Fat Boy's 2011 Fishing Journal...What a Year! Fun...

[StingingLips]

Nice bass! looks like the chartreuse spinner baits working

[Fat Boy]

Thanks SL! As a local fishing guide used to say, "If it ain't chartreuse, it ain't no use"!  I'd like to add, "or green pumpkin".  LOL

[Fat Boy]

The weekend before last, a great day...some scenery, then largemouth, pickerel and a huge gill, my friend Howard and I:

[Fat Boy]

Today, an amazing day, with limited fishing time and I still landed 39 largemouth and a crappie.  Most were average 12 to 13 inch fish, but I did get several around three pounds.  Here are a couple pics, including my biggest one of the day, a three and a half pounder.  I had a HUGE bass shoot out and hit my chatterbait, but rather than getting hooked, it pulled the skirt and trailer down, leaving my jaw agape.  I know his hangout and will get back out and get him in the future...



Howard with a nice chunky plastic worm bitin' bass:

[Raquettedacker]

Great pictures KW....     Way to go.....   Cant wait to see you with a nice Maryland buck....

[Fat Boy]

Fished a different Eastern Shore pond on Monday.  We had it all to ourselves.  This pond is very similar to the last one that we fished, except it has a population of yellow perch.  Here's my report:

Howard and I took off work yesterday and hit one of our favorite Eastern Shore ponds.  We had it all to ourselves, all day long.  Yesterday was a typical day for us on that lake.  You seem to work hard for your fish, but at the end of the day you look at your numbers and it turns out to be a pretty daggone good day of fishing.  I caught 16 fat bluegills (the smallest one is pictured below, some were so big that they were deformed), 14 yellow perch with some of them fairly nice, 19 chain pickerel with several of them between 20 and 23” long, one fat three pound (weighed on the nose at three even), two medium sized but fat crappie, and one golden shiner to give me six species caught in one day for a total of 53 fish on the day.  There were times where we struggled to catch fish at our usual hot spots on the lake, but we found fish at places where we normally don’t catch them.  Howard had similar numbers including also a three pound largemouth, and he lost another good bass that tossed his lure right back at him on an acrobatic leap near the boat. 

The hot lure for the pickerel and bass was once again the white chatterbait, followed by a perch color Bagley’s floating minnow, and a green pumpkin plastic worm.  The worm also caught several of the larger yellow perch.  The rest of the panfish were caught on Kalin’s Triple Threat grubs in the lemon meringue color.  The biggest disappointment on the day was that we couldn’t locate the big school of crappie that we normally do, and the bass fishing shut down around 10 AM when the front moved through.  The good news was that the pickerel and perch fishing turned out to be pretty hot especially at the end of the afternoon.  Another thing to note, I increased my line size for worm fishing with Nanofil to the 8 pound test, moving my 6 pound test (two pound diameter) line to my panfish set up.  So far, the results are good for both.  I was able to toss the ultralight panfish jig (1/48 oz.) for good distance without any effort, further than when using 4 pound fluorocarbon line.  The fish didn’t seem to be line shy whatsoever.

In summary, we had a real fun day on the water.

Here are some pics:

Scenery shots:




Howard loadin' up the chatterbait:


Big bluegills, the one in my hand was the smallest one that I caught all day:



More pics coming in the next few posts...

[Fat Boy]

Bass:



Crappie...wish we got more of these though:



Yellow perch:

[Fat Boy]

Chain pickerel:





This one of Howard's pickerel had battle scars on it, perhaps an osprey survivor?


And the sixth species of the day, a big golden shiner, bait   Too bad there weren't muskies in here LOL.

[Fat Boy]

Great pictures KW....     Way to go.....   Cant wait to see you with a nice Maryland buck....

I got out over last weekend and saw nothing...as 30-40 winds made me in my tree stand feel like I was in a boat.  Sign was everywhere, but the deer weren't moving at all.  I hate high winds while bowhunting.

[Water Wolf]

Great numbers of fish, and good mulit specie action, way to go Fat Boy & company.

WW

[Fat Boy]

Thanks WW!

Here's yesterdays report, 10/23/11:

My buddy Howard and I hit a local lake yesterday.  Fishing was tough, much tougher than I expected.  It seemed as if the best spots were where the wind piled up the water, but we couldn't seem to put together a decent pattern on the bass.  They were spread out, and just when you thought you wouldn't get any more.  It was like there was some lake rule, no more than one or two bass per spot!  Howard finished with 11 bass, and I got seven, nothing big and most were dinks, but we got a few keepers.  We tried for panfish at a few spots and each landed some small crappie, some bluegills and other sunnies, and even a couple small yellow perch. 

Here are a few pics:

Beautiful day:


Lake resident:


A couple of the Howard's fish:



My only decent bass of the day, an 18"er:

[Raquettedacker]

Hahaha...   Looks like you had the same idea as me yesterday...      Nice fish KW....   Now we need to get some deer to help our team....

[Fat Boy]

Goin' fishin' tomorrow Dom...I know...  But...I couldn't pass up an invite on the boat, so I'm playin' hookey!!!!  Saturday will be huntin' day most likely.  I gotta get in the woods before the rut ends!

[Fat Boy]

Hey everyone, pics from Tuesday's trip for your enjoyment.  The hot lure for the bass and pickerel for me was a gold Rat-L-Trap for me this time, imitating the big golden shiners that the big fish feed on in this particular lake. Wow, do the fish hammer that lure!

First, some scenery shots:




Some pickerel:








Largemouth...the first one pictured was 20" and weight four pounds even:






Howard with a crappie...gotta have some pannie pics

[Raquettedacker]

Another great outting and pictures....    Way to go......