Hard Water Winter

Lake Nockamixon, fully frozen across

I didn't post over the winter months at all but that doesn't mean I wasn't fishing.  I experienced ice fishing for the first time this winter and enjoyed it immensely.  I was lucky enough to go out several times close to home and also to take an extended weekend trip up into the northern portions of the state. 

3lb Bass through the ice on a tipup

There is something incredibly awesome about standing in the middle of a lake, such as Nockamixon or Wallenpaupack, and having access to portions of the water that would normally be out of my reach from the shore.  Being that this is BC Bank Fishing, ice fishing might not sound like it fits but in reality it probably fits the bill more than anything since hard water fishing is like having one big bank. 

Each trip out we ended up catching something and had a great time even if they weren't trophy fish.  From our various trips we caught Bass, Perch, Pickeral, Blue Gills, and Crappies.  I pulled one particularly large Bass out through the ice, caught on a minnow below a tip-up.  The thrill of seeing a flag fly and running across the ice, seeing the spool just bleeding out line, and having to set the hook and hand line it in, is almost indescribable.

If you haven't tried it and get the chance, don't pass it up.

Smallest one of the day

Opening Day

Showing off for the wife
(She loves it when I take fishing gear selfies)

This past Saturday was opening day of trout for my area and my brother in law and I decided to try our luck.  Of course, the weeks prior were spent in youthful anticipation and a flurry of new equipment purchases.  I ended up with a new set of waders since my old ones were mysteriously getting smaller, I know I'm not getting fatter so it has to be they are getting smaller, right?

Also, I was fortunate enough to had been given a gift card to Bass Pro shops and was in dire need of a new light action rod so I bought a Pflueger Trion spinning combo, which performed marvelously.  As a side note, I have to take the time to say that due to an issue with ordering over the website and a delivery charge problem I had to get in touch with the Bass Pro Shop customer service department and they were fantastic.  Without the boring details I can say that they not only resolved the issued within minutes but were pleasant and apologetic through the whole thing.  All in all, a good experience, and it didn't delay my rod from coming which was the most important part.

 Morning of opening day I met my brother in law for breakfast at 6:30 and then traveled to a super secret hole off of Branch road on the Perkiomen that only myself and about everyone else knows about.  Once there we hunkered down to wait with the other 20+ anglers for the eight o'clock start time.  One person decided they were the official time keeper and set a countdown that he chimed out within the last 30 seconds, counting down to zero, where upon all rods were cast into the same 10 foot circle.  Within 5 seconds three different people were pulling out the first catches of the day, all three within the 11 to 13 inch range.  At the start, the collective group averaged about one trout per every two minutes.  In a sport where you can sit for hours on end and catch nothing, watching someone pull something out every two minutes made it seem fast and furious.  I myself caught a moderate 12 inch rainbow within my first two casts.  Being waist deep at this point and having forgotten my net in my trunk I decided to preform the "walk and reel" technique, trying to keep the fish hooked while slowly making my way, walking backwards, toward the bank where my stringer was tied.  Being the expert angler that I am, I soon had my first catch of the day attached to my stringer and back in the water.

After retaking my place and casting a few more times I got hit again and I could tell it was larger than the previous trout.  Doing my backwards reeling trout dance I made it all the way to the waters edge, catching my first glimpse of the ~17 inch rainbow that I had at the other end of my line.  My heart quickened as I reached down to retrieve this masterpiece of fish when it proceeds to give a last ditch effort head shake and is rewarded by breaking my line at the hook and sending a splash of water into my face for good measure.  I stared at the water for a few seconds before I decided it was my brother in laws fault for not netting my fish while I was standing there next to him.  I mean it couldn't be my fault for forgetting my net in my car or anything.  I tell him as much as I return to my spot and demand he allow me to use his net for my next catch, whenever that would be.  Luckily I didn't have to wait long and ended up with another trout of moderate size, about the same as the first.  I was careful this time and my companion graciously deigned to allow me use of his net which led to my second catch of the day laying next to the first on my stringer.

The entire experience lasted about 30 minutes before there was a lull and then a drought.  The rest of the time was spent casting and then untangling our lines from the other anglers while no one really caught any more.  People started packing up after about another hour of this and we decided to get going about a half hour after that.  I grabbed my stringer with my two and called it a day.  They weren't the largest two trout ever seen but they cleaned well and tasted great.

Pre Clean

Pre Eaten

Interesting Differences

Sun rise, morning of...

So I had an interesting experience recently at one of my normal stomping grounds, above the spillway at Lake Nockamixon.  I was enjoying myself, fishing away, watching the sun come up, when I noticed a few pheasant hunters walking through the knee high brush less than 50 yards from me, across a small expanse of water.  We were on the same side of the lake but there is a little bay-like area that was between us.  They were walking back and forth, not necessarily along the waters edge but definitely following its lines for a good 20 minutes while I stood watching, and fishing.  They had fired off a few shots at targets unseen by me and I couldn't tell if they had hit anything or not, and though it did seem like they were shooting a bit more than needed I'm not a hunter so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and mentally congratulated them on their prowess.  I guess they eventually decided to try another area because they started walking back the way they had first come which happened to be directly in front of where I had been, still fishing, since they first appeared.

This is where things could have escalated from the mediocre retelling that it is to a 6 o'clock news headline.  A pheasant decided it was time to reveal itself and flew out of the brush to my right, which happened to be almost directly in front of the hunters.  Apparently pheasants are the devil because this one found it a good idea to fly directly between the hunters and myself.  Furthermore one of the hunters thought it would be a great idea to swing around as fast as can be and shoot at this pheasant that was now flying over the open water.  As all of this was happening I was preforming my "hit the deck" move that I learned from every action movie ever as a viable bullet dodger.  Lying in the dirt, feeling the bark and leaves rain down upon my head, I glanced up and watched as the pheasant calmly flew away.  So much for hunting prowess.  After an expletive along the lines of "Holy Sh!t, I'm fishing here." and regaining my feet in front of the dumbfounded looking faces that greeted me, the almost loss of my head was consoled by the shooter saying "Sorry, I didn't see you there."  I didn't really know how to respond and I guess the hunter knew there wasn't much I could say to that because he followed up with, "Well, your on state game land and your not wearing orange."

Here is the interesting difference mentioned in the title.  According to his logic it would seem he believes it to be my fault that he shot a me while I, after my initial outburst, was just happy that my tackle wasn't now collateral damage.  I am not certain if this assaulting gentleman hunter is also a fellow angler or not but I don't know if that argument would have held up if the end result of our encounter wasn't just dirt on my pants and leaves in my hair.  Not to mention that I don't need to wear orange while fishing.  Nor was I sneaking through the woods, nor camouflaged, nor a pheasant.  I guess I would have chalked this whole situation up to great luck on my part if this arguably poor hunter would have shown a bit more concern or maybe was slightly more apologetic.  Instead I got a gruffly mumbled, "Sorry, I would never shoot in someones direction." and his buddy dragging him off.  I guess "never" came pretty quick.

I did catch a large bluegill on my next cast, so I got that going for me...

New Galena Nights!

Had to post this, nice 2.5lb bass off the fishing pier on the south side of New Galena, hit on a Heddon Tiny Torpedo.  Explosive hit with lots of fight, I had the dilemma of landing it over the three foot rail that surrounds the pier.  Got it in though and got this shot before release.

The Yearly

Every year I take a trip with a few other people outside of our normal stomping ground for a few days of fishing new waters.  Last year I was lucky enough to be offered the use of two separate houses in the same area near Lake Wallenpaupak on the same set of days.  This provided me with the options of different bodies of water to explore in an under 30 minute drive from each other with houses at both locations.

(Runoff where we caught all our fish)

There were six of us going, four staying at one house and two of us staying at another.  Myself and my buddy Rob started out at Lake Adventure which is a gated community around a small man made basin with a little runoff.  The little lake holds panfish in the Bluegill and Perch variety and also Pickerel and Large Mouth Bass.  The arsenal of the morning was topwater lures and shallow running crankbaits.  During the four hour stretch of morning that we fished we successfully caught and landed several LMB, Pickerels, and a Perch.

(Very brazen)

We got to share this time with another fishing buddy, probably more interested in our catches than we were.  As you can see he would come right up and hang out, watching us reel in whatever we caught and then squawk at us in hopeful enthusiasm, trying to convince us that he probably deserved whatever was on the other end of the line.


Here is our haul for the first day.  Nothing huge or groundbreaking but it was a lot of fun waiting for the explosive hit as a LMB took one of the topwater lures.  If you have never experienced it for yourself then you are missing out.  It is definitely one of the more exhilarating ways to fish, so much in fact that many anglers who attempt it for the first time miss the hook set due to pulling back before the fish properly has the lure.
 


The second day started out overcast and very windy and the lake wasn't producing like it was the day before.  We ended up calling the other half of our group who informed us they had been killing it in a little unnamed pond a short walk through the woods from the house they were staying in.  We immediately packed up and drove over with only a short stop off at a local bait and tackle shop where we got some medium and medium large minnows.  We reached their house a little after 3 and immediately set off through the woods.  We came to a pond choked with lilly pads and though fishable surface area was small it held promise of being a great fish hideout.

After a rough start where nothing was biting, probably just the time of day, the fish finally put the feed bag back on and we started getting hit on our minnows we grabbed on the way.  We were hooking them through the back, no weights, running a bobber about a foot up and just letting them swim around.  I ended up flipping my little rig into a small half circle of pads and let it sit.  I didn't have to wait long though and before I knew it I was reeling in what I thought was an aggressive Large Mouth.  Pulling up though I found a serving plate sized crappie that weighed out at just over 2 pounds.  Flipping the same rig into the same are produced another 2lb crappie, 3 LMB in the range of 2 to 3 pounds and a Pickerel that decided to bite right through the glove I had on.  It actually ended up being a fantastic evening.  In all the fun, my hair got a little crazy, please excuse the do.
 

Pay it Forward

As a father of three, all boys, I take it upon myself to try and instill my children with the values needed to survive to adulthood.  And what better teaching method is there than Fishing.  Fishing teaches all sorts of things ranging from patience and persistence to the joys of success and the humility of defeat.

With this in mind, I woke up early on a Sunday morning, packed my coffee and my middle son, who was the only one interested in waking up with me, and drove to a section of the Perkiomen Creek in Sellersville where I had gotten a tip on decent size trout to be had.

Upon arrival and quietly walking to the streams edge I found the hot tip accurate as there was somewhere around 15 to 20 decent size trout lined up, pretty as can be, just waiting to take our bait.  Standing there with my boy next to me, the sun rising over the trees, and the trout silently calling out to my anglers soul, I felt connected, a part of something larger.  I'll admit, I was having a moment.  A moment my son showed his reverence for by delicately asking me, "Hey, are we gonna fish?" Yes, yes we are.

(Sorry I didn't get a pic of the exact one)

Six hours later of what I like to refer to as lessons in patience and persistence and after going through everything I have in my tackle box I finally got a glimmer of hope.  At this point, my son had moved from youthful hope and enthusiasm to asking which cast will be my last.  I was tying on anything I could think of, hoping to salvage the situation, and had progressed to a Rat-L Trap, much like the one shown.  I had been attempting to coax out a particularly shy rainbow in the range of about 15 inches that had holed up under a rock and would show interest in everything I put past but not enough to commit.  Two casts after tying on the Rat-L the rainbow hits, my heart starts to race and the catch is on.  Reeling in I feel a sense of relief that we aren't getting the skunk and my son won't come away from this experience feeling like fishing is a huge waste of time and dad is weird.  With the boy looking on I reel in the last few feet of line before I have to land her and then the unthinkable happens, she throws the hook and I watch as she smugly swims away.

My crushing defeat that can only be termed as emotional highway robbery is assuaged slightly by my son picking up his rod again and saying, "You almost had him, can I try again?"  After choosing a lure from my box because he "liked the colors" and casting a few times, this happens...

(He didn't want to touch it)

A 13.5 inch rainbow and all smiles.  We called it quits about 5 minutes later, at least one of us got something.