Stormy on Horne.

Heheh........got caught by a thunderstorm while I was in the middle of the lake in my toon. Something I do not want to experience again anytime soon.

Before the evil little storm snuck up on me, I was having an odd time. In a couple of hours, I only caught 2 fish. This was unusual. More odd was the fact they were both big bass. Usually, panfish are all about and ready to play. Not today. Nary did I see a single one.

Today was the first day the temps had started to climb back up to at least the seasonal averages. I had previously mentioned I figured a spike in the temps would do my fishing some good. Did seem to work that way, for at least the bass.

Sky looks alright, and this is minutes from the deluge.
Came fast from the other direction.

I caught both bass in 12 -13 feet of water on Clousers. The first fish came shortly after starting. The second just before the rain two hours later. The first fish measured 16 inches and weighed 2 1/2lbs. Second fish saw no measurement device. It was however, considerably larger than the first, and larger than the 4lb fish I caught earlier this season, making it my biggest bass to date. That fish gave me a great fight. I could see under water foliage on my finder, and caught this fish above it. He immediately dove down into it and made things a lot more difficult for me. My wrist is still sore from the scrap.

Hands down the fly rod was the better option for me today. Could not even get a panfish to hit my spin gear. The bass were both caught on sparsely tied Clousers. Predominately yellow, with red and green crystal flash highlights.

The weather quickly turned to shit tonight. A very dark line of storm clouds snuck up on me. I could not see their approach from where I was in the lake. When I noticed it suddenly get dark, I looked up and it was on top of me. I managed to get two thirds of the way back to the launch before I was caught in a vicious downpour. The waves were kicked up pretty high by a fierce wind, and it was all I could do to get to the nearest landfall. Hauled my toon and gear through some pretty intense foliage. I will assess the damage latter.

Serpent.

We have had lots of rain lately. Even so, I was rather surprised to see the lakes had risen some 18". I make that judgement by how far the lillypads were submerged. Rivers and streams too, were swollen beyond capacity. Its still cold, and I really don't expect the bass to become un-funked anytime soon.

Red and Yellow Poppers.

The day had been dismal. Overcast and spots of rain. I really hadn't made any plans beyond puttering around the shop. Around 7pm, sunlight broke for a long enough period, that I decided to at least take a drive to check out some new water.

I decided to check out Serpent River for access. Found a couple of spots with easy parking and egress. Had the puppy with us, so I decided to have a stroll and a closer look. The banks were breached and the aquatic vegetation submerged. Still, what I saw was promising. I an area inaccessible at the moment, but should be fine when the water recedes, I could see fish rising. From shore I had a couple hundred of yards to play with. Certainly worth more of a look into when the water goes down.

Serpent River chugger chompin smallie from the day after this article.

I did fish for about 20 minutes. All I had was the chugger that was tied on when I grabbed the rod. The rest of the tackle stayed in the car. This particular chugger I painted in Jamaican colours.....Reg, Gold and Green. I wondered to myself, sometime ago, whether it was a coincidence that these are also the colours of a finely cured sativa bud? Anyways, even with that remarkably ill-matched choice for the situation, I managed a couple of fish. One was the biggest damn Rock Bass I have ever caught. It did an impressive imitation of a decent smallmouth. The other fish was............a decent smallmouth. Apparently the fish were good with the Jamaican colour scheme. Or they thought it was a bud.

Not to shabby for a lark. Will be back there sometime soon.

SW.

Shitty weather. Still cold, still raining. Will be like this for days. Did not even bother tonight.  Was actually raining pretty hard and it would not even be possible.

Doesn't look like its going to warm up in the next couple of days. If it doesn't, I have an idea to get at some bass, but it would require more effort than I am apt to put into the endeavor. I'm kind of not relishing Horne or Depot. I'm looking to try elsewhere in the near future. Should probably get on the property and do Dunlop. Canoe about and see whats up. Maybe go hunting something new, somewhere else. Who knows.

I'm spending a fair amount of time in my shop, working on lures. Working on different painting schemes, and improving technique mostly. My poppers and chuggers are pretty solid in design and function. I am going to try to start incorporating more intricate design elements now. There are also other lure types I am going to have to make in order to give the fish some different looks.

Hmmmm............

So, haven't been out lately. Or not much. Maybe a half hour or so the other day.

Haven't touched a good bass in a while. The cold front maybe? I dunno. Not making me smile though.

Tonight I managed to get out for a few hours. Lots of little perch and bass. To give you an idea of size, only one perch was deemed big enough for the stringer.........and I was on a perch meat hunt.

I was fishing one of those little jig flies at first..............and got bored with the minute fish it was taking. A Chamois Strip Minnow produced some better fish, but still.............. Couldn't move much on the spinning rod. Didn't land a single fish with it.

It was windy, cold, and I didn't mind stopping early.

R.I.P. Yellow Submarine.

.............dang, I liked this lure.

Yellow Submarine was the name I had started to call one of my poppers. I had caught a decent number of fish with it over its short life, and some good ones. It seemed to have a gift for enticing larger fish. Today, one of those larger fish made of with it. Snapping me off within feet of the shore. First cast too.

...........little guy that ate a wacky worm.

I had just arrived, and heaved it out to a rough vicinity where I had hooked fish previously. Did not take long. A couple who were not to far away witnessed the scrap via some nice aerials by the fish, later asked how big. I told them 3lbs, but I'm betting it would have beaten that mark fairly easily.

another Depot beauty.

The rest of the night was alright. Alright in that I hooked some good fish. Nearly all of them managed to beat me in battle, throwing hooks. Certainly more activity than on previous nights.

After my initial scouring of the surface with topwater baits, I put on a wacky worm. Three casts, three hook ups. It was odd. Even odder was that after those three hookups, I could get no interest. T'was odd.

Busy

Been busy with things other than fishing, but usually somewhat related to it, these days. I think I may have been out for a perching one night since my last report.

.........mom texas rigging her new spinning rod.

Tonight I went out with my mom to fish for a bit. We bought her a spin combo on sale at CT today, and she wanted to learn how to use it. She hasn't really fished anything other than flyrods before. Fortunately, despite some bumps initially, she picked it up soon enough to get it to where the fish could be.

Initially we went to Horne. I was hoping to find some perch from the shore to play with. The spot I chose turned out badly as it did not give mom enough room to cast freely, and the perch were not around. SO, we then went to Depot. There it was much more open, though we would have to hunt bass instead of perch.

Depot Lake is always a beautiful sunset.

Sadly, mom didn't get into any bass tonight. I tried hard with plastics and got no interest either. It wasn't until the very last bit of light I that I managed to get some fish interested. When I first had arrived, I tried a precursory search via the topwater. When this got no initial interest, I went to plastic. When I switched back in the waning moments of the light, I had instant success. As in, the popper hit the water, and a fish hit it. A good fish too. Sadly, he busted me off close to shore. I don't break of a lot of fish. The line had become damaged without my notice. The popper I lost was one of the first I had made, and I was sad to see it go. I was also not happy to have some poor fish swimming around with that impediment in its mouth. Hopefully it is not in a place that will interfere with feeding and/or can be thrown easily.

..............popped.

After tying on another popper, a made a cast to roughly the same area as the last. It din't take long to hook up with another fish. Pop, pop, pop, BOOM! This fish was an acrobatic expert, getting some impressive air will tumbling head over tail. Not nearly as big as the first fish, but certainly a decent fish with a lot of energy.

Still amazes me I can get fish like this from such little shore access, and in such a small window of time.

Horne Lake.

The last couple of nights have seen me on Horne Lake. I have not been there for the Bass. It has been for the perch. They are a regular staple of my diet currently an I was running low, so time to stock the freezer. The bass have not been good to me recently on Horne. All I am landing are smaller fish. I do better in an hour from shore on Depot than I do in 4 on Horne lately. Anyways, the goal was perch, so perch it would be.

Horne sunset.

Perch are generally pretty eager to hit a fly. The one thing I have noted about fly selection, is to avoid tails. A Wooly Worm will serve better than a Wooly Bugger for example. Perch, more than any other fish I can recall, have an annoying trait of grabbing the trailing part of a fly. There have been times I have near hauled them into the boat this way. They do they same thing with plastics. A fly I used to tonight, and one that has served me well with panfish, is a tiny jig fly. A friend of mine, Dan Heculuk tied me up a few dozen of these a while back, and they get put to good use. I also got some bass, biggest maybe a pound. These were incidental catches as they were not the target.

I have spent more time in the shop lately than on the water. I finally setup the rest of my tools for lure making. One very positive change I have made is to go from Basswood to pine. I am finding it much nicer to work with, and it lends to a nicer finished product. I am awaiting some new parts that I am hoping to integrate into some new designs. Still working on the paints and clear finish. Very happy with where I am at. The lures were looking good before, but now they are even better.

Repeat.

So, just copy and paste last nights report to tonight. For descriptive purposes, it was identical. Except the big fish I lost tonight was not acrobatic. But other than that...................lol.

.......

Depot Lake sunset this evening.

So, headed out to Depot to cast a little at dusk. Was hoping to get some hook ups on the popper. I did manage to bring one fish up but he missed and I couldn`t convince him to follow up. I tried a craw plastic and got no interest. I tried a Texas Rigged Worm next. That got me into a better than average bass. That fish I managed to lose after a tussle that should have gone my way. Very acrobatic fish.

Dunno whats up lately, but whenever I hit Depot in the evening I manage to get two fish interested, and thats it. Not one, not three, but two. Been that way for a bit. I actually stayed a bit longer than I had planned waiting for the second fish. Weird that. Personally, I`m pretty happy that I can get anything interested from shore.

Spoiled Rotten.

So, I went out tonight in the pontoon to Horne Lake. Far from a spectacular day. Caught perch....lots of perch. Some on the fly, some on plastics. Caught a few bass. None larger than 12", and likely less than a pound. Tried a lot of different looks, to no avail. If I remember correctly, they all came on `bug`type plastics. A first for me. Never used them before today.

A little odd. I seem to be doing better in short little stints from shore than the tooner. I think I may not to abandon Horne for a bit. Try another lake, or maybe hunt down other species. I dunno. or some reason, I just wasn't feeling it today. In all honesty, I was kind of preoccupied the entire night with thoughts about some tools I had to set for my lure making. My back is still singing sad songs of sorrow which is never overly enjoyable.


We shall see what tomorrow brings. I have to go out to our property tomorrow to meet with a potential builder.

Oh, so the title? You know, I really should not be disappointing by an outing like this, but I was. I just expect big bass now. I do not get them, and apparently I sulk. Not sure I like this side of me.

Couple of more.

Two more poppers ready to due battle with some bass. KVD Elite trebles underside with a #6 trailer. Looking great. The fish have been more and more likely to take topwater in my last few outings. Hoping to get into some fish with these two soon enough. I've used this colour configuration a few times and really like it.

Those were pretty much my last two poppers for awhile. I have a couple of other designs I want to turn out. I had turned a bunch of bodies and had been making my way through them. Now they are through and its back to the lathe.

Why a single hook trailer? Simple, I'm not sure how great trebles really are. Seems to me that I have lost less fish on single hooks than trebles. This is an experiment. I like the way things go and I might produce all my lures with a single trailer.

Addendum: I went out to Depot Lake with the dog again. It was way to windy for pontooning tonight.
It was even to windy to cast with any efficiency. Still, in the 15 minutes or so I tried, I did manage a bass. Not a small one, not a big one, but an alright kind of smallie. He hammered one of the above poppers in the chopped surface. Nice of him to do that. Packed it up soon after as the wind was making things less than pleasant, and I could claim some small victory at that point. The trailers tied on size 6 streamer hook looked great in the water. It's simply marabou tied in close to the eye with a red hackle, and some red crystal flash highlights. It is to this that the bass was pegged.

No rest for the..........

So much for that idea. Instead of sitting at home to further rest, I went out with the dog for a bit of a stroll at Depot Lake. Of course, if I was going to be by water.............

......the second fish to pop the popper.

I took my spinning rod with me. I wanted to see how I could do with a popper from shore, so thats all I took. I was happy to find a couple of bass that were interested in giving me a tussle. God knows I love to take fish on the surface, and I was suitably rewarded.

The popper I used had seen the water a couple of times previous. All it produced then were Rock Bass. Smallmouth weren't in the mood for top water fare. This seems to be changing. Which is a good thing in my mind.

Resting.

Way to beat up to fish. Third day off in a row. Maybe tomorrow?

Popped it.

3lb'r. Till I weighed it. Then it lost 1/4 of a
pound.

That feeling of elation I got the other night with the success of my new fly pattern was replayed tonight. This time my satisfaction came to me via a feisty smallmouth pounding one of the poppers I produced.

........a satisfying moment.

It wasn't what I would call a stellar evening. I landed a few bass, lost a few, but it was no where near as good as it had been up till the last two days.................I think I may already have become spoiled. If this continues much longer, I may have to start looking at different tactics. Till now I have been going with what works, but it ain't really working anymore.

.........thank you Mr. Bass!

To that end, one thing I tried today, was casting a popper over a likely piece of water. It was 5 - 7 ft deep, adjacent to a previously productive bed. There was a good chop on the water, also an indicator that a surface lure might be the ticket. I was kind of shocked that it got a response on the first cast, albeit about 7' from the boat just as I was about to pull out and make another cast. This was a popper that started as a block of wood which I crafted into a pretty handsome lure, if I do say so myself. I probably was more intent on landing this particular than any other in recent memory. The next cast also garnered a whack, but I lost the fish in short order. Kind of a good sign as far as topwater goes. Far more surface action today than in over a week.........but that isn't really saying much.

No Bass.

Nope. Not a single one. Had a few hits. Saw one attack and miss my worm 3 times, one after the other, but no bass came to hand. I could see them, on my fish finder, but I couldn't hook them. Mind you, I was having difficulty getting getting my offerings near them. The perch were aggressive to the point of annoyance. Those I caught a lot of. As much as I enjoy fishing for any species, when it becomes to easy, it ceases to be fun. I've had a number of days were I just stopped fishing for that reason. It was too easy.

With trout especially, I can recall days were the hatch was heavy, and the fish were doing what they should. A well presented imitation could take fish on every cast. How many fish are enough? 20? 30? 40? 50 fish? More? I've walked away from such scenarios on numerous occassions. Especially if the fish are of the 'cookie cutter' variety.

Today, the perch were just too easy. The bass however were not. So I played the only game in town. The perch can be of a pretty decent size up here. I contented myself as much as I could with targeting the larger specimens.............which I could see fully on the finder..............sitting right next to the bass. The larger perch  I managed to convince to take a worm bounced of the bottom. The Chamois Strip Minnow was again very effective. But it was getting me into a lot of smaller perch. I am going to tie up some weighted versions in hopes of sinking it past the fry to the larger fish.

Fly Pattern: Chamois Strip Minnow?

So, this is the fly I came up with. Very very simple. I can see myself getting a lot of use out of it. Ties up in no time. You should be able to deduce its construction by looking at it.

As I keep saying, you can literally just tie chamois on a hook and it will catch fish. Whether or not the extras tiers add aid in effeciency I will leave for others to debate. I have a feeling that indeed they do, or I wouldn't bother. Without any better reference, I'll be referring to this as a Chamois Strip Minnow, or CSM in the future. As a caveat, with any new pattern I come up with, I always point out, just because I am not aware of it, does not mean this pattern does not already exist. If you have seen it before, drop me a line and let me know the particulars.

New Fly.

..........nice camo pattern.

So, I was thinking last night about a new pattern. The Clouser has been serving me well, but there are times it hasn't produced. Even more annoyingly, for whatever reason, the perch haven't been hooking up as much as they should. I also was looking to impart more action to the fly. Not that Clousers don't have action, they do,  but I was looking for something more..................undulating?

What I came up with is very simple. Like all my flies. I tied them on size 8 hooks with a bead head. Tied in an underbody of green crystal flash. On top of that a 2" strip of chamois, thin and tapered front and back. An overbody of crystal flash, and yellow hackle wound behind the bead head. Crystal flash cut to match the chamois in length. F'in deadly. It was killer on perch as well as bass. I think I may have caught more perch tonight than on any other outing of my life. Nailed some real nice bass too.

.............and up we go!

I'll post pictures and better instructions for the fly at some point. I am very happy with the results. I could not have hoped for a better debut.

Video of a couple of the bass from tonight. Both bass were caught on the new pattern. Actually all fish tonight were. One fly even, and it was partially destroyed by the first half dozen fish. Now it is pretty mangled and will be retired.

Crisis Averted.

I had thought my pontoon boat had sprung a leak. I freaked out. I can`t afford to replace it, and its worth its weight in gold to me. What I thought was a slow leak was likely an improperly inserted valveìsh type part. Whatever. It was in ship shape this evening.

.......ate a Wooly Bugger this one did.

I have mentioned previously about finding perch, and the smallies are there? Well, worked to perfection tonight. No more wandering around checking things out. With the help of the fish finder, I located the fish, and beat up on'em. It was a fantastic night.

My goal was actually perch related. Since I knew where they were, I figured to get myself some for a fry. All schooled up, I could pretty much `shop` for the biggest and best, so to speak. I was only looking for larger perch..............easier to clean............and I accomplished this task rather handily. The one perch I got on video was way to small for my liking, as you will see.

..........airborne bass.

Also on tap were the smallies. I did really well on them. Some on spin, some on the fly. One fish caught on the fly, and video, was extremely acrobatic. Caught a few fish this evening that went completely ballistic. God I love smallies. A fish that loves a fight.

I got irratated with Clousers, I was having a horrible time hooking up, missing fish after fish. Figured the fly was cursed for the night. All my fly caught bass came on a Wooly Bugger. I'd love to tell you more about the worm I was using.........like the pro's and T.V. do, but there is not much to say. Being new to spin, I picked up a bunch of different soft plastic kits from Bass Pro. The worms I have been using all have come from their shaky head kit, which I think cost 6$ and came with 50 worms. A great deal if you consider bang for the buck. One worm can last me several outings.

As I came to shore, I met and chatted with a gentleman from the London area, currently in the process of moving up here. The fishing was a big selling point with him as well, though he seems to have put in more time than I scouting out trout and salmon opportunities. A pontoon fisherman as well, he was curious as to how I mounted my fish finder. I was more than happy to rave about the fantastic product from floattubefanatics. I can`t even begin to tell you how advantageous the finder is on the toon. Until this year I had never used one. The number of fish it has gotten me into is incredible.

Here is a video of a few of the fish from tonight.

When it rains.

So, I've had 2 cameras die, an important delivery gone astray, and now it seems my toon has a leak. FML. Good thing the fishing is good or I'd be pulling out my hair.

I went out for a bit. Long enough to ascertain that my pontoon boat indeed had a leak. I did squeeze in some fishing. My goal was to get some more perch for the fry pan. I do love me my perch. Seeing as I had located there current favourite habitats, I wanted to take advantage of it. Besides, I have noticed something lately.

If I am finding Rock Bass, I don't find smallmouth. If I find perch, some smallies will also be about. I got a few smallies, and I could pick and choose my perch. Three large perch came home that will be more than a meal for two.