fall update

I've no excuse, I've been a bad blogger.  One of the things I pride myself on, is being outside and away from convenience of the computer.  Do I wish I'd have had one as  kid, no way!  But as an adult, they are a necessary evil.  Ya Ya I know, without one there would be no blog, no this no that, or means of communicating or sending your message or promoting your deal.  I recognise the importance but am guilty of ignoring it anyway.  perhaps there's something more to that, either way, I have been fishing, I mean fishing!  In the northwoods, flyrods, big gear, big fish, full blown mixed martial angling.  

I for one am really sad to see the trout season end.  It was truly a great season for myself and some very wonderful clients along the way as well.  I guided more on the stream than ever this year, that was a catalyst to spending more solo time or with wha or fred.  We got pretty dialed in if I might say, and were able to stay on big fish pretty much all summer long. I was lucky enough to have a trip the last day of the season with a couple from Maiden Rock, we caught a few trout and planted a seed for next season.

What's this mixed martial angling BS he's got going anyway you ask?  Well it goes like this.  The crew I "train" with are some of the best anglers in all disciplines going.  This exposure to high level angling puts a guy in a pretty good spot to be able to fish anywhere, anytime, for anything...cep't for widemouth bass that is, ahh maybe with a flyrod.  These dudes, guys like Ben Fuego,  B-rad, dude hale, eddy philpot, fred sparling, whahoo, fritzy, this list goes on but suffice it to say these are the best local anglers at what they do well, which is for a good plenty of them, everything.  So we tie it all together, fly gear, big tackle, light tackle all done well.  When visiting anglers talk about "picking the brain of the locals", we are the damn locals.  So that's it, combined with the sheer volume of opportunity in this area we live that makes us want to do it all.  One might say, it's hard to do it all and be proficient, more yet to be good at it all.  Here's how I go about it.  I pick my tool, based on season and the best opportunity at hand, generally involving the big fish of the desired species.  It provides the chance for change, new techniques, learned skills and time on the water with good anglers and friends. We've got this crazy idea for a mixed martial angling world championships, more later on that.

Last weekend, I was up on Spider Lake with Brad and a crew of family, friends and clients.  An amazing weekend of muskie fishing hosted at the Spider Lake Lodge, thanks to Brad and Jen for the hard work and out of this world food.  We had some great clients and with some hard work and luck, everyone got a muskie, even you Jim....This New Yorker busted his ass on saturday, got schooled by a couple nice fish but was redeemed on sunday, thanks for the entertaining boat ride, hope to do it again.

I'll say this, I have been all over the sturgeon fishing this fall.  So far on the season the boat's at 73 or so, give or take.  Good numbers but even better big fish average and giant fish landed!  For me, I've got 4 legals. two at 50", one at 54.5" and one just a hair short of 60", by far my biggest fresh water fish landed, had to be in the 60# range.  Not only my success mind you, but at least 4 clients with their biggest fish ever and Ben Fuego's freakish 55.5".  I'm going out tomorrow as well, for my last shot at targeting them this fall, the season is way too short.  The DNR should just put a no kill limit on them, allow catch and release for a longer period of time.  They are amazing fish, brute strength and stamina that shames any fish of comparable size.  

Ben was up for the weekend and we put in a marathon, about 40 hours over four days fishing. The tally for the weekend (including ingy's fish and the kids I took sunday afternoon) was 32, for a total of 1300 or so inches, average length of 41" and an estimated weight of over 400lbs. My arms were sore from reeling in big fish, how can you not like this? Seriously?  The pictures say it all.

enjoy the fall.

        

images to warm your heart

Here's to a face only a mother could love, or anyone who loves to catch big fish......

arrrgghh

OK.....so my computer got rendered useless by a virus and I've been delinquent in getting it repaired, so here's my long lost update...There's been a lot of fishing going on and I'll do my best to remember it all...

Wednesday night Fishing Club:  pretty much since spring my Bro's Whahoo, Fred aka "creek warrior" and I have been meeting every wednesday evening on a piece of local trout water to enjoy the fishing, a couple beers and get out of the house on a consistent night.  It's been good for me as it's kept me in touch with what's happening on the river over the course of the entire summer.  The fishing has remained quite good, we've been surprised by the life on the river during the warmer parts of the normal midsummer fishing lull.  Most importantly to me,  I think the guy's would agree, is the time shared with good friends doing what we love to do on a regular basis.  For me, fishing and being on the water is my spiritual endeavor, it's where I find the time to process the greater decisions of life, fine tune my connection with nature and balance out all of the flotsam and jetsam that flows at us from all directions down the river of life... sounds cheesy perhaps, but only to those who don't take the time to slow down a little and feel the flow of the water.

I've been back to Lake Michigan since my last post.  The fishing overall was kinda lousy, by our standards anyway.  We struggled to find fish in the usual depths and situations and had to completely retool our delivery after the first evening out. The deal was this, consistent east winds had been blowing in the warm water from the Michigan side, therefore forcing us to fish depths we were not quite prepared for at this time of the year.  Ideally we'd have been fishing 50 to 100 FOW, but conditions forced us out to 150 to 175 and our rigging was just not suited to working this strata.  That said, we still found fish and as it seemed, did as good or better than any of the charters running 15 lines.  Weird thing was, no 3 year old fish. they were either 18 lbs or 8...one coho as well which is a rarity for us in T'rivers.  We decided that next year we'll do an extended late june trip of 4-5 days to take advantage of the strong mid depth King bite as well as the plentiful Steelhead which always help out in filling the bag limit.  

Muskies are still on a tear in the River.  I get almost daily reports from the river rats on big fish and lots and lots of quality 40 to 48" fish.  As for myself, the boat has been spending alot of time in the garage and in fact I noticed and had to fix a flat on the trailer this fine morning... All that changes tomorrow as I'll be heading out for the morning, all this muskie talk has me feeling a bit out of the loop and I need to be the one making the calls of good luck as opposed to always getting them.  

Yesterday we had an epic float down the upper Apple.  Brad came down with the drift boat and he, Whahoo and I floated about 15 miles above Star Prairie Wi.  Rivers like the apple are the epitome of under fished and overlooked for freshwater angling, and it shows in the care given to the river, lack of access and overall availability of opportunity...Rest assured it's there, all a fella needs to do is get out with the proper craft and gear and explore.  We've been talking about doing this section for some time and now we have.  All in all it was a wonderful float but the amount of fishing water was limited overall.  Smallies were plentiful as were the pike in areas with wood and depth, but the endless sand flats made the good habitat hard to find.  In that stretch we found 2 good areas, separated by about 6 miles.  Brad did most of the oar work, supplemented with ample amounts of the Dr's Cherry Schnapps. We did contact a few muskies, got maybe a dozen smallies, or should I say Whahoo did as i could not buy a fish to save my life.   There's enough there to get me back in the fall, roll through with the Kayak and wade fish the good water.   

There's much more to report and I'll do so tomorrow or saturday, getting the computer back and I've got gobs of great images to add as well....

get the hell out there and fish!