Charter Oak North 5/1/11

Made it out to chase after some bass today, inspired by so many other bloggers who have found the hot bite recently.

I didn't have much time so I tied on one of the poppers Clif made and put up for a contest.  Mike won these poppers, and since he doesn't do much bass fishing, passed them on to me.

I had a couple small splashes next to the popper, I'm guessing little bluegills that couldn't get the whole thing in their mouths.  When I can afford it I'm planning on buying some wet flies to set up a popper-dropper rig and see if that brings a few more sunfish to hand.

After a dozen or so casts, there was a little "bloop!" a couple seconds after the popper hit the water and popper disappeared.  Kind of a sluggish fight but better than no fight at all.  

Sorry to interrupt your meal Ms. Bass.

She was about 10 inches long and pretty chunky.  The popper was halfway to her stomach by the time I got her in.

A couple casts and another likely-bluegill strike later, I switched up to a black senko and casted around a bit, not getting any bites.  I thought it might still be a little chilly, when it gets a little warmer I'm gonna take an expedition out to a bigger body of water and and do some wandering, really try to get into some fish.

Thanks to Clif for making the popper and Mike for passing it on to me, I'm glad it was able to catch me a fish.  

Hope you all have a good week.

Charter Oak North - 8/15/10

After about a week of heat advisory inducing weather, it finally cooled off a bit.  I took advantage by heading out this morning to try to wet a line.  I got down to the lake to find a guy on one of the piers casting a fly rod with a popper.  I asked him if he was having any luck and he said that he hadn't but he sure was tearing up his poppers on the pier.  Been there, done that brother.  (Same pier even.)  
I headed down to another pier and tied on a 7" Powerworm in Blue Fleck.  (The second to last in a package that I bought back in March and have caught at least a dozen fish on.  Not bad for $3.50.)  Second cast, I hooked into a little 7-8 inch largemouth.  I would've taken a pic but I hooked him in the jaw and it took awhile to get him loose, didn't wanna keep him out of the water long.
It was a nice change of pace to catch a fish so easily/quickly, compared to my recent bass outings.  Got the monkey off my back early.
I cast a few more times on both sides of the pier and took a walk down one side of the water.  The lillypads that had taken over about half of the lake are now wilting and dying, leaving more patches of open water and making casting a little easier.
My uncle recently passed a bag full of older bass equipment to me so I decided to try out a red/purple 10" Bass Assassin worm for a bit.  Something was off while throwing it.  Probably just that I'm used to 7" worms.  I also don't think I had a big enough hook on to have hooked a fish (3/0).  I wasn't comfortable messing around with it so I switched to an older looking "Neonz" purple 7" Powerworm and went back to my original pier and quickly picked up fish #2:

Another 7-8" Largemouth.  (Note to self, don't take pics at this angle, makes fish look even smaller than he already is.)

Tossed a few more casts down the bank, working towards the exit.  No more bites.

The guy flycasting didn't catch anything while I was there (which makes me always feel proud, when I outfish someone around me.  It's probably wrong to think that way but I think its a Man instinct.), but there were 3 kids who came down the path loudly and started asking him questions about the fish and flyfishing. Although he could have been offended and given them the cold shoulder, he was explaining what he was doing and pointed out a big carp cruising along the shore.  (Oh wow! It's huuuuge!  Why don't you catch that one?!?)  I think that's one thing that makes angling/outdoor sports so awesome, there is so little elitism.   People just want to share their passion and get others involved.  (Although he did tell me one of the kids knocked over his flybox and he lost a bunch of his flies. After that he told them about another pond down a path that they should check out.)  :)

All in all, a good outing, especially for just an hour and fifteen minutes.  Got my fishing fix that's been missing for awhile.  Hopefully it keeps cooling down so I get out a little more often.

Alright, I'm off to go practice with my bow, hope you all had a good weekend.

Charter Oak North - 6/27/10

Had a family wedding reception all day yesterday and I'm planning (weather willing) to go out and do some plinking to check out some rifles with my uncle today so I got up at the crack of dawn to try and catch a couple fish today.

Ok, thats a stretch.  What really happened is I fell asleep at 9pm last night, exhausted from the reception.  I woke up at 3:30 this morning, wide awake.  So I figured I might as well squeeze in some fishing.

Headed out to Charter Oak North at 5:00AM.  I picked up a couple Ribbit frogs awhile back and since Charter Oak has excessive vegetation, I decided to tie that on and see if I could get a couple explosions on it.  It makes alot of noise when reeled through open water and is really easy to bounce on the lilly pads but I had no takers.  (Despite having hits on my Senko lookalikes the past two times I was there.)

Eventually I snagged up my frog on a tree.  Had to break it off so I decided to go to what is becoming my old standby: a 7 inch Powerworm, this time in Tequila sunrise.

A few casts with the Powerworm got me a tick from this guy:

As you can see, not a lunker by any means but its much better than getting skunked.

There's a commercial that shows about every 37 seconds on Versus with Larry Dahlberg saying:
"There are four stages of angling: You just wanna catch a fish.  You wanna catch a limit.  You wanna catch a really big one.  Finally, you wanna catch them the way YOU wanna catch 'em."
I was thinking about it and I definitely still fall into the first category.  As long as I'm able to take a fish off the hook, ANY fish, it validates my day.  Especially if it's a bass.  Even if he's about the size of the bait I'm using.

Anyway, I cast out the Powerworm a few more times with no takers.  Then, as is becoming a trend, I started hearing thunder roll up behind me.  I stuck it out until I saw a flash of lightning, then headed home.  Only got to fish for about an hour and a half total but it made my morning.

Hopefully it dries up before noon, as I'd really like to go try out some rifles before my FOID card comes in.  If anyone has any suggestions on a nice, fairly inexpensive .22 rifle, please let me know.

Hope you all have a good weekend and get to wet a line.

Skunked? I'll let you decide.

After putting in a couple extra hours at work today, I decided to head out to McMaster Lake at Snakeden Hollow for a change of fishing scenery.  I didn't realize how far away it was, but an hour later I got to the lake to find about a half dozen boats out on the water and another guy walking the banks.  The lake is pretty wide open, not alot of trees so there was alot of wind, kind of throwing my hopes of fly fishing out the window.


I started throwing a 3" Powerbait Ripple Shad, bringing it back very slowly.  After a few minutes of no hits, I switched up to a 7" Blue Fleck Powerworm and tossed it near some weeds along the bank.  I worked along one bank and walked over to the other side of the boat ramp and worked down the other ramp so I could stop fighting the wind.  I switched to a chartreuse Gulp Nightcrawler and worked back along the bank.  I had a couple tiny bites but nothing I could set the hook on.  I really wasn't feeling this lake with all the wind and unfamiliarity so I decided to head back to my familiar water of Charter Oak North back in Peoria.


Charter Oak is down a little trail and has trees all around and wasn't nearly as windy so I was able to get some practice in with the fly rod.  I tied on the same fly as the other night and got to whipping it around.  I focused on keeping my wrist still and am to the point where I can consistently get the fly out about 10 yards, which is pretty exciting.  After a couple dozen casts with no bites, I switched up to the baitcaster with the Gulp crawler still on it.  No bites.  Back to the Powerworm... No bites.  I was getting very frustrated at this point.

I decided to try something new so I tied on a big black/orange jig and tipped it with half a plastic Gander Mountain crawdad in almost the same black/orange.  I tossed it out a few times, bouncing it along the bottom back to me.  Moved along the bank, throwing in all directions and bouncing it off the bottom.  No bites.  But, when I brought it in the last time, something splashed at it and scared the hell out of me about 6 inches from shore.  It was a big ol' bullfrog.  So I did what any frustrated grown man who had failed at fishing all day would do:  I played with the frog.  Every time I would get the jig within about 6 inches of him, he'd pounce on it and kick it. So, I got the idea to take a video for you guys.  Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to get it on here.  While taking the video, he decided to actually bite the jig, which gave me my first and only catch of the day:

But don't worry, he was ok, I let him go and he went back to sitting grumpily in his patch of the weeds:

So I'll leave it up to you guys, does that count or did I officially get skunked?  Either way, Mr. Bullfrog salvaged my day from being a frustrating waste to being able to mess around like a little kid again.  Speaking of, I'll hopefully be taking my future niece out fishing soon, be on the lookout for a report and pics.

Quick Report - Charter Oak North

Had a slight break between working overtime and classes so I went down the local pond and tried to catch a few fish.  It rained most of the morning so I thought it would be pretty murky and I had a dark crankbait tied on. It ended up being the clearest I've ever seen it there but I figured I'd throw it a couple times anyway.

After a few minutes with no bites, I switched to a texas-rigged Gulp!  nightcrawler in chartreuse.  No bites for a couple casts so I snuck up next to a weedbed and slipped the worm over the edge of the weeds and got a hit from this guy:

Not very big, only ten inches but at least I didn't get skunked.  I got an even smaller one a few minutes later and no other bites.  I scared up something HUGE again in the same spot as last week, tossed my worm in that area but couldn't get anything to hit.  I tied on the same buzzbait as last time to try to relive the magic but no takers.

I saw a couple carp (I think) that were at least two and half feet long.  Don't know how they get so big in such a small pond.

I have Finals next week and then my fiance and I are going to Vegas to tie the knot on the 25th so kind of a busy month ahead but hopefully I'll be able to get some more fishing in in early June.  Also, an added bonus of going up to see my mom Sunday is that I will be able to pick up my fly rod.  Look forward to preview of that rod with pictures and a report of a trip to either Banner Marsh or Snakeden Hollow eventually.

Hope everyone has a good weekend,
-Mark