Tiger on a fly!

Jim Bonin (fishface) caught this the other day while fly fishing for bass on the river. He was pulling in a bass, when Mr. musky decided to have a bass supper! He fought with the beast for a while until it devoured the unfortunate bass, then it munched on his black woolybugger fly for dessert!

Another big sunfish weekend

I got another weekend of bluegill action with CK and Andy "the wookie", they were still biting good, with lots of big fish coming to the boat. Same depths, around 24 ft, slider floats cast out from the boat gets the most fish. I got a few jigging with my Power noodle jig rod, that was fun!.
I got fish on many different baits, including Keiths hair jigs, Stub grubs, diamond jigs, flutter bugs, etc. I liked to put a couple of waxworms on to get them to bite better.









The Wookie gets a big sunfish



CK with the big one for the day!






Uh oh, ice is starting to form, may be the last week of giant gill action for the season?



More nice gills



and slabs







Got this beaut on my tiny Powernoodle rod







Nice colors













doubles


fat fish















the release!

Float tubing action

I got out for a little Panfish outing in the metro area Sunday afternoon. Bob Bohland from the Thorne Brothers site wanted to try some tubin, so he stopped by and we loaded up the tubes in his pickup and we headed for a small lake loaded with hungry panfish.
They were not hard to find, Bob took to my tube like a duck to water. He was rearing on fish before i even had my waders on! We caught around 100 crappies and bluegills in 3 hours of fishing. They were very hungry, even hitting Bob's float on the surface!
I brought my sonar out in case they were deep, I didn't need it though. there was a bug hatch and the warm weather had the fish feeding in the shallows. They bit good, I got some on t.h.e. Jig, and on a 1/32 ounce crappie tom jig with a black and yellow stub grub. Bob got his on some jigs he made. I was wishing i had my fly rod and some poppers . weird, just like summer fishing in november. I will take it!


A decent bass toward the end of the day

Bob fished like a pro on his first tubing experience!




The biggest gill of the night for me, just over 9 inches








another good one











they can't all be big! a lot of them were not!

Halloween Big bluegill frenzy!

What a better way to spend halloween weekend than in search of some pumpkin sized bluegills!
I met up with a couple of other spooky looking Dudes, Crappie Keith, and Buckshot Greg, and we hit the water. We went over to the deepest area in the lake, around 24-28 feet. We soon graphed fish around 2 feet off the bottom.
Greg got his fish on a northland Hexi fly, CK did well on his T.h.e. Jig.
I got many of my biggest gills on a flutter bug jig tipped with three waxworms under a thill center slider float set about 2-3 ft off the bottom.
I also got lots of fish vertical jigging with my new Thorne Brothers quiver stick, which was a blast! I even got a pike on that tiny micro rod! For jigging i was using a Lindy fatboy tipped with a waxworm. We got loads of big bluegills, many over 10 inches. I got my biggest gill I ever measured and Photographed, a 11 incher that I bet was well over a pound!
Thanks guys for the great trip, my best halloween ever!



Hmm, this looks like the great pumpkin!



Tiny rod, big bluegill!



Some big panfish for buckshot!













CK was bluegill Keith today!






More scary monster sunfish!


































the fish is longer than the rod!




somewhere over the rainbow



A great view to end the weekend with!


The Big One !!!!!

MGEM backwater action saturday and sunday smallies and catfish

I got out with Jack and Dave for a Gem kids outing. the only thing missing was the kids, we has a lot of last minute cancellations. oh well, we still went, and had lots of fun, with crappie, bluegill, yellow perch, and largemouth bass willing to bite jigs tipped with plastic minnows in 1 to 5 ft of water

Here is andrew with some nice slabs

Dave gets a nice bass

Mitch nails a crappie
A good gill
slab for me

we got some nice perch too!

Cow bass?

I got out sunday after watching the vikings get beat, for a little smallie action on the river. met Jim Mc"fly" bonin, and fished for about an hour. i was getting fish steady on a chartruse shad gulp alive minnow until it started getting dark, then it looked like it was done, when bang! reared into a big fish, I thought it would be a huge bass, but it turned out to be a channel catfish. got another cat, and a walleye then called it quits.

Blue gill catching with CK and Boone

CK got me hooked up with boone and we headed up with his boat for some great panfish action!
They started slow, we would find some but when we stopped to fish them they would disappear, kittish i guess.
I rigged up a slider float at around 22 ft in 25 ft of water to get out away from the boat and cover more water. Not much at first, but in a while i started nailing them.
Soon we were all getting lots of fish out from the boat.
Later they started getting less boat shy and we were able to verticle jig them watching them come up and take our baits on the flasher.
CK and Boone got all their fish with the jig, I tried many different lures, settling on a Lindy fatboy with 2 waxworms for most of my fish. I also took some on a Lindy flyer spoon packed with waxworms.
I had a great time, will have to do it again with you, thanks!

I got a pair of 10 1/4 inchers
















Boone got the big gill of the day with this 10 1/4 incher!


CK with a good pike, fun on UL !





More sunfish




Also got some keeper crappies mixed in.


Nice gills













pretty colors

More backwater action 10-10

I got out for some more backwater action last Saturday. with the colder temps and snow, the bass really got active and provided steady action on various plastics casting around shore cover. Crappies were biting too, but harder to find this week, I got my slabs on plastics and a 1/32 oz leadhead 3 to 10 ft down.