The white perch have finally arrived in the section of the river where I fish. They are my favorite fish to eat. Ultra lite outfits with small jigs will do the trick. Pink was the color they wanted today. A friend and I change colors until one of us hits the color du jour. I kept forty this morning and filleted them.
I'm headed to the Everglades for tarpon, permit, snook, and redfish in 5 days. We'll be sleeping on a 50' mother ship, and fishing from 2 smaller bay boats. Can't wait!!
Water is still pretty cold on my lake I fish, mid 40's. When it gets to 55 it's on. Mid to late April maybe, but with the current weather, might even be in a couple more weeks...
Crappie are in full spawn mode right now and white bass are in the rivers and my boat trailer(with boat on it) is in the shop having an axle replaced. I think Murphy was a boat owner!
Hopefully, it will be out by the weekend, so we'll be chasing 'em then.
This duck won't leave me alone when I am fishing in the river. He will grab my floater and take off across the river with it. He will come up to within a few feet and watch me fish. There are several others but this one is a real clown.
Not fishing "yet", but fishing still. Ice is leaving fast though. This lake is a about an 8 mile snowmobile ride in the winter. My son with his first laker, 32".
Fishing been good on the Oregon Coast. This is my next door neighbor with a nice trout.
I haven't been as I am saving my energy for Alaskan waters. Being a guide I kill so many fish during the season I have to pace myself. Can't get burnt out before late season Salmon followed by the Blacktail rut.
Just got home from a few weeks in Central Florida. Did manage to get out bass fishing a few times on Lake Griffin. Caught quite a few, but no real hawgs...
Most smaller lakes around me (East Central Mn) already are, although a few skimmed back over. The rain in the next day or two will take care of that. Earliest ice-out EVER on the Croix near my cabin this year (Feb. 23rd.)
I used to fish, but the SCDNR has successfully ruined the public fishing lakes and streams with it's Put-and-Take programs. The DNR doesn't want fish that spawn and raise in the lakes and streams. They want to do the unnatural spawning in hatcheries and stock sterile fish so the fishermen can "buy" them by purchasing a license. These are stripers, hybrids, spotted bass and trout. The trout are stocked in streams that never had any native trout, and they are all caught, or die within a few weeks of stocking. Not much natural production takes place, with the exception of black bass, blue gills and crappie. We have one lake, Jocassee, which is ideally suited for walleye but the DNR refuses to stock them. Why? Because they might reproduce. I believe the reason is that if the fish reproduce on their own, the DNR cannot justify all of the deadbeat guys they have running around in $50,000 pickups and boats. Sorry to sound so negative, but it is a sad situation.
Joey, the guy that sold it to me is also a Yeti dealer and has done side by side comparisons. They are identical as far as keeping stuff hot and cold. Besides I could get a discount on either one. Was actually delivered to my house and I didn't even have to drive to the store to get it.
My reference to the fan was that it appears some of the taller folks had got whacked in the head enough times to knock the blades off, and require a few packs of Goodie powder headache meds. :-)
I love channel cats. Where we sometimes fish there is a sign, posted that says kill all snake heads and blue cats you catch, they are invasive species. Well darn, I would love to catch blue cats since we didn't have them until recently. This river didn't have snake heads either and I have yet to catch one but a friend caught one and took it to the game wardens to find out what it was. I understand they are good eatin' but haven't tried one yet.
Sorry about that Hackbow. It's mostly just humor master bait shun(in keeping with the fishing theme). :-)
Anyhoo, sheepshead......is that the saltwater convict looking type fish that we find around piers and bridges along the Gulf?
Shuteye, snakeheads........is that we know down here as bowfin...or grennel? The bowfin I'm used to are not worth eatin'. Really boney like gar. But the meat is.........very muddy tasting. Fun to catch but not good for the fry pan. Word for the wise......don't lip one when you get it boat. Teethy, they are.
Hackbow, that doesn't really look like what I'm used to as a drum.
I will say that I do love fried bass fillets. But I usually won't keep one under 3 lbs. Nice white flaky meat when fried. But I don't use that yellow cornmeal that Shuteye uses. :-) We have some mix down here called Zataran's. But then, maybe that's why I like fried bass? :-)
Here's a picture of the sheepshead I'm used to. Bait thieves and hard to catch but excellent table fair. Love sand crabs and fleas. Parrots beak for mouths and like to crush barnacles off pier pilings and rocks.
This time of year, they should be on jetties that Greg Simon had to pass through from Orange Beach at Alabama Point out into the Gulf. Sure was hoping to hear back from him for a report.
Being on spring break, I finally wrangled out enough time from chores at my house and my parents to start to go this morning. I was headed to fish below the dam at Dardanelle Arkansas at 5 am (takes about an hour and a half to get there. White bass, stripers, largemouth, yellow bass, catfish of several species, several other delectable species all better this time of year. Then the battery light came on in my truck. ;)
Oh well, when I went to my folks to have my 90 year old father help me figure it out, I ended up spending all day helping him fix my 86 year old mother's riding mower. :) Probably a better use of the day than fishing but not near as fun - or tasty.
I love fishing for Tautog. In late Fall I sometimes go to Indian River Inlet. Rocks everywhere and it is easy to lose hooks and sinkers. I use used spark plugs for a sinker and a real long pole. I can drop the line in between the rocks and catch them. Use green crabs for bait but you have to keep the bag of crabs right by your side or the grackles will grab them. Two old timers were doing better than me about hooking them until they taught me how to catch them. The said set the hook 1/10th of a second before they bite. They can sure get a crab off your hook in a hurr.
Joey - Dad has one too. Pretty much their "legs" now as they mow, garden, haul wood. Besides, separate mowers keeps them from fussing at each other. :)
I normally fish almost every day when the white perch are running but I took today off to work on cleaning up my asparagus and fertilizing. I have wheat for a cover crop. Every afternoon I have five or six deer feasting on the wheat. Took the picture out of my dining room window.
Sorry Joey been a little busy. We fished 25 miles out. No Cobia caught out there but there were a lot of boats and bank fishermen around the jetties going out. Caught some Amberjack and Red Snapper.
Nice walleyes WV. I live up river in Waterville. I get out in the back yard a couple of times when the run is on. Don't really like to mix it up with the "combat" guys down river. Some where near Side Cut park?
nowheels, I dip the fillets in batter and then put them in a plastic bag with yellow cornmeal and shake them around. Sometimes I do the same with the roe but normally just fry the roe with some salt and pepper. Either way the roe is really good. I love herring and shad roe but we are not allowed to keep shad or herring anymore.
Nowheels, crappie roe and bluegill row is good too. I also love big bluegill fillets fried the same way. I have a 60 acre lake not far away that has some huge bluegills and I'm gonna get some later on. I was trapping a problem beaver on a permit on time and the guy had a nice pond. Just for the heck of it I grabbed a ultra lite rod and small jig out of my truck and cast out into the pond. Had an immediate hit and thought I had a big bass. It took me a long time to finally land the fish. It was a bluegill that was well over two pounds. Had never seen anything like it. I turned it loose but asked the farmer what the heck it was. He said it was a hybrid bluegill that gets huge but doesn't reproduce.
Those hybrids get big pretty fast in the right environment. I had a coworker a few years back who invited me to fish in his grandmother's pond in south Ga. We didn't catch any 2 pounders, but we caught a cooler full of them ranging from 1/2 lb to 1 lb, with a few in the 1 1/4 lb range. It was a small, maybe 3ac pond and had nothing but those hybrids in it. If I recall correctly, they had only been stocking it for a couple of years. That was 15 years ago, I'd love to see what might come out of that pond now.
I haven't been back to that pond since I caught the problem beavers. I would love to see what they look like now. He had stocked it many years ago but doesn't allow hunting or fishing. The only reason I was there was to take care of his beaver problem and I got paid for that.
Asctlc, that was in Millington, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. That is the head of the Chester river. They have been having the contest for seven years and that is the largest white perch ever entered. I kept 15 perch, about 10-11 inches and filleted them a had some of the roe for breakfast this morning. While I was eating I looked out my dining room window and saw deer were having breakfast in my garden. That is winter wheat I use for a cover crop. I couldn't get all of the deer in the picture but I got the largest group.
My cousin Heidi took her daddy fishing this morning. They were fishing for catfish. She knows how to catch em, clean em and cook em. Her daddy has cancer and has been undergoing chemo for some time. She tries to keep his spirits up.
Mike, those are some fine looking dolphin. They are really colorful when you land them but change color when they are put in the cooler. Fun to catch for sure but it has been years since I have caught any.
We were fishing for white perch with 1/64 oz jigs when my buddy caught this bass. Not a big one but bigger than white perch. We have caught 5 pound bass on these tiny jigs.
Not a big fish and you aren't allowed to keep them but they jump about two feet out of the water when hooked. It is a hickory shad. I caught a couple of them and some small perch. Fun catching and releasing.
Tony, I love channel cats. I have caught huge stripers right off the Rappahannock River, where it dumps into the bay. It was in December and we came all the way across the bay from Eastern Virginia. I notice your Lowes bucket. Two of us fishing for perch are using that blue Lowes bucket.
HDE, the guy holding the striper in the previous picture specializes in Crappie fishing. He has places where he catches bunches of them. They are good eatin' too. The same place also has really big bluegills.
In two weeks it should be really good for us. Water temp last Friday was 56 - 57. It has probably only been that for a few days. When it's on, we'll catch them by the dozens. This is why I have issues turkey hunting these days... ;^)