Lure testing.

About the only thing fishing related I did today revolved around lures. Painting, assembling, testing, etc. While productive, I would have rather been fishing. The weather was once again less than thrilling, so I decided against venturing outside for long. I did go out to test out a Zara Spook I had fashioned. Never fished one before, let alone made one. Was pleasantly surprised that both my construction and technique were spot on. I'll certainly be turning a few of those out of the shop. The weather isn't looking good for the next bit. Lets hope it doesn't follow the forecast.

More messing in Esten

Even small guys are
hearty fighters.

Again, it was off to Esten for a few hours this evening.

Another fun night of top water bass. Pretty much the same as the last few nights. Lots of fish. a few decent ones. Lots of fun.

I stuck with top water GFC's again. I did try the full sink, but the results were less than impressive, and certainly less productive than the top water. Most of my fish came before 7pm. After that the fish were scattered and infrequent.

..........a bronze beauty. 

As I mentioned before, most often fish violently suck in the GFC, as opposed to crashing it like a popper. When they suck, the surface disruption is not great. Case in point, tonights fish of the night. A 3 1/2lb bruiser. I made my cast, and started fucking around with my smokes, and saw a little fish pluck at my fly. I put my smokes back in my pocket as it sucked at my fly again. It looked like my fly may have disappeared, so I set the hook.........and the freaking lake blew up! Love that. Certainly the biggest bass I have caught in that lake to date.

I have a buddy coming up to visit for the next while, so not sure how much fishing I will get in.

Oh, I almost forgot. May not be of import to most, but the last two outings saw me catch a couple of sunfish! Hadn't seen any till now.

More poppin' the top.

Golden on Esten.

It didn't look like I was going to get out. Forecasted thunderstorms did not show up until late afternoon. Around 6pm it cleared up, and I was on the water by 6:30.

BRONZE!

It was another great night on Esten Lake. Another night with just the fly rods. Another night of top water fun. The rain seem to have to turned the fish on. I probably caught as many fish in an hour and half of fishing as I did the previous night. Lost as many as well. One fish, I have to give credit to. He played me brilliantly. Immediately after hookset, he charged my pontoon. I could not strip in fast enough to keep tension. Then, with a good of slack line to play with, he made an incredible vertical launch that a missile would have been proud of. A 180 in the air had him diving straight back in on a trajectory an olympic diver would be envious of. Needless to say, the fish was rewarded for his effort. Hopefully, word of his victory doesn't spread to wide amongst the denizens of this lake. If every fish pulled off this maneuver with such efficiency I'd be catching a whole lot less fish.

Spent the night chucking the Green Fish Critter. Tried subsurface at a few random intervals, but not success.

Topwater Smallies.

Do these glasses make
my ash look big?

A nice change of pace tonight. For the first time in a long while I decided to check the surface with a fly. Proved to be a wise decision. Lots of fish, large and small.

When I first got there, a boat of four were pulling out of the water. They related a mediocre day. A couple of decent bass and a bunch of small ones. Pretty much the story of my last few outings on Esten.

Not sure why, but I decided to try topwater with a GFC. Again, I had two fly rods for the outing. A floater and a full sink. At first it was all little fish. But as the sun dipped in the sky, the fish started getting bigger. By the time the night ended, I had landed a respectable number of fish, with enough decent sized ones that I went home a satisfied angler. Also worth noting, I missed a good number of decent fish. Just not paying enough attention.

GFC.

Due to the design of the fly, rarely do the bass smash the fly as they would a popper. The normal take is more of a violent suck. Envision the surface disruption caused by a large brown sucking duns. Then amplify it by 10. At least. I tried the full sink in some likely spots, but it was no where near as productive as the GFC up top.

More Pike.

......love smacking fish with my topwaters.

I hit Lake Nameunkown again this evening for a couple of hours. Figured there would be a good chance at a fish. I am still learning the lake..........plotting it out with my depth finder. I can't saw I am thrilled with what I have found. Yeah, I know there are good pike in there, but what I have seen for structure is almost non existent. The shoreline has a slope similar to the deep end of a pool in most places. So far the deepest trough I have discovered is 30'. Average depth 20 yards of shore is 20'. Surface temperature was reading at 75.

...............gator.

The fish I got was a few inches shorter, and a couple of pounds lighter than last nights fish, but still decent. It hit the same shallow running plug from last night. I had to spend sometime this afternoon extricating it from the net after last nights fishing. Yesterday evenings pike had it messed up in the mesh something wicked. I had to mash the barbs down and ended up replacing the treble hook. F'n hate trebles. Glad I took the time though. I love the action on this lure. Happened just after 7pm. Was the only fish, and only hit on the evening. Think I will go for something else tomorrow. Perch would be nice.

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.

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.

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.

.......

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.

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.

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.