Monday, May 19, 2014
Another round of jig making... SWM jigs
So Jason gave me some hooks for my bday last month and I've now gotten started on turning them into something to take out on the water. Nothing really new this time other then some of the color combos and that these are larger then I'd cast before with this mold and the intended hooks made for the mold. I had cast some on wire before though of these sizes and made spinners out of them. So here's the initial picture of them. Note I've not yet painted the eyes on them or put the top coat over the eyes.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
May 15th Trip to Willard in the Tubes
So as our opening trip of the year on the tubes Jason and I picked Willard Bay to see if we could get in on some of the action others had been reporting. We got up there and setup and on the water just before 7am at the south marina. We had been planning on the north marina but a bit of intel suggested south might offer some good activity. I still consider myself a novice when it comes to Willard so any guidance I can get is more then welcome.
Weather was looking great and the water was calm and glassy. So we kicked out and started to pitch plastics as we worked out into the channel before heading out to the main lake. We didn't get any response to the plastics nor to the cat rigs we were dragging as well while we moved out. Water is lower then my previous trips and temps were in the mid 50's at launch. Once on the main lake we got a surprise look at the number of boats that were out there. For a Thursday there sure were a lot of people that SHOULD have been at work... Nobody really every bothered us, nor did they really get near us (though maybe they knew something we didn't). We moved down the shoreline toward the feed lots. We had to stay pretty far out from the shore line to get into a depth greater then about 8'.
I was a bit further down the shoreline on the way to the feed lot when I managed the first fish of the day for use, a nice cat. Never measured it but it looked close to 20" long.
Not that much later Jason landed the first wiper. I was a bit off so the picture leaves a lot to be desired.
We had a breeze come up just enough to put a light ripple on the water but things stayed pretty darn mellow for the day.
Some time just before noon we started to head back toward the marina. Jason had 2 wipers in his basket at this time and I still just had the 1 cat. While approaching the marina Jason brought in his 3rd wiper to fill his limit. He then tried to focus on adding a cat to his basket. I was able to add my first wiper to my basket a bit later.
We ended up drifting down past the marina seeing if we would get anything more as we approached 2pm and when nothing much more happened we headed back in. While cleaning up a fellow fisherman stopped over to see how our day had gone and reported that he had dome quite well trolling over on the west side and south side of the lake. He noted that the crappie were out along the south end too. Some food for thought for a future trip but it also fit with where we saw all the boats too. Where we went didn't seem to attract many people and maybe for good reasons. This also got me thinking about a map I saw posted that gives some details of the bay: Willard Bay Map
Well that's it for now. Was a very nice day to be out for sure. BTW Water temps got up to the low 60's before we got off the water.
Weather was looking great and the water was calm and glassy. So we kicked out and started to pitch plastics as we worked out into the channel before heading out to the main lake. We didn't get any response to the plastics nor to the cat rigs we were dragging as well while we moved out. Water is lower then my previous trips and temps were in the mid 50's at launch. Once on the main lake we got a surprise look at the number of boats that were out there. For a Thursday there sure were a lot of people that SHOULD have been at work... Nobody really every bothered us, nor did they really get near us (though maybe they knew something we didn't). We moved down the shoreline toward the feed lots. We had to stay pretty far out from the shore line to get into a depth greater then about 8'.
I was a bit further down the shoreline on the way to the feed lot when I managed the first fish of the day for use, a nice cat. Never measured it but it looked close to 20" long.
Not that much later Jason landed the first wiper. I was a bit off so the picture leaves a lot to be desired.
We had a breeze come up just enough to put a light ripple on the water but things stayed pretty darn mellow for the day.
Some time just before noon we started to head back toward the marina. Jason had 2 wipers in his basket at this time and I still just had the 1 cat. While approaching the marina Jason brought in his 3rd wiper to fill his limit. He then tried to focus on adding a cat to his basket. I was able to add my first wiper to my basket a bit later.
We ended up drifting down past the marina seeing if we would get anything more as we approached 2pm and when nothing much more happened we headed back in. While cleaning up a fellow fisherman stopped over to see how our day had gone and reported that he had dome quite well trolling over on the west side and south side of the lake. He noted that the crappie were out along the south end too. Some food for thought for a future trip but it also fit with where we saw all the boats too. Where we went didn't seem to attract many people and maybe for good reasons. This also got me thinking about a map I saw posted that gives some details of the bay: Willard Bay Map
Well that's it for now. Was a very nice day to be out for sure. BTW Water temps got up to the low 60's before we got off the water.
Ice Fishing Strawberry April 12th 2014 (Mud Creek)
(Again a month late...)
So having been watching the forums on BFT it was clear that the ice on strawberry was still solid enough for a last ice trip of the year. From the details other reports had shared it seemed that the easy to access spots had had enough pressure that people suggested looking elsewhere. So I got it in my mind that the mouth of the mud creek arm might be enough out of the way to not be where the masses had been. What I didn't know is if walking from the gate for mud creek (gate is as close a vehicle could get) or the marina would be the better pick to start from. I choose poorly....
It was a beautiful day weather was wonderful, maybe a bit too wonderful. As we walked down from the mud creek gate we noted that the snow on the dirt road was solid enough and then the ice seemed also more then solid. Reports said ice was about 30" deep and that matched what we say. The ice had a set of interesting layers to it through such that the top 6" or so was a mix of hard and less hard layers before you hit the solid base that was solid till you broke through. Well (being that it's been a month since we went) I'll spare a play by play as I couldn't retell it well enough now to do things right and simply say that Jason out fished my skunk of a day but we both came home with a limit and then some of UV rays and more then our fair share of physical activity. Before I explain that I'll throw in the token pictures:
So here is the short of the story... Fishing was slow and we moved around some trying to find the fish. We marked some and had a few missed bites but Jason landed all that we caught. I should point out that we drilled at least a couple dozen holes with the hand auger and I was very impressed at how well it did with the depth of the ice and how easy it was to cut. As the day went on the wonderful weather started to soften the top of the ice. This resulted in the edges near where we were softening up to the point you would, much to Jason's pleasure and joy, break through as you tried to get on dry land... So we packed up and started back. Now is where the poor choice for the day started to reveal itself... Those top 6" of ice layers I spoke of were now soft. They were now only firm enough to tease you with every step that they MIGHT just hold you this step before you would punch through to the hard base below them. This was like walking on a stepping machine the whole way across the ice. Well we made it to the mud creek boat launch where we would walk the snow covered road back up from there. At least here we didn't break through the ice near the shore.
Now if the stepper machine walk across the ice wasn't bade enough we now learned very clearly that the dirt road did not just have 6-10" of snow on it as I had wondered on the walk down... No, it was knee to hip deep the whole way and now the snow followed the example of the ice and taunted us the whole way to the vehicle... And it was a long way that took way to long to get back. Lets just say that lots of create ideas were thought up, tested and marked as failure as we attempted to make our way to the vehicle. There were no easy tricks or ways around it... It stunk worse then the smell I had coming off the ice without a fish to show for the day.
Well we made it... Eventually. We did drive over afterwards to the main marina and looked at where we could have parked there and walked to the same spot and thought very clearly that that would have been a better pick. Next time, which will be next year at the earliest... :)
So having been watching the forums on BFT it was clear that the ice on strawberry was still solid enough for a last ice trip of the year. From the details other reports had shared it seemed that the easy to access spots had had enough pressure that people suggested looking elsewhere. So I got it in my mind that the mouth of the mud creek arm might be enough out of the way to not be where the masses had been. What I didn't know is if walking from the gate for mud creek (gate is as close a vehicle could get) or the marina would be the better pick to start from. I choose poorly....
It was a beautiful day weather was wonderful, maybe a bit too wonderful. As we walked down from the mud creek gate we noted that the snow on the dirt road was solid enough and then the ice seemed also more then solid. Reports said ice was about 30" deep and that matched what we say. The ice had a set of interesting layers to it through such that the top 6" or so was a mix of hard and less hard layers before you hit the solid base that was solid till you broke through. Well (being that it's been a month since we went) I'll spare a play by play as I couldn't retell it well enough now to do things right and simply say that Jason out fished my skunk of a day but we both came home with a limit and then some of UV rays and more then our fair share of physical activity. Before I explain that I'll throw in the token pictures:
So here is the short of the story... Fishing was slow and we moved around some trying to find the fish. We marked some and had a few missed bites but Jason landed all that we caught. I should point out that we drilled at least a couple dozen holes with the hand auger and I was very impressed at how well it did with the depth of the ice and how easy it was to cut. As the day went on the wonderful weather started to soften the top of the ice. This resulted in the edges near where we were softening up to the point you would, much to Jason's pleasure and joy, break through as you tried to get on dry land... So we packed up and started back. Now is where the poor choice for the day started to reveal itself... Those top 6" of ice layers I spoke of were now soft. They were now only firm enough to tease you with every step that they MIGHT just hold you this step before you would punch through to the hard base below them. This was like walking on a stepping machine the whole way across the ice. Well we made it to the mud creek boat launch where we would walk the snow covered road back up from there. At least here we didn't break through the ice near the shore.
Now if the stepper machine walk across the ice wasn't bade enough we now learned very clearly that the dirt road did not just have 6-10" of snow on it as I had wondered on the walk down... No, it was knee to hip deep the whole way and now the snow followed the example of the ice and taunted us the whole way to the vehicle... And it was a long way that took way to long to get back. Lets just say that lots of create ideas were thought up, tested and marked as failure as we attempted to make our way to the vehicle. There were no easy tricks or ways around it... It stunk worse then the smell I had coming off the ice without a fish to show for the day.
Well we made it... Eventually. We did drive over afterwards to the main marina and looked at where we could have parked there and walked to the same spot and thought very clearly that that would have been a better pick. Next time, which will be next year at the earliest... :)
Maribou 4-8-2014
(yes this is over a month overdue...)
So since starting to cast my own jigs (even before then) I've been a bit interested in Maribou jigs for their movement characteristics while in water, specifically for a vertical jig presentation. TubeDude (Pat) has shown me (and sold some to me for my Dad) some of his offerings that use Maribou along with Flashibou accents. They have just stuck in my mind as something really nice (though that qualifies for most of what TubeDude has shown me... ;))
Anyway I kind of got moving on this at Christmas time where I put a Fly Tying kit that was on sale from Cablelas on a wish list and then later found it under the tree. This got me the base tools but I did not yet step down the path of materials as I had some questions. To start with I got a good case of pre-buyers remorse worrying that Maribou was maybe not the material to pick but a synthetic might be better. I got hung up on wondering about costs, durability of color, durability of material, ease of use, etc... Anyway I sent a few notes off to TubeDude and Barlows asking opinions and got some solid responses back, including an open invite to head over to Pat's for a sit down session. I never did get a chance to take him up on that during the winter break though... It was clear though that Maribou was still the right pick for the application I was after.
Then heading toward April I again got into the mode to pursue this more and got materials on my birthday wishlist: thread and maribou in a variety of colors, pearl, silver and gold flashibou for accent, and some hard as nails clear polish to coat the thread wrap. I also again tried to get my schedule such that I could take Pat up on the offer of his time he had made... I struck out on that again due to family and work schedules.... YouTube ended up being my backup plan as I could fit in some time watching videos on the train rides to and from work. So with all that said, and realizing I had no in person training I got started and have tied up a few dozen jigs now. Seems to be easy enough to tie. I'm not sure how durable my work is yet, but I've liked how things have gone. Here are a few pictures form the initial batch.
So since starting to cast my own jigs (even before then) I've been a bit interested in Maribou jigs for their movement characteristics while in water, specifically for a vertical jig presentation. TubeDude (Pat) has shown me (and sold some to me for my Dad) some of his offerings that use Maribou along with Flashibou accents. They have just stuck in my mind as something really nice (though that qualifies for most of what TubeDude has shown me... ;))
Anyway I kind of got moving on this at Christmas time where I put a Fly Tying kit that was on sale from Cablelas on a wish list and then later found it under the tree. This got me the base tools but I did not yet step down the path of materials as I had some questions. To start with I got a good case of pre-buyers remorse worrying that Maribou was maybe not the material to pick but a synthetic might be better. I got hung up on wondering about costs, durability of color, durability of material, ease of use, etc... Anyway I sent a few notes off to TubeDude and Barlows asking opinions and got some solid responses back, including an open invite to head over to Pat's for a sit down session. I never did get a chance to take him up on that during the winter break though... It was clear though that Maribou was still the right pick for the application I was after.
Then heading toward April I again got into the mode to pursue this more and got materials on my birthday wishlist: thread and maribou in a variety of colors, pearl, silver and gold flashibou for accent, and some hard as nails clear polish to coat the thread wrap. I also again tried to get my schedule such that I could take Pat up on the offer of his time he had made... I struck out on that again due to family and work schedules.... YouTube ended up being my backup plan as I could fit in some time watching videos on the train rides to and from work. So with all that said, and realizing I had no in person training I got started and have tied up a few dozen jigs now. Seems to be easy enough to tie. I'm not sure how durable my work is yet, but I've liked how things have gone. Here are a few pictures form the initial batch.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
December 27th, 2013 - Ice Fishing Mantua with Alex and Jason
So last winter I had the chance to go ice fishing at Rockport with Guy. It turned out to be very fun in many of the same ways that float tube fishing has appealed to me, casual, social, easy to do your own thing, etc... So since then I've been keeping my "wish lists" stocked up with wishful thinking ideas for some future time. Well this Christmas, thanks to my wife and others, I now have more of the basic items to be able to go ice fishing. A few of the key scores are a 6" Nils hand auger, a sled to drag everything in, a chair to sit on and support my lower back, ice scoop, and a few other accessories.
Well now I have the means and also some time off from work I just need a plan to get out and use it. So I checked with Jason and Alex and we figured the 27th would work and after some considering we decided to go somewhere new that we had seem some good reports from, Mantua. We have wanted to visit this lake before, but never got things together to make it happen.
So we got a "relaxed" start to the day and made it up to Mantua by about 11am. Air temps were near 28F with a very slight breeze that sat still most of the time. We had looked at some of the info others have shared on BFT and other sites to learn about access and places of interest, but really we were heading up on a blank sheet without any specific plan other then to observe what others were doing and see how things went. Jason made a few comments later in the day that he had set his expectations low from the start and I think that's a fair assessment for myself too.
We pulled up to the lake in a pull off just south of the 600 North exit. We pulled off here first just to get out and look around before choosing where to launch. As we got up on the top of the shoreline to scout things out it was clear that there were two main areas that people were targeting. The main boat launch area was full of lots of people (most were not using ice tents) and then the south east portion of the lake was even more busy (many of these were using ice tents). So trying to read a bit into that I kind of concluded that many of the people near the boat launch were more casual people maybe taking advantage of the ease of access the boat launch offered. The others in the south east portion of the lake appeared a bit more serious but we were unsure of what driving access would be like to that portion of the lake. There were a couple stray folk in the north end of the lake including one larger group with lots of kids that looked like they had been there for a while. So after some considering we chose to just stay parked where we were and we could walk across the lake toward the hill on the eastern side and that we wanted to maybe try near there just north of the string of the fishing groups that were setup in the south east portion of the lake.
As we started across the ice a few things stood out, as we are very new to ice fishing (read up but little hands on experience), the ice was a bit odd to us as the top 3" was a milky white that looks like it was a slush layer that has frozen up (as evident by lots of food print impressions frozen into this layer). This layer also made it really hard to understand what the core ice under it was like. So we started to look at ice holes others had cut to get some better understanding as we worked our way out. The core ice under the top few inches was very clear looking and also looks to be about 5-6" thick (ice was measured to be 9" thick where we ended up fishing with the top 3 being the slush crust). Well as we got about half way from the west shore toward the east side hill we came up on a large crack/pressure ridge that looks like it ran from the north east corner of the lake and headed diagonal down toward the south west end of the lake somewhere. Being new to the ice I did not feel I could judge the condition of this area to know if we could cross so we made a change of plans. Instead we headed north and east a bit and ended up about 100 yards south of the north shore of the lake and about 1/3 the way between the east and west shore ( Link to approx spot we fished ). We found a spot that someone had fished recently (maybe in the past couple days?) and began to setup.
So my first use of my new auger went really well. Very easy to turn and I ended up punching 8 holes through and not feeling worn out worked over in arms or in my lower back. With only 9" of ice I know this isn't any "real" test of things, but regardless of was very pleased with how quick and easily these holes went through with the 6" Nils hand auger. Alex had his line in first with a couple small ice jigs with gulp alive fry on the hook. Before his line hit the bottom he had the first bites and the first misses. While Jason and I were racing to get ourselves setup and lines in the water he continued to have bites and misses. Finally Jason and I got lines in the water and I got my fish finder in it's hole as well (finding out that we were in about 8' of water). Jason was using some of his smaller jigs in various colors including silver (silver proved to be the color of the day for trout), Alex had a tandem setup with red and white jigs, and I had one pole with chartreuse and black jigs and the other with green and gold jigs.
Jason I think pulled in the first fish, a perch, that was 9-10" in size and a fine fish taco in the making. Alex was still getting bites but had not gotten the rhythym for setting the hook down yet and was getting a bit frustrated. I had had a few bites that I had missed on my own poles before I started to get a bit of a feel for when to set. After about 30 minutes we had each landed at least a fish if not multiple fish with the pace pretty much being that as soon as you got your line down and jigged it a time or two you would have a bite. I had opted to put wax worms on my jigs instead of the gulp alive fry and that quickly proved to be a right move as I started to get a lot more attention the the other guys. So everyone changed over to wax worms (or just added them onto the hooks and kept the gulp alive on the hook too) and it was game on for quite a while.
A few observations we had made during this time. All fish seemed to be on the bottom (we were only in 8' of water so take it for what it is) and all fish marked on the finder were just off the bottom few inches. The perch ranged from about 8" - 11"+ but were all very plump for their size ( this later during the fillet process proved to be the egg's they were all (but one) carrying. The catch to pick up on there is that of all the perch caught only 1 was male, the rest were female. That surprised us a bit.
Jason and Alex scored all the Trout that we got onto the ice and silver seemed to be the preferred color for trout, at least in what we had offered.
The bluegill caught ranged in about the 4" - 9" range with most in the middle though Jason did the best for average bluegill size. We did manage 2 large mouth bass. I caught one, my first LMB ever, and Jason caught the other.
As the day went along we started to run low on wax worms so we pulled out the night crawlers and put small pieces of them on the hooks and it appeared that wax worm or night crawlers were just as effective but both were still significantly more effective then the gulp alive fry we had tried. Activly jigging at times seemed to be good, but just as often almost the second poles that Jason and I ran were being hit with no active motion on them. So maybe the active jigging was more for our benefit of doing something as we waited for the next bite? Things started to taper off somewhere between 1pm and 2pm. We stayed out on the ice till about 3:30pm when it was time to head out.
So picking up on some previous questions folk asked as people have made reports about fishing and what was in the stomach of the fish kept I figured I'd give a look in the fish we took home as I fillet them. The perch and the lmb both were full of what I think are baby bluegill. Though a couple my bigger perch had baby lmb in their bellies.
The bluegill didn't have anything I could identify in their bellies, but in hind sight I think they had similar to what I found in the trout (as they had more of them too look through) and they appear to be some kind of snail.
In the end both Jason and I commented about how it never felt like it was going to turn out as well as it did when we considered how the day had gone. One of those that kind of sneaked up on you. Regardless it was a wonderful day to be out and again demonstrated how pleasant fishing the hard deck can be. Alex made it clear he was more then happy to have been there and would very muck like to go again and often. Now I just need to get my other two kids out and try to reproduce the same results in terms of getting them in some fish too.
Well time to go plan for some fish taco's, fish fingers or some other tasty option to pick for these fish. :)
Well now I have the means and also some time off from work I just need a plan to get out and use it. So I checked with Jason and Alex and we figured the 27th would work and after some considering we decided to go somewhere new that we had seem some good reports from, Mantua. We have wanted to visit this lake before, but never got things together to make it happen.
So we got a "relaxed" start to the day and made it up to Mantua by about 11am. Air temps were near 28F with a very slight breeze that sat still most of the time. We had looked at some of the info others have shared on BFT and other sites to learn about access and places of interest, but really we were heading up on a blank sheet without any specific plan other then to observe what others were doing and see how things went. Jason made a few comments later in the day that he had set his expectations low from the start and I think that's a fair assessment for myself too.
We pulled up to the lake in a pull off just south of the 600 North exit. We pulled off here first just to get out and look around before choosing where to launch. As we got up on the top of the shoreline to scout things out it was clear that there were two main areas that people were targeting. The main boat launch area was full of lots of people (most were not using ice tents) and then the south east portion of the lake was even more busy (many of these were using ice tents). So trying to read a bit into that I kind of concluded that many of the people near the boat launch were more casual people maybe taking advantage of the ease of access the boat launch offered. The others in the south east portion of the lake appeared a bit more serious but we were unsure of what driving access would be like to that portion of the lake. There were a couple stray folk in the north end of the lake including one larger group with lots of kids that looked like they had been there for a while. So after some considering we chose to just stay parked where we were and we could walk across the lake toward the hill on the eastern side and that we wanted to maybe try near there just north of the string of the fishing groups that were setup in the south east portion of the lake.
As we started across the ice a few things stood out, as we are very new to ice fishing (read up but little hands on experience), the ice was a bit odd to us as the top 3" was a milky white that looks like it was a slush layer that has frozen up (as evident by lots of food print impressions frozen into this layer). This layer also made it really hard to understand what the core ice under it was like. So we started to look at ice holes others had cut to get some better understanding as we worked our way out. The core ice under the top few inches was very clear looking and also looks to be about 5-6" thick (ice was measured to be 9" thick where we ended up fishing with the top 3 being the slush crust). Well as we got about half way from the west shore toward the east side hill we came up on a large crack/pressure ridge that looks like it ran from the north east corner of the lake and headed diagonal down toward the south west end of the lake somewhere. Being new to the ice I did not feel I could judge the condition of this area to know if we could cross so we made a change of plans. Instead we headed north and east a bit and ended up about 100 yards south of the north shore of the lake and about 1/3 the way between the east and west shore ( Link to approx spot we fished ). We found a spot that someone had fished recently (maybe in the past couple days?) and began to setup.
So my first use of my new auger went really well. Very easy to turn and I ended up punching 8 holes through and not feeling worn out worked over in arms or in my lower back. With only 9" of ice I know this isn't any "real" test of things, but regardless of was very pleased with how quick and easily these holes went through with the 6" Nils hand auger. Alex had his line in first with a couple small ice jigs with gulp alive fry on the hook. Before his line hit the bottom he had the first bites and the first misses. While Jason and I were racing to get ourselves setup and lines in the water he continued to have bites and misses. Finally Jason and I got lines in the water and I got my fish finder in it's hole as well (finding out that we were in about 8' of water). Jason was using some of his smaller jigs in various colors including silver (silver proved to be the color of the day for trout), Alex had a tandem setup with red and white jigs, and I had one pole with chartreuse and black jigs and the other with green and gold jigs.
Jason I think pulled in the first fish, a perch, that was 9-10" in size and a fine fish taco in the making. Alex was still getting bites but had not gotten the rhythym for setting the hook down yet and was getting a bit frustrated. I had had a few bites that I had missed on my own poles before I started to get a bit of a feel for when to set. After about 30 minutes we had each landed at least a fish if not multiple fish with the pace pretty much being that as soon as you got your line down and jigged it a time or two you would have a bite. I had opted to put wax worms on my jigs instead of the gulp alive fry and that quickly proved to be a right move as I started to get a lot more attention the the other guys. So everyone changed over to wax worms (or just added them onto the hooks and kept the gulp alive on the hook too) and it was game on for quite a while.
A few observations we had made during this time. All fish seemed to be on the bottom (we were only in 8' of water so take it for what it is) and all fish marked on the finder were just off the bottom few inches. The perch ranged from about 8" - 11"+ but were all very plump for their size ( this later during the fillet process proved to be the egg's they were all (but one) carrying. The catch to pick up on there is that of all the perch caught only 1 was male, the rest were female. That surprised us a bit.
Jason and Alex scored all the Trout that we got onto the ice and silver seemed to be the preferred color for trout, at least in what we had offered.
The bluegill caught ranged in about the 4" - 9" range with most in the middle though Jason did the best for average bluegill size. We did manage 2 large mouth bass. I caught one, my first LMB ever, and Jason caught the other.
As the day went along we started to run low on wax worms so we pulled out the night crawlers and put small pieces of them on the hooks and it appeared that wax worm or night crawlers were just as effective but both were still significantly more effective then the gulp alive fry we had tried. Activly jigging at times seemed to be good, but just as often almost the second poles that Jason and I ran were being hit with no active motion on them. So maybe the active jigging was more for our benefit of doing something as we waited for the next bite? Things started to taper off somewhere between 1pm and 2pm. We stayed out on the ice till about 3:30pm when it was time to head out.
So picking up on some previous questions folk asked as people have made reports about fishing and what was in the stomach of the fish kept I figured I'd give a look in the fish we took home as I fillet them. The perch and the lmb both were full of what I think are baby bluegill. Though a couple my bigger perch had baby lmb in their bellies.
The bluegill didn't have anything I could identify in their bellies, but in hind sight I think they had similar to what I found in the trout (as they had more of them too look through) and they appear to be some kind of snail.
In the end both Jason and I commented about how it never felt like it was going to turn out as well as it did when we considered how the day had gone. One of those that kind of sneaked up on you. Regardless it was a wonderful day to be out and again demonstrated how pleasant fishing the hard deck can be. Alex made it clear he was more then happy to have been there and would very muck like to go again and often. Now I just need to get my other two kids out and try to reproduce the same results in terms of getting them in some fish too.
Well time to go plan for some fish taco's, fish fingers or some other tasty option to pick for these fish. :)
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