Powerbait- PowerGREAT

This post pains me to write. I've said before that using powerbait is my least favorite way to catch trout. If I had my way trout would only hit flies on either a fly rod or spinning rod with a casting bubble. Catching a trout on flies even in a put and take fishery makes you feel like you caught a wild fish no different than a largemouth or striped bass. Catching a trout on powerbait makes you remember the fish you just caught was in a hatchery living on corn meal and vitamins a couple of weeks ago.

That said, I would rather catch fish than not catch fish. If catching fish means using powerbait, then so be it. Usually I use one rod with powerbait on the bottom and I cast lures with the other rod. Occasionally, the lures will catch more trout than the powerbait, but not often. I will usually start the lure rod with casting bubble/ fly. I will always catch more species with this set up, but usually less trout.

So I am giving credit where it is due ( this is painful) and saying that in general powerbait may be the best trout catching thing out there. This includes live bait such as worms and shiners. The problem with worms is they sit on the bottom. Powerbait floats. If you use the powerbait with an egg sinker and an 18 inch leader, it floats off the bottom and above early spring weeds. This makes it deadly for trout cruising along the bottom. I believe it also easily outfishes shiners for trout. Trout brought up in a hatchery never hunted before, so given the choice of chasing a shiner or eating a pellet that smells a lot like what they are used too, its a no brainer.

The main negative to powerbait is- a trout is almost certainly going to swallow the hook. If you do not plan on keeping ( eating) what you catch it is a terrible idea to use it. Almost every trout I have hooked using powerbait has been gut hooked. If I plan on keeping some fish for the table I will use powerbait. Once I have reached my limit ( 3 trout in Mass, 5 in Rhode Island- although I never keep 5) I put the powerbait rod away. If I still feel like fishing, I will use the lure rod and let go everything else I catch. So I beg you not to use powerbait unless you plan on eating the fish. There is no reason to kill anything if it is only going to waste. No matter if you are holding the rod feeling for a bite or standing next to it, if the trout wants to inhale it, you won't be able to stop it. It may be interesting to experiment with a circle hook, however since most of the hook is covered, it may be a moot point. Can't hurt to try.

There are many types of powerbait out there. There is paste you mold around the hook. There's power eggs, which are molded to the size of salmon eggs. There are also nuggets. These are cylinder shaped baits about 1/2 an inch. For the record, I use the chartreuse power nuggets. I have hits almost every time I use them. I see no need to clutter my box with other flavors/ colors.

An example of how effective the power nuggetts are was this morning. I went down to Falls Pond. As usually I set up one rod with power nuggets. With the other I was using an olive hares ear below my casting bubble. Within one hour I caught three trout on the powerbait. At that point I hadn't a hit on the fly. All three fish were gut hooked so all three will become fish tacos in my near future. I put the three trout in the car and I put the powerbait away. I did not want to go over my limit and kill anymore fish. I kept fishing the fly and was determined to either catch fish with it or strike out swinging. I wasn't changing to a different lure.

After I put the other rod away, fishing got really good on the fly in the next 90 minutes I managed 5 fish. ONLY ONE WAS A TROUT. I caught 3 sunfish a calico bass and one trout about 12 inches long. So I caught more fish on the fly. If specifically fishing for trout however, powerbait won 3-1. and I put it away after an hour. I am sure I would have caught more trout if I didn't put it away.I had a lot more hits on the fly than I caught, the wind picked up. It was a cross breeze so setting the hook was a challenge. I do not think I had any other trout hits. A trout will hit a fly like a rocket, where as a sunfish hits the same as it hits a worm ,it feels like a sharp nibble.

The morale of the story, if you are looking for trout this weekend, put some powerbait on and watch your rod.

Trout Trifecta

Considering yesterday was Easter but it was also beautiful out, I did the logical thing and fished ALL day. I love ham which was for dinner at DJ's grandmother's Easter dinner. I have noticed that when ever I eat salty foods I get massive headaches sometimes leading to migraines ( dehydration? ). Since I have absolutely no will power, if I went to dinner I would have ate at least 1/2 pound of ham and paid the price later. I thought the best decision would be to not go over. I had no idea the weather would be so nice.

I went to Plymouth, MA to investigate some ponds I have never been before. I was mainly looking for trout, but brought my bass gear also. I put the canoe on the car along with electric motor and battery. I also knew I would be driving by the herring run in Bourne, so I brought my surf rod... just in case. I took some shiners ( I have been keeping the ones I bought last week in a fish tank ) in a five gallon bucket. Having waders, trout gear, bass tackle box, and things needed for canoe like lifejacket, seat cushion, battery, motor 4 fishing poles and shiner bucket, there was only room for me. Every other seat in the car was full of gear!

At first the weather was cloudy and foggy. I was pretty happy about this. Unfortunately it was an hour and half ride to Little Pond. By the time I got there, the sky was bright blue without a cloud in it. Since it was so nice out, there were a lot of people fishing this lake. There were at least 4 other boats and 15 groups of people along the shoreline. This is a pretty lake. It is almost entirely surrounded by woods ( Morton Park). There are plenty of " holes " in the woods to get to the shoreline, and ample room to fish at the boat ramp and beach. Long story short, I didn't catch any fish. I fished for a couple hours and put the canoe back on the roof of the car. A guy told me that at dawn the fish were jumping all over the place and he caught 20!!! Frustrating!!!

Literally across the dirt road is the boat ramp for Billington Sea, a bass lake. It was named by a Pilgrim who spotted it from climbing a tall tree. From the top of the tree, he could not tell if it were a lake or part of the sea, hence the name. I thought about fishing there but the wind picked up and even though I was frustrated by my lack of trout, I was not defeated!

I next went to Russell-Sawmill Pond. This is two 4 acre ponds connected by a culvert. They are very shallow and weedy. I have read they produce holdover trout because they are fed by underground springs. They do not look like trout ponds. Pickerel ponds yes, trout no. There is very little room to cast. I found a spot. I tried powerbait on one pole and a Roostertail on the other. Again, no luck

Of everything I have read about trout, the one thing I remember is... if there not biting in one pond go try another. The nice thing about Plymouth is it is loaded with lakes. There are easily 50. Of those 8 are stocked with trout. The not so nice thing abut Plymouth is it is HUGE. The distance between Russell-Sawmill and my next pond was either about 40 miles by taking the highway going back the way I came or 20 miles taking dirt roads. I chose the dirt roads. This was a mistake. I got lost out in the woods. I ended up on some 4 wheel drive dirt roads. You would not believe how far from civilization you can actually get. This is not Wyoming and I was easily 5-6 miles in the woods. I'm not going to lie. The 4 wd roads were fun. My little Hyundai Santa Fe did real good. I almost got stuck a couple times and had to put it in reverse and go down a hill. However, I went to fish not go mudding.

An hour and a half later... I made it to Myles Standish State Forest. It is also huge. 14000 acres. The forest is also loaded with many ponds but only one has trout, Fearings Pond. It was about 4 pm at this time. It started clouding up. Except for the occasional light gust, it was calm and the water was flat. I put on my waders packed my backpack and brought my gear to the water. I tried my fly rod using nymphs. No luck. I love practicing with my fly rod. Usually, I don't really care how many fish I catch with it. I just enjoy working on my casting. However, this was the end of a very long fishless day. I gave up Easter dinner to fish. I wanted to go home with something.

About an hour into fishing, a couple of guys came down to the water. First cast- BOOM! fish. Frustrating! Time for new tactics. I put powerbait on one rod and spinner on my other. I put the fly rod away. The water was pretty shallow ( beach) . I walked out into the water and casted the powerbait as far as I could. I'd walk it back to the beach and set it on a forked stick. I then walked out with the other pole and fish the Roostertail. If you know anything about trout you can see the problem here. Every time I got a bite on the powerbait, it was gone before I could slog my way through the water to set the hook. Finally I made a decision to stay with the powerbait.

I finally started landing fish. I caught a brown trout about a foot long. Ten minutes later a rainbow. I then had a little lull in bites. Fish started hitting flies right near my pole. I got out my fly rod again and put on a dry fly ( adams size 14). I landed a couple fish. They were not trout, but 7 inch sunfish. I didn't mind. Catching anything on the fly rod is fun. After a few minutes of this, it was getting dark and I started packing up. As I was packing, I got another hit. I set the hook on what felt like a real nice fish. I played it carefully and it even took line twice. It was a 14 inch brook trout. It easily went a pound and a half. So there it was 3 trout, 3 species, 1 lake, 1 hour.

So I could classify my day like this. A bad day fishing but a great evening fishing. I did not want to drive home fishless. It would have been painful to do that. I was very happy to catch those fish. That said, I enjoyed the day. I went to three ponds I have never been too. The weather was amazing. It was the first day over 75 degrees all year. I got to go four wheeling ( definately unscheduled ). Also on my ride home I saw 3 deer.

Lastly, I apologize that the only picture of the day is these three fish on the cutting board. By the time I caught them, I had been out 10 hours. I got lazy and just didn't feel like digging the camera out of the pack. The only freshwater gamefish I eat are trout. I let bass go and all other gamefish go. The trout are taken from ponds where they will die by June from the warm water anyway. They were raised in a hatchery. I never keep wild trout. It is just my rule. I tell you this because a picture on a cutting board does not do justice to the fish or the setting I caught them in.

Tonight I will be writing a post about using a casting bubble and fly rig. Unfortunately I lost my last bubble ( actually broke) yesterday. I'm going to the tackle shop tonight to pick up some more.

Something other than Fishing

Last year, while doing my blog, I had a variety of things I wrote about. There was some fishing, a lot of birding, and a few daytrips to historical places. I went to the Bronx Zoo and Concord, MA. This year, you may have noticed, everything that I wrote has been fishing reports. I have done a lot of fishing but not much else.

DJ, Laurie, and myself were going to go camping over April vacation from Thursday until Sunday. Unfortunately, DJ had his track meet moved to Thursday leaving only Friday, Saturday and leave early Sunday morning. We needed to be back early Sunday to be home for Easter dinner. Then the next disappointment today ( Saturday) is a wash out. Camping this week went from something I was looking forward too and turned into an impossibility. We were going to camp down the Cape and do some trout fishing during the mornings, hike in the afternoon, and eat smores at night.

Its not a big deal we didn't go. Since I'm writing this Saturday morning and it is 41 degrees and raining, I am quite sure we made the right decision not to go. The problem was Laurie took Friday off from work to go camping with us. I didn't want her to waste a day off. It would have sucked for her to waste a sick day and not do anything better than rent a movie. So I spent much of Thursday evening trying to think of a plan Friday.

We decided to go to Garden in the Woods in Framingham. I went there last year ( see link )www.southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2010/04/garden-in-woods.html

Last year I went on April 30 and we had an extremely warm spring. Being so cold this spring and going 8 days earlier, there wasn't much hope of to many spring flowers popping up. Still I needed to do something with Laurie so we went. We got there about 10 am and jumped on the guided tour. The price went up to $ 10 a person. Up from $8 last year. There were a few early spring bloomers and a ton of bright green skunk cabbage.

The highlights were not plants. It was actually some animals. We saw a red tail hawk eat a vole about 20 feet from us. It swooped down on the path in front of us as we were walking. We all stopped and waited for it to eat and fly off. There is a lily pond at the garden. In the pond we saw some turtles, frogs, tadpoles, leeches, and frog eggs. It was fun to walk around the pond a couple times and see all the life. Laurie enjoys seeing frogs and turtles so it was a pleasant 1/2 hour.

After we left the garden we stopped at Wendys to plan the rest of the afternoon. Laurie suggested River Bend Farm in Uxbridge. We got the map out and figured out the easiest way from Framingham. It only took about 30 minutes to get there.

River Bend Farm is part of the Blackstone Valley National Heritage Corridor. It is basically a couple paths along the Blackstone Canal. You can walk to the Blackstone River and out to a field. You can fish a small pond and there are tons of picnic tables. It is a cool place. Last year we saw a couple big snakes sunning themselves.

On our walk we saw a bunch of turtles and a couple carp jump. The highlight was a muskrat that swam around the canal. Laurie got some good looks with the binoculars. I've seen so many muskrats this year, I just let Laurie watch it.

Some kids were catching sunfish. They caught quite a few. They fished while the parents watched. The kids were about 6 ( boy) and 9 ( girl). When they caught fish they used a glove to hold the fish to take it off the hook. It was a leather glove. The mother would take the hook out for the younger kid. If the older one caught a fish she would give the glove to the girl. It was ridiculous... tools

The sun came out and felt nice on our backs . It was a relaxing day. We came home and watched " The Kings Speech" I really had no desire to watch it. However it won all the Oscar awards so I wanted to see what the hype was about. I have to admit, Colin Firth deserved an Oscar. It was an impressive performance. So it was not a waste of time.

Little Ol' White Perch

Went fishing in the rain last night for an hour before the Celtics game. I went to Falls Pond in search of a possible trout. I used powerbait on one rod and casting bubble/wooly bugger on the other. I managed a trout on the powerbait. It was about a 13 inch rainbow.On the wooly bugger I caught a yellow perch and a white perch. It goes to show how effective dragging a fly behind a casting bubble can be. I've caught trout, both types of perch, largemouth bass, crappie, and sunfish with this method. It was my first white perch of the year.

Of course catching a 7 inch white perch is nothing to write home about ( or really to write in a blog) but they have a special meaning for me. When I was a kid my family and I went up to Maine every year for two weeks. We rented a cottage on a nine mile long lake. The lake was loaded with white perch. I spent almost every waking hour of those two weeks chasing them. Toddy Pond in Ellsworth, ME was the first place I ever saw/ caught a white perch. Even now when I catch one, it takes me back to that time, even just for a second.

Beach Pond Disappointment

I actually wrote this Sunday night after a disappointing day on the water. Due to the format on blogger, it is easier to use paragraphs when you add a picture. Therefore I added this one to show you my canoe bottom.

I can deal with days when I don't catch any fish. You can't actually " love "fishing if your not capable of dealing with the occasional goose egg. What is MUCH WORSE is driving an hour in each direction. Finding out the lake is windswept, spending twenty dollars in gas, dragging your son along, And this is the best part, getting a leak in your canoe!! That was how my day went today.

I have wanted to fish Beach Pond on the Rhode Island/ Connecticut line since I found out thast Connecticut stocks walleyes there. This was opening day weekend, but the weather the last couple of days has been quite breezy. Also DJ had plans until about 3 pm yesterday afternoon. He decided to give Beach Pond a chance today. We left the house about noon. On our way down we bought some shiners at Quaker Lane.

After a couple other detours we finally reached the pond and shoved off in the canoe about 2 pm. This would have been fine, we had plenty of time to fish before dark. He headed to the far side of the lake because the wind was in our face at the beach. As we were going across the lake we noticed the canoe was taking in water. Its not like we were going to sink and our lives were not in any danger. Still after about 20 minutes we gad enough water in the canoe to make you realize feet would be wet very shortly. So we headed back to the beach and put the canoe back on the car. We fished the Beach area for 1/2 anhour with the wind in our face. We were pretty disapointed and our hearts were not into it.

We then drove down to Carolina Trout Pond in Richmond and gave that a fair shot. The pond is beautiful and on state land. Its enclosed in forest, so it was pretty calm. Unfortunately the fish did not cooperate. We left about 5:15 and had a 50 minute ride back home.

So to wrap up, 20 dollars gas, 9 dollars in shiners, 7 dollars at Wendys ( easily the highlight of the day), very windy lake and to top it off my canoe leaks. I tell all of you this story, not so I can gain your pity. Some days are better than others. Today just fell under the catagory of " others" Hopefully next fishing trip will go a lot better.

I do have to point out this is my old canoe. It had a leak before. I had it patched with tar and material from an old set of waders. I do have another canoe that I got for a great deal a couple years ago. So if you read a blog post in two days about fishing from the canoe, you will know that I'm in the newer one. We like the leaky canoe more because we both feel it is slightly more stable and a little lighter. They are both Colman plastic canoes, but the old one is better. Alas, I think it has seen its last day on the water. It seems conter productive to attemt to patch the canoe while I have a perfectly good one sitting in the backyard.

They Can't all be Giants

I've been fishing Hopping Hill a lot lately. I know there are some fairly large carp in there. I think there may be a few 20 pounders in the lake. I think if I fish my spots often, I have a chance of catching a few. Unfortunately, I don't think any giants are in there. I seriously doubt there are any 25 pounders in the lake. Most fish average about 15-16 pounds. The biggest I've caught was 17 pounds. I do think I had a 20 on the line, but the hook popped out.

Tonight I went to Roger Williams Park in search of a big one. Roger Williams has a lot of lake in the park. There are some mighty big ones in the lakes. Even if I don't get one, at least I know they are in there.

I did catch a carp, but not the giant I imagined. The one I caught was one of the smallest I have ever caught. It went maybe... 3-4 pounds. Oh well, still had fun.

CARP-al Turkey

Last night my friend Amber and I went to one of my favorite out of the way fishing spots. We did not go there to go fishing. The woods surrounding the fishing area is home to a few wild turkeys. Every night around sunset the turkeys fly into the trees to roost for the night. Yes wild turkeys can fly, and yes they do sleep very high up in trees. While we were waiting ( four straight words starting with "w") I threw in some corn, in case I wanted to fish there today.

A few minutes after sunset the turkeys did come in. Three of them roosted very high in the trees. They did not find their perfect spot right away. All three moved into at least two other trees than their original they landed on. Its fun to watch such a big bird flying through tree limbs. Amber got to see her first wild turkeys. She was very excited.

Today, I decided to give the spot a try for carp. I was not disappointed. I landed my biggest carp of the year so far. It was a little over 17 pounds. It was short and fat. Definitely a pregnant female. It took almost ten minutes to get her in. During the mid-fight, there was a period where she would not budge. I was afraid the hook would pop loose and I'd loose it. Luckily, the hook stayed in ,barely, and I landed it. Upon review after pulling the hook out it bent quite a bit. The hook most likely bent because of my pliers, but it does show how much the hook was weakened by such a strong fish.

Picture of seventeen pound carp and hook

Pedestrian Bridge?

Today I fished at Lincoln Woods State Park in Rhode Island. I fished the beach area for trout. To get to the breach from the parking lot you have to cross a bridge. The bridge goes over some marshy area.

On my way to the beach I came across this guy. He was obvously trying to get from one side to the other but took a wrong turn up the bridge. Luckily there was plenty of room to go around him ( her?). It was not aggressive at all. It tucked its head in as I walked by. I have been hissed at by snappers before, but this one had enough on its mind looking for its home.

Many people walk there dogs on the beach during the spring. I'm going to guess that a few may have turned around this afternoon, and found a different place to walk.

Humble Pie

I've had days where I was catching like yesterday, I've had days where I've been the one watching others catch fish while I sat there frustrated. I don't really get cocky and think I'm the greatest fisherman in the world. We all have good days and bad. That said, I had a little fun with yesterdays blog post ( and title). Catching all those fish while everyone watched helplessly, gave me a little pride. I had fun with that in yesterdays post. I freely admit, and knew even while I was writing, I wrote with a little " swagger or cockyness". I knew that the tables could turn very quickly, but I figured I'd enjoy my success yesterday.

Well... things changed today, I got my but out of bed at 5:45 and was fishing by 6:15. I told DJ I could limit out in 1/2 an hour. You can guess that the gods heard that and let me know I was not one of them. After three hours fishing, I had 3 hits and nothing to show for it. Not only did I have a fishless morning, but with cold hands I managed to loose two flies into the trees. I tried all my flies with a casting bubble and most of my lures, powerbait and meal worms.Nothing!! I can say the other suckers that got out of bed as early as me did almost as bad. I only saw 3 trout caught, by about 7 other anglers. The fish were splashing and seemed to be aggressive, yet they were educated very quickly from yesterdays heavy fishing pressure.

Other than being tired, I still enjoyed my morning. I didn't catch any fish, but they were there. Its why we call it fishing and not catching. It was a pretty morning on a pretty pond. I wish I caught fish, but I don't worry about getting skunked once in a while. I knew I was eating fish tacos for lunch, fish or no fish.

Did I learn my lesson... not really, you need confidence to catch fish. If you don't have confidence in your fishing, whether lure choice, location, or in your abilities, your not going to do as well. However, I did not need to eat breakfast when I got home, I was spoonfed humble pie for three hours!!!

See any fish in this picture? Kind of like my morning

Free Clinic on how to catch opening day trout!!!

Today April 9 was opening day for trout fishing in Rhode Island. I normally avoid crowds, but I thought today I would go out with the expected 20,000 Rhode Island fishermen and see if I could catch some trout. There is a little pond just across the Rhode Island border that I knew had trout, but I had never fished it.

After DJ got out of track practice, we put the canoe on the roof of the car, loaded it up with gear and went out.

Once we got the canoe in the water, we realized it was a waste of time almost instantly. The water was so shallow ( maybe 2 1/2 foot average ) that we could have waded across the the whole pond. It was a bright day so I was nervous the trout would not be very aggressive in shallow water. Unfortunately I was right. I saw one fish caught during the two hours we were in the canoe.

I kept seeing fish jump near the parking area ( near the dam) I casted over there with my casting bubble and got one hit. The problem was this was the shoreline everyone else was fishing. I didn't want to get to close and invade the shore guys personal space. I did after all have the whole pond ( they didn't know it was only a foot deep in a lot of places). Finally after going fishless in the canoe, we put it on the car.

I knew there were trout by the parking area. After going fishless for 2 hours I bet DJ I could catch a trout within five minutes fishing from shore. I walked over to the shoreline not even 25 feet from the car. I casted out my bubble and on the business end for a fly I used a pheasant tail. It was either a size 12 or 14, it definitely wasn't tiny. Within a cast or two I had a hit, but I missed it. It always seems like the first fish is the hardest to get. Then a cast after that another hit, but this one stayed on. After a short fight, I reeled in a foot long rainbow. Then another, then another.

In the period of 45 minutes, I managed to land 6 fish. Four rainbows and two browns. On top of that I had at least 4 other fish on and 5 more hits. In that 45 minute period I easily had 15 bites. It almost became embarrassing because I was the only person catching fish. In the first two hours I fished, I saw one fish caught. During my 45 minute magical run, no one else even had a bite. There were10 other people just watching me. I felt like I was a fishing tv show and I had an audience. It was fun for me, but I have been on the watching end before and that sucks. I kept 3 fish, and gave one away to a family with a 5 year old kid. I told the father I'd give him the fish but I was letting the rest go if I caught any more. I did, but he was grateful for the one I gave him.

I'm not sure how big my biggest was, but the biggest I kept was 14 inches. The brown that I kept was 12 inches.

The picture here is of the main ingredient of my soon to be famous-- fish tacos.

River Monsters

Ok, I hate reality shows. I never watched one episode of Survivor or Idol. I generally despise them. However for the first time in my life, I like one.

River Monsters with Jeremy Wade on Animal Planet is a good show. Jeremy goes around the world in search of freshwater fish that can kill or do serious harm to humans. He is a biologist and a fisherman. He spends most of the show explaining theories on if and how a fish species can kill or hurt a human. You do have to sit through the whole show to see him catch " the big one" It can be a bit slow, especially with all the commercials.

Luckily, on Netflix I can watch seasons 1 and 2 on " Watch Instantly" so I can watch a one hour show in 45 minutes. I have just begun watching it. The weather is to nice out during the day to watch tv, so I've been watching episodes during supper. Also at night we will put the Celtics game on mute and watch River Monsters on the computer. Season 3 starts this Sunday, so I may watch it

Changing tactics leads to a good day Fishing

A quote from an old St Croix catalog "There is nothing more annoying than good weather"

Although I have been complaining about the north wind for a couple weeks, you will never here me complain about rainy days. Rainy days mean my favorite spots will be quite lonesome ( in a good way) places to fish. Today in little old North Attleboro, MA it was a rainy day. Although the temperature barely hit 49 degrees, dressed properly, it wasn't to bad. Trout fishing was slow today. The fish were around but they were not particularly aggressive.

I started with the brown Roostertail from a couple days ago on one pole and powerbait nuggets on the other. I didn't have any luck on the Roostertail, so I switched it up with a casting bubble and and a fly ( wooly bugger). Within minutes I caught a 14 inch rainbow. I also managed to catch a 7 inch yellow perch. Both fish were caught within 10 minutes. An important note to the story, the wooly bugger that I caught the trout on was a fly that made myself. This is the first fish I've ever caught on a fly that I made not bought. After that I couldn't buy a bite with the set up. The wind picked up and the water got a little rough. I guessed that with the rough water the trout could not find the fly. So, I switched back to the spinner and picked up another 14 incher.

So you ask, what about the rod with powerbait. well I'm glad you asked. I got 5 hits on that rod. Unfortunately, the trout did not hold on long enough for me to catch them. Twice I was next to the rod when I got a hit. Both times the fish just hit the nugget and bolted without taking it. I have a suprise for the trout next time they do this. I bought some mealworms at the pet store tonight. I am going to tip the hook with them. I doubt any trout will be able to resist a struggling mealworm and nugget. I hope my theory is correct. Only time will tell.

Curse you! Oh North Wind! Cold Weather Leads to Inconsistant Fishing

I've fished a lot this week. The fishing has been spotty at best. Because it is so dam cold for this time of year, the fishing has been very inconsistent. I've tried trout fishing and carp fishing a couple times both Friday and today. All I've had to show for it is this 12 pound carp caught this afternoon. I tried to catch a trout in both the morning and this evening. I never got a hit. I tried EVERYTHING in my box.

The problem is other than today ( when the wind was west) we have had cold north wind blowing in from Canada everyday since March 18. Like I needed to tell anyone that lives here that! On top of chilly days we are having some cold ass nights along with our fun snowstorm Thursday night. The lakes and ponds can't warm up to a seasonable temperature. I really can't wait to see a string of 60 degree days.

Sorry about the picture. It is obviously over-exposed. I had the sun at my front, but the water behind me was so bright, the pic came out looking like this. I let the fish go after I snapped the shot, but before I looked at the result. Also with only a 10 second delay on self portrait mode and trying to lift a slimy 12 pound fish, I am realizing I make weird faces.