outlet area of Sullivan is now ice free. It got to 59°F today and was on the windy side. It is supposed to be about 10 degrees warmer tomorrow and even warmer on Wed. and Thur. It would not shock me at all if Platte is ice free by Saturday. Once again tonight I didn't catch any bullheads, but I'm thinking with all that open water in Platte warming up tomorrow and flowing into Sullivan that there is a pretty good chance of catching something tomorrow.

This picture is the view looking North from the Platte Lake public access. It almost looks like a boat launched and made a path out into the ice. In reality I think the main ice truck path completely melted down.

GOMH

It only got to 50 today, but it was sunny so I decided to hit the Grumpy Old Man Hole and see if any fish might have shown up. No luck

The early rising almost full moon was beautiful tonight. I think with these warm days ahead and that full moon, bullheads will start showing up this week.

(Click to enlarge for better picture)

Bait Monkey March Madness Continues...

Well Mills Fleet Farm didn't have either of the two things I wanted to buy, but Husky Jerks were on sale for $3.99, which I think is $1.50 off the regular Mills price and $2 cheaper than Gander Mtn, so I couldn't resist. As you can see I also picked up a couple of packs of 2" Storm Wildeye Swim Shad's in baby bass. Last year I had good success with the Wildeye's on 4 kinds of bullheads. The Wildeye's are a sturdy bait but the tails do get bit off so I thought stocking up a little was called for.

Speaking of Gander Mtn, I browsed around in the Baxter store today and was less than impressed by the size and selection in the fishing department. Maybe they have not gotten around to beefing things up for Spring. I should have asked, but I figure I will be back.

Bait Monkey March Madness

This is what arrived in the mail this week. Tomorrow is a trip to Mills Fleet Farm which I have a $50 Gift Certificate for. After that, the monkey needs to go on a leash.

Interesting those bottom 2 grubs are supposed to be the same color but the big one is more purple and the smaller one is more blue.

Update: Just took some grubs out for a closer inspection and that more blue color is an illusion. The two sizes are the same color and the tail has the more purplish hue.

2010 Ice Out by Easter Update #4

Well MN Climatology is listing Lake Pepin as open on 3-24 with Cannon and Zumbro Lakes listed as partial cover. All the Southwest and South Central lakes still say ice cover, but I don't believe that is accurate. If there is an update Monday I expect we will see that some more lakes were open today.

The weather forcast into next week is upper 50's and 60's with a possible 70's. Lake ice is going to be disappearing fast next week.

FLW Tour Lake Norman Day 3

For those Fantasy Points here is that Top 10

1 THRIFT, BRYAN 13-01 (5) 16-09 (5) 16-00 (5) 45-10 (15) -
2 TRANCYGIER, RUSTY 12-11 (5) 14-14 (5) 12-15 (5) 40-08 (15) 5-02
3 MONTGOMERY, ANDY 14-05 (5) 12-01 (5) 12-09 (5) 38-15 (15) 6-11
4 SALEWSKE, RUSTY 9-05 (5) 13-05 (5) 13-09 (5) 36-03 (15) 9-07
5 TRAVIS, BRIAN 12-07 (5) 10-08 (5) 12-07 (5) 35-06 (15) 10-04
6 MORGAN, ANDY 15-00 (5) 7-01 (4) 13-02 (5) 35-03 (14) 10-07
7 MONROE, ISHAMA 13-14 (5) 8-03 (5) 12-03 (5) 34-04 (15) 11-06
8 VATALARO, VIC 12-03 (5) 11-06 (5) 10-06 (5) 33-15 (15) 11-11
9 PIRCH, CLIFFORD 12-01 (5) 10-05 (5) 11-00 (5) 33-06 (15) 12-04
10 COMBS, KEITH 11-05 (5) 11-08 (5) 10-06 (5) 33-03 (15) 12-07

Andy Morgan getting 6th and Greg Pugh getting 12th just kill me. I messed up not putting Montgomery or Travis on the team, because I think with one of those guys I probably would have had a prize worthy roster if Thrift holds on for the win.