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.