A Minnesota Quickie (Day 2)

Day 2 started with heavy rains. I wasn't going to get as much fishing in on day 2, so I planned to spend more time with the family. 

However, my aunt had a work meeting in the morning, so we all headed out, dropped her off, and my uncle, baby cousin, and I went to the nearby Moore Lake, which apparently had a decent population of northern pike, a species I desperately needed. I spent a bit of time throwing a spinnerbait I had caught my lifer chain pickerel on, but nothing took, except for one swipe from a small fish that I couldn't identify. 

I watched the guys next to me fish with live suckers and catch a 10 lb pike, which they promptly put on a stringer and took away. Oh well, at least I knew there were pike. I spent a while tossing the spinnerbait around, all the while it was a consistent drizzle. While working the lure past the weed beds, I hooked a little fish with a savage strike. Could this be my lifer pike? I was reeling it in, when suddenly my line stopped. It was snagged on a lilypad, with the fish still attached. In the dark, stained water, I though I could make out a small, skinny shape, and my heartbeat quickened. 

A pop! and the bait was free. I horsed in the little fish and snatched it out of the water. 

I did it! That's species #62, a poor representative of the most savage predator of the north but a representative nonetheless.   

This fish had a tear drop, like a pickerel, which i thought was a bit odd.

After that fish, the rain started to pour, and I stuck it out with some different lures for a while, even had some big boils on a walk-the-dog bait, but no hookups. The rain was coming down in sheets, and thunder shook the sky. Considering the fact that my rod was basically my personal conductor jutting into the air, I decided to call it an outing and seek cover.

In the afternoon, the rain looked like it was settling down, so I opted to head to the nearby Bass Lake to settle a long dispute with the black crappie. I had hooked one here before, but it threw the hook and I had never caught one since, which is a bit weird, due to their supposed abundance around me.

We stopped by the bait shop in Plymouth, Big B's Bait and Tackle, excellent service there. I picked up a couple extra large golden shiners for pike and a scoop of fatheads for crappies.

Walking to the fishing dock, I set up my gear and put a fathead on a small hook with a single splitshot. I lowered in under the dock, and it took all of five seconds to get my lifer black crappie, species #63.

Iridescent green and blues on these guys. Really pretty fish. 

It was still raining, but I was hooking up to crappies nonstop. I probably hooked about 6 but only landed 4, including this dark post-spawn male. All the crappies went on my stringer, to be fried at a later date.

The fatheads attracted small largies, too. 

Meanwhile, I spotted some larger bass swimming in the shallows, and rigged up a golden shiner. The fish took interest in it immediately, but waited a minute or two before viciously striking. It wasn't a large fish, but it was fun to sight fish nonetheless.

Tired of bass, I tried crappie fishing again, but the sun came out and the crappie bite immediately stopped. I didn't hook one after the rain abided.

Consequently, I turned my attention to finding some larg(er) pike, hopefully one that could eat my first one. I put a golden shiner under a float and cast it out. A couple minutes later, I fish took, and I reeling the little fish in until it spit the bait at the dock. It turns out the savage little fish was just hanging on to the shiner the entire time! The greedy guy could barely fit the shiner in his mouth!

After a couple more times of tug-o-war, I decided to add a stinger hook to the end to try and hook the little bastard. When the float went down, I waited a little bit, then reared back. The fish came in without much trouble, and I could tell that this time it was hooked. A quick lift brought the fish onto the dock.

Well, this fish was still tiny in terms of pike, but the hammerhandle definitely could have eaten my lifer pike, haha. It was a really pretty fish, but it had a nasty case of black-spot disease, small parasites in the fish's skin that do not harm the fish, but creates black spots around their location.

Parasites, aside, this pike was much more striking than my previous fish, being a brighter green and having stronger yellow and white highlights.

That pike ended my excursion. It was a two-lifer day, which I thought was not bad at all. I grabbed the stringer of crappies and headed back.

A stringerfull of crappies. The biggest one ran 11 inches. 

Fresh in the Finger Lakes: Day 5-6

Days 5 and 6 held very little fishing. Day 5 we visited Cornell University and its art museum, then explored Ithaca and looked at some scenic views, including some waterfalls. Day 6 was spent at the Corning glass museum. That was an amazing experience, the art was beautiful, but unfortunately I don't currently have any photos.

photo credit

photo credit

However, after dinner on day 6, I got a chance to go out in the kayak and cast a rubber worm. I hooked up with 5 bass and 1 pickerel, but only landed 2 bass and 1 pickerel. I was fishing in heavy grass mats and weed beds, and the fish would dive into the weeds and throw the hook. 

Funny story... The fish were caught after dinner, and after tasting pickerel and bass previously, we put the three in a collapsible fish net for the night. It's like a stringer, they serve the same purpose, but in the net the fish can swim around. In the morning, however, we found a gaping hole in the net. The pickerel had chewed through!

Fresh in the Finger Lakes: Day 1

Day 1

We arrived: the Finger Lakes.

We (my immediate family and my grandparents) had rented a cottage on the shore of Lamoka Lake, a relatively small warmwater finger lake in upstate NY, and I was looking forward to this trip for months!

Dreams of perch, pike, micros, and quality bass flooded my mind as we pulled up.

After unloading the minivan and getting unpacked, I wasted no time and headed down to the dock. I noticed the 6 boats and a boat launch area right near the dock for us, and that too made me think of all the possibilities. As such, the area around our dock was shallow, but we were on a big body of water... surely the boats would come in handy later.

The view from our cottage on Lamoka... Beautiful, is it not?

The first thing I noticed in the lake were the juvenile bluegill, pumpkinseed, yellow perch, and some sort of shiner swimming around. Well the shiner was sure to be new, so I rigged up my tanago hooks and set fishing.

Hehe. I thought it would be easy.

The shiners would mouth the bait, detect metal, and spit it out. About 10 times I hooked them, and then they threw themselves off the hook. But patience pays off, and I landed species #53, the Golden Shiner, also which happens to be the primary forage base for Lamoka Lake.

After everything was settled, I had some free time and remembered the kayaks in the backyard. I couldn't wait to try them out. I've never gone fishing from a kayak before, although I've gone paddling a couple times. 

There was a marsh near our cottage on Lamoka, a flat, weedy area. And by weedy I mean extremely extensive plant growth. Pads and grass mats were everywhere, I could not find a spot where I could actually see the lake floor... Not only was it weedy, it was really shallow. The average depth was 2-3 feet. 

Naturally, I thought the kayak would work on the flat area because of its slimmer profile and the noiselessness compared to the motorboats that frequented the area. Speaking of other boats, I saw tons of other fishermen on the lake, but none seemed too successful except for some kayakers. Lamoka does receive tons of fishing pressure, so I guess it is things like boat choice that really makes a difference. 

Because of the prominent weed growth, I picked up a weedless, weightless rubber twister-tail worm and set to working the shoreline and cover near our cottage, slowly making my way to the marsh.  I caught a teeny tiny bass just as I started, but nothing of significance. 

At one particular spot, just outside of our property, next to another dock, I felt a slight tap in about a foot of water. It could have been anything, a weed, a branch, or a rock. But I cast it out again to the same spot, and felt a jolt which could only be a fish. Unfortunately, I did not receive a hookup, so again I lobbed out my worm, and it got absolutely slammed right in the middle of a weed patch.

I had hooked a fish, and from its constant headshakes, I came with the conclusion that it was a pickerel. And my conclusion was confirmed when I saw the toothy weasel clear the water. As it neared the boat, the real struggle was getting it in so I could take the hook out. A thrashing, sharp-toothed critter is no small threat. But eventually, I was able to grab it behind the gills and bring it in.

Either there is a huge pickerel out there, or this is a sustained injury from when it was younger... 

My shorts got thoroughly slimed by the slime dart

Aye, it is a toothy critter...

It was a decent sized fish, so I put it on my stringer and we had steamed pickerel that night. It was very good, with a mild, flaky flavor. Bony, but they were easy enough to avoid. Delicious! 

Thus, Day 1 ended on a good note, and we were off to sleep, awaiting our first full day in the Finger Lakes. 

Field Trip Fishing

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I have been very busy with school. In fact, I have just returned from a three-day, two-night field trip in Northern NJ. Of course, as soon as I heard that they had a lake, I brought my rod. Some of the teachers fished too, and during the recreation time, I rigged up a weedless fluke to fish for a couple hours. 

At first, the lake looked nice. After about an hour, however, there was zero fish caught, and I was loosing hope for my goal, catching my first chain pickerel. Then, as I twitched the fluke, I felt resistance, then headshakes. I set the hook. A very short battle later, I lifted up a tiny bass. Ahhhh... so it wasn't a chain pickerel. However, there was another reason to rejoice, as it was the first fish caught by a student of my school in this lake in four years! 

The dink

The next recreation time, I worked the pads hard in search of slime darts. I even saw small pickerel bite my fluke, only to spit it out as I tried to set. By the end of the day, I had saw about 5 pickerel in 2 hours, but failed to catch them. Then my social studies teacher, as awesome as he is, offered to take me and my friend Trevor fishing on the boat dock on the other side of the lake. There I immediately saw a drop off, where the water gets deep fast. On the first cast, I felt a vicious strike, and I set the hook. At first I thought is was a smaller fish, and I prayed that it was a pickerel. Suddenly, I saw the fish, and the fish saw me. It was a pickerel! It made a run under the dock in a final attempt to get free. I hoisted the fish up, and there it was, the trashing, toothy, chain pickerel.

A beautifully patterned chain pickerel

I did it, and the grin on my face could not have been bigger as I released the little guy. The kitchen called dinner, and I could not have thought of a better last-minute fish.