 |
||
 |
One More Cast...
Time spent FISHIN'
|
Dealing
with Rising, Stained Water after Fall Rainstorms Every fisherman I
know is anxiously awaiting the cooler weather of Fall because we all know that
the bass, and other predatory gamefish, will become more active and much more
catchable than they were through most of the summertime. The baitfish in your
favorite fishing hole will be moving into creeks with clean water and onto
expansive mainlake flats that offer tremendous feeding opportunities just like
they do every year when the days get shorter and the water becomes cooler and
more comfortable, and the bass are sure to follow. This is a great
time to get your favorite spinnerbaits and realistic-finished crankbaits out
from their appropriate storage compartments and start covering water. Fifty fish
days are not uncommon because the fish are so aggressive and easy to find…all
you need to do is find the baitfish. In some instances you will be able to see
them dimpling the surface in the back of a creek, or they will appear as tightly
packed schools on your depth-finder, or you might find them where ever you see
fish blowing up on the surface or birds diving into the water to gorge
themselves. Fishing, as we know it, couldn’t get any better! It’s times like
these that keep us coming back to the lake even when conditions aren’t perfect
for fishing. Mother Nature
provides us with this tremendous opportunity and she is only too happy to
accommodate those of us who truly appreciate her beauty. However, Mother Nature
has a sense of humor and she is known to throw us a curveball from time to time.
In fact, during the Fall, curveballs seem to be her favorite pitch! Fall is not only
known for great fish migrations and feeding binges. It is also known for
torrential downpours that could last for days causing the water in our favorite
fishing holes to become stained from muddy run-off and rise beyond their banks
with the sudden influx of excess water. The baitfish will become less active and
suspend in deeper sections of nearby creek channels or they could scatter and
hide in rocky crevices. In either case, the bass will have difficulty locating
them in these dirty water conditions. Some might insist that the bass will go
into a vegetative state and get nearly impossible to catch. While they are not
as easy to catch as they were before it started raining, they are not impossible
to catch! The first step in
catching bass in rising, stained water is locating them. I have two methods for
locating bass and the first method requires the fisherman to know what the lake
level was before the water started rising and concentrating on the depth where
the original shoreline, or water surface, was before the rain started. For
example, if the water rises two feet then look for bass to be 2 to 3 feet deep.
Or, if the water rises five feet then look for the bass to be around 5 or 6 feet
deep. Bass will relate to the original surface level until conditions stabilize
and then they may move shallower until the water starts to clear and recede,
then they back off into deeper water where they will locate the schools of
baitfish again. Catching bass at
the original surface line is not difficult if you know the correct depth the
bass are relating to. I like to tie on a brightly-colored, wide-wobbling
crankbait like the Bomber Fat A and make repeated casts to likely looking bass
hangouts. The Bomber Fat A has a loud rattle and comes with two different
plastic bills that are adequate for reaching various depths. They are available
with a square bill, which deflects away from cover generating reaction strikes,
or a round bill that passes close to cover getting right in the bass’ face
making itself irresistible. It’s a good idea to have one of each and let the
bass tell you which bait they prefer and how they want it retrieved. Some days
they want them retrieved fast, other days they may want it a lot slower. It’s
our job to experiment every time we go fishing. The second method
for locating bass is to simply find the thickest cover around and pick it apart
piece by piece until you find if there are any bass hiding in it. Some bass will
move extremely shallow in stained water, particularly if there is current, so
any piece of cover that looks like it could hold a bass is worth a little bit of
exploration. My favorite bait to catch bass with out of thick cover is a ½
ounce black and blue Grass Stalker Jig tipped with an Uncle Josh #11 pork
trailer (black or blue) drenched with MegaStrike fish attractant. Strikes may be
nearly impossible to detect from stubborn muddy water bass and a pork trailer
loaded with scent will make a bass hold onto the bait longer! I like to use the
flipping method of casting when the water is very dirty, but I will resort to
pitching if the water is only slightly stained. Flipping is a casting method
that requires the fisherman to deliver the bait with a controlled amount of line
(@ 12-15 feet) and is my favorite way to plunk my Grass Stalker right onto the
bass’ nose. Pitching is a soft cast that enables the fisherman to deliver the
bait quietly from a little bit further away, 20 feet or so. They both require a
lot of practice during the off-season in your backyard or living room, because
the idea is to put your jig right in the bass’ face without him detecting the
bait when it lands in the water. The effort is well worth the time investment. It may take a bass a while to locate your Grass Stalker in stained water. That is why I advocate making several flips to the same piece of cover and letting the bait “soak” there for a little while each time. The Grass Stalker has 2 large rattles on it so giving the jig a shake every few seconds will help the bass locate your offering. Each flip, or pitch, to the same piece of cover will draw an interested bass closer to your bait each time until they eventually find it and eat it. It is essential to fish this bait, or any jig or plastic worm for that matter, extremely slow. Fishing too fast with a jig in stained water will only confound even the hungriest bass to the point of giving up on finding your bait. Fishing a jig fast in clear water isn’t such a bad idea, however, particularly in the Fall…but that’s a different story! Dealing With The Dog Days
of Summer Summertime! Unbearable daytime temperatures associated with
high humidity, scores of pleasure seekers crowding all the best lakes in our
area, bugs of all shapes and sizes with the same unquenchable thirst for human
blood, and the time of year when fish seem to disappear from the radar screen.
Well, almost all of that is true…we can’t do much about the weather, the
vacation crowd or the bugs for that matter, but the fish are still there and
they can be caught with a few simple presentations that do not require a
boatload of fishing tackle. One of my favorite summertime techniques is skipping Jersey
Riggs under docks. The Jersey Rigg is a three inch long piece of plastic that
sinks tantalizingly slow in front of the fishes face. The small profile and
unobtrusive appearance of this little worm is usually enough to make any fish
bite, but a subtle twitch is sometimes necessary to make the stubborn ones comes
totally unglued. I like to rig my Jersey Rigg wacky-style with a #2 Gamakatsu
straight shank hook for an extremely slow fall, but I won’t hesitate to
upgrade the size of my hook to a 1/0 Gamakatsu octopus hook if the bass need a
faster fall to get their attention or if the wind is hampering a slow fall
presentation. To skip a Jersey Rigg, I begin by letting the little worm
dangle about twelve inches from the end of my rod tip. Then I use a very easy
side arm motion to deliver the bait within inches of the dock or platform that I
want to skip under. That’s usually all it takes to get the bait to skip 20
feet or more under that dock to where the bass are hiding. I see a lot of
fishermen skipping their baits with both hands on the rod while flinging the
bait very hard with a sidearm motion. I’ve tried this motion and I will say it
works very well, but it also causes the bait to skip a little too high off the
water at times, resulting in a bad landing on top of the dock or in a boat. I
say, “Let the rod do the work!” Fishing poles are very powerful pieces of
equipment when you let them load up and do all the work for you. So for me, I
grip the rod lightly and use a very easy sidearm fling and it works well almost
every time! Bass will suspend under the shadiest part of the dock,
which might be under the walkway in less than a foot of water or at the end of
the dock in thirty feet of water. Boathouses and swim platforms are also great
shady places to find old “bug-eyes” lurking, as are pontoon boats and fallen
trees. It’s very important during the dog days of summer to fish thoroughly on
every piece of cover in order to determine where the bass might be positioned.
Bass may stay in one place along a dock all day long, particularly if that dock
is facing East to West, but a bass on a North to South facing dock will have to
move with the sun in order to follow the shade throughout the day. You will have
to experiment on every piece of cover to find where the bass are hiding. Not all bass will be hiding under some form of overhead
cover. Many of them relate to creek channel ledges in 15 to 20 feet of water
during the summertime and they can be caught with another one of my favorite
finesse worms. I like to rig a Zoom finesse worm on an 1/8 ounce Spot Stalker
Jighead and fish it very slowly down these creek channel ledges. I will let the
worm sit still whenever I feel it snug up next to a rock or tree stump. Many
times the bass are right there and only need to look at the worm for a few
seconds before inhaling it, but sometimes shaking the worm will get them to
commit into biting. At times, you may feel a distinct tap when the bass picks up
the worm, but often times I feel the fish just swim off with the lure, or the
worm just won’t budge when I go to move it. In either case, set the hook! Some days it is too windy to effectively fish a finesse
worm presentation, so that’s when I turn to my Zoom Super Flukes and I go
hunting for suspended bass along points! Any point could be a good one, but the
best usually have at least twenty feet of water at the end of them that offers
plenty of security cover for bass that will be waiting for a disoriented
baitfish to come stumbling past them. At times, the bass will be hiding near a
boulder or stump close to the bank, but I like to target the fish that other
fishermen are overlooking…the suspended bass! Suspended bass may be fifty feet to one hundred yards away
from the bank hanging around just beneath the surface in 30 to 40 feet of water.
Pinpointing the exact location of these fish is very difficult and that is why
many fishermen do not target them, but trust me when I say they are there. No
need to pinpoint their location when you are fishing with a Fluke, either. The
erratic zig-zagging motion of the Fluke will cover plenty of water on each cast,
and the way it imitates a wounded baitfish will generate enough bites,
particularly from smallmouth bass, to make any fisherman convert to a suspended
bass addict! I rig the Fluke Texas-style with a barrel swivel in the
line about eight inches in front of the hook. The barrel swivel adds weight to
the set-up to aid in casting distance and to help the Fluke sink a little
faster, and it prevents line twist in case the Fluke does any unwanted spinning
during the retrieve. I will usually make a long cast and immediately begin
working the Fluke back to the boat in a twitch, twitch, pause cadence that makes
the bait walk back and forth like a disoriented alewife. Sometimes I will let
the Fluke sink for a few seconds before I begin my retrieve if I suspect that
the bass are suspending slightly deeper in the water column. As previously
mentioned, I like to wait for a windy day to go for suspended fish because the
wind usually makes these fish a lot more active, but that doesn’t mean you
can’t catch them on calm days. I’ve had great days on the water catching
suspended fish on topwater baits and Jersey Riggs when the surface was a sheet
of glass and the sun was beating down on me with it’s unbearable glare! Remember to wear sunscreen and drink plenty of water
throughout the day if you plan on heading out to the lake this August. I say
that because you may end up staying out a lot longer if you follow these tips
for catching summertime bass. I never go out with the intentions of getting
burned like a lobster or totally dehydrated, but it happens more than I care to
admit when the bass are munching on finesse worms under docks or chasing Flukes
over open water! “There are no secret baits…just better ways to use the
same old lures!” Brian Clark A
Little Walleye Wisdom “Where did they
go?” That’s a common question around most walleye waters once the post spawn
period is over. The walleyes were fairly easy to find during the spawn and for
the brief period that followed because they were in shallow water. They spent
the spawn period in feeder creeks and along windblown rock bars (and rip rap),
and then they stayed fairly close to those areas for a few weeks because that is
where most of their best feeding opportunities existed. But where are they now?
The yellow perch is
one of those rare fish that stays active during the daytime (even during frontal
passages) and uses the nighttime to rest up for the next day’s feeding forays.
During the night, they will rest motionless on the bottom of the lake on a muddy
flat. They may be on a deeper flat during the fall and winter, and a shallower
flat in spring and summer…whichever the case, they are easy pickens for
marauding walleyes. These walleyes know where to find enough perch to satisfy
their hunger for the remainder of the night and well into the next day and they
won’t be far from them at any time. Locate a good mud flat that the perch are
using and you will be on the fast track to catching a few walleyes. Perch like
to feed around milfoil, so look for a mud flat near a milfoil bed and move out
to the first drop off or deep creek channel bend and begin looking for walleyes
there. Other places to
look for old “marble-eyes” are offshore structure areas that wouldn’t look
the least bit inviting to the wannabe bass fishermen. We are always told to find
good structure with cover on it and you have found a goldmine! Well, that may be
the last place you will find any self-respecting walleye. Sure they like good
structure, but a good walleye structure might look like a barren wasteland to a
bass fisherman. That’s not to say that walleyes never venture onto good bass
structure, because they will…they always go wherever the food goes.
Walleyes relating
to offshore structure are usually ambushing schools of pelagic baitfish. They
wait in the shadows of the deeper water and strike passing schools of alewife
and shad much the same way that smallmouth bass do. Targeting these fish is a
little different than smallmouth fishing, however, otherwise there would be a
whole new tackle section at your favorite baitshop with topwater baits
specifically designed for the walleye! While you may catch a walleye from time
to time with your favorite smallmouth lures, you might be better served using a
lure that has been designed with the walleye in mind. To get a better
idea of what a good walleye lure is, it might be a good idea to gain a better
understanding of the reason why a walleye has such a large eye in the first
place. For years the reason for such a large eye has been attributed to the
walleye’s need to be able to feed effectively at night. Well, if that were the
case there would be a whole mess of other “bug-eyed” predators swimming
around out there in our lakes and rivers since they all feed at night. The large
eye does assist the walleye in finding food at night, however, the large eye may
actually be the reason why walleyes see the yellow end of the color spectrum so
well. In fact, many experts insist that walleyes cannot see the colors at the
other end of the spectrum at all, and that includes black and brown…good bass
colors!
One final note
about walleyes…and this comes from personal experience…while it might be
true that a walleye’s teeth aren’t as sharp as some other toothy critters,
they can inflict quite a bit of damage if you are not being careful. Just let
one latch onto your finger while it is flopping around on the deck of your boat
and you will soon learn why I have so much respect for the “gators chicklets”! “There are no
secret lures, just better ways to use the same old baits!” Brian Clark Keep
A Fishing Log For Future Reference Ever stopped to
fish one of your favorite holes only to find out that the fish weren’t biting
that day? This spot came to be one of your favorite fishing holes because you
happened to catch a boat load of bass or walleye from it one time, and the spot
has become indelibly etched in your mind ever since. Sadly, the important
details from that successful outing may not be indelibly etched in your mind and
that may be why you haven’t been able to figure out why the fish aren’t
biting for you today. You recall that it was a little chilly that day, but was
it during the spring or the fall? Or, did it just feel cold because it was so
windy? I know I wouldn’t be able to remember…that’s why I keep a fishing
log! Keeping an accurate
fishing log of all the details that contributed to your successful fishing trip
could actually clue you in to why the fish might not be biting there today and,
more importantly, when they might be biting there again in the near future. A
whole host of factors determine what your favorite fish will be doing at any
given time and where you can expect him to show up next to look for an easy
meal. I like to keep track of the date (season), location, water temperature,
weather, wind speed and direction, quantity of fish caught, biggest fish of the
day, successful lures used, depth the fish were holding at and the type of cover
or structure the fish were relating to.
Water temperature
is also very important in relation to fish location, but I also use that
information to help me decide which lures I need to be using. Let’s use
smallmouth bass as our example: They will likely be in their transition area
when the water temperature is below 55 degrees in the springtime. They prefer
water temps around 60 degrees for laying eggs and they really prefer to spawn
around a full moon (another detail you may want to keep track of – moon
phase). We know where the fish should be at this water temperature, and after
reviewing my fishing log I can confidently suggest that a suspending jerkbait
would be a good choice and that switching to a hair jig might payoff if the
jerkbait isn’t producing fish. Weather, wind speed
and wind direction work very closely to position fish and/or determine their
level of feeding activity. Walleyes, for example, may be cruising a shallow
mainlake point on an overcast day but they will hightail it for deeper water if
the sun pops out from behind the clouds. Then again, they may not care what the
sun is doing if there happens to be a 15 mph steady wind out of the Northwest.
If you were keeping track of what the conditions were like the last time you
encountered a large school of shallow water walleye that were practically
jumping into your boat, you would know when to return to the spot and expect
similar results! Keep track of how
many fish you caught in an area and how big the “lunker” was for that day.
If the action is so fast and furious that you have a hard time keeping track of
the exact number of fish, then go ahead and make a good estimate. Don’t just
write down that you caught a “bunch of fish”. As time goes on, we all become
better fishermen and we find better spots to fish. Reviewing your notes and
reading, “today we caught a bunch of fish” may equate to three fish back
when you were just getting started! Wouldn’t you rather know that you only
caught three fish so that you could dig deeper into your log and figure out
where you were fishing when you caught twenty fish during similar conditions? I
know I would! Knowing what type
of structure or cover and the depth the fish were relating to is very important,
as well. It doesn’t make much sense to work all the shallow docks in an area
where you caught a ton of crappies and bluegills from brush piles in 12 feet of
water a few years back, does it? The proper thing to do would be to try the
brush piles first and then move to the docks if the fish aren’t where they
were the last time you nailed them. Also, going to the docks first might
position your boat directly over the brush piles and alert those fish to your
presence. Then, fewer of those crappies and bluegill will cooperate for you when
you reposition to try for those fish. The human brain has
the capacity to store a wealth of knowledge, but very few people are actually
capable of accessing all of that information. Keeping a detailed journal of your
fishing trips is the only surefire method I have found that enables me to recall
all of the important details that seem to become blended from one trip to the
next. I personally like to store my details in folders titled by Lake and Month.
For example, I have a Wallenpaupack-April folder that has all the details from
every trip I’ve made to Lake Wallenpaupack in the month of April every year
since I started fishing there. It’s categorized by date…all the trips from
April 1st are listed in the beginning and all of the trips from April
30th are at the end. You use whatever works best for you, just make
sure you don’t leave it out where your fishing buddies can read it! Next time I’ll be
discussing a few methods for discovering the world of the walleye! “There are no
secret baits…just better ways to use the same old lures!” Brian Clark It’s
Jerkbait Time!!! This is the time of
year when I drive by the lake on a daily basis anxiously awaiting the moment
that I can finally put the boat on the water. To some, that first fishing trip
of the year may only be a good excuse to relieve themselves of cabin fever, but
to me that first trip is the beginning of my quest for the biggest bass of the
year! The biggest bass begin migrating from their winter haunts in deep water
toward their eventual spawning grounds as soon as the ice melts, and I know of
no better way of catching them right after ice-out than with a suspending
jerkbait. My favorite
suspending jerkbait is the Rapala Husky Jerk. They come in a wide array of fish
catching colors and in a variety of sizes, they are reasonably priced, and they
can be fished effectively with anything from a Snoopy rod up to the finest
quality baitcasting gear. The only thing I don’t like about the Husky Jerk is
the advice the manufacturer offers in their packaging. They start out by saying,
“Once the water temperature reaches 50 degrees…” Take it from an old salt
who spends a lot of time on the water, if you wait until the water temperature
reaches 50 degrees you will probably miss the best jerkbait bite that you are
likely to find anywhere in our northern hemisphere. Oh they work fine after the
water temperature reaches 50 degrees, but so does every other bait in your
tackle box. Transition areas
are key places to look for late winter lunkers. What is a transition area you
may ask? I like to think of transition areas as the location where the lake’s
depth makes a noticeable change somewhere between where the bass spent the
winter months and where they will likely make their bed during the spawn.
Largemouths are liable to be hanging out around mainlake points that lead into
coves with suitable spawning habitat, while the smallies might be found just
about anywhere along the deep edge of a mainlake flat that looks like a poor
fishing spot at best to the dedicated largemouth angler. As a side note,
smallmouths are also likely to be caught right along side of largemouths if they
shared the same wintering area.
Now, you may be
fishing the best mainlake point on the lake with the color and size suspending
jerkbait that the bass are gorging themselves on, but you will not catch many
fish if you’re retrieving the lure too fast. The bass is a cold-blooded
creature, which means that his metabolism will be drastically affected by the
water temperature (usually around 38-40 degrees right after ice-out), so SLOW is
the name of the game during the late winter period, anything else will look
unnatural to the bass and will probably be moving along a little too quick for
the bass to catch up to anyway. I like to throw my suspending jerkbait out and
give it two or three twitches to get it down, and then I leave it sit. How long
I leave it sit depends on the fish, some days they may smack it after it has
been suspending near them for 5 seconds…some days they may need it to sit
there for a full 30 seconds before they inhale it! I use this retrieve all the
way back to the boat…twitch, twitch, pause…twitch, twitch, pause. Everyday
will be a little different so you will need to experiment to find out how long
to pause between twitches. I’m going to
reveal a secret when it comes to fishing with a suspending jerkbait and catching
quality bass that many anglers never quite get the hang of. The secret is to
understand the gear ratio on your fishing reel and the effect it has on the way
your bait is perceived by hungry bass wherever you happen to be fishing. I’ve
seen many people using the right sequence of twitches and pauses who couldn’t
understand why they weren’t catching any fish. The reason is simple! Most
reels today have a gear ratio between 4:1 and 6:1. What that means is that for
every revolution of the reel handle, the spool is rotating so fast that you are
actually retrieving somewhere between 18 to 25 inches of line. Three or four
turns of the reel handle will ZOOM your jerkbait ahead as much as 6 to 8 feet in
a matter of seconds! Remember what I said earlier about making the bait appear
natural? Baitfish are cold-blooded creatures too, so they are not able to ZOOM
forward like your jerkbait does when you crank your reel handle a bunch of times
during your retrieve! The object is to keep your bait looking as natural as
possible by just scooting it forward a couple of inches at a time. Use your reel
handle sparingly and you will catch more bass with a suspending jerkbait during
the late winter period! Here’s another
secret for fishing right after ice-out…just because the ice is off the lake
that doesn’t mean it’s not too cold to freeze rod lockers and storage
containers shut. Carry your gear to the lake in the back of your truck so that
it’s available to you in the event that all of the compartments on your boat
are frozen in the closed position. There is nothing like that helpless feeling
you get when you are at the lake and you can’t get to your fishing gear! “There are no
secret baits…just better way to use the same old lures!” Brian Clark Plenty
To Do This Winter
I have also taken
up a couple of new winter activities. No, not skiing, I’ll leave that to the
folks who can zoom down a mountain at frighteningly fast speeds and come to a
safe stop without breaking any necessary appendages. I’m no athlete! I’m
talking about ice fishing and coyote hunting! Let’s start with
shed hunting. This is typically the time of year when bucks find themselves in
poor physical condition or, at the very least, poorer physical condition than
they were in last October before the rut kicked into high gear. Food is scarce
and at a premium and bucks, in an act of self-preservation, will shed the
antlers that have served them so well throughout the fall and part of the
winter. Where I live, there are too many deer for the habitat and food sources
that are available to them, so the bucks are finding themselves in a
nutritionally dangerous situation. They are faced with a “lose the headgear
now or pay the ultimate price” situation. We are seeing more and more
“bald” bucks around my area with each passing day, and the biggest bucks
seem to be the ones shedding their antlers the earliest. Those are the antlers
that shed hunters want anyway, so now is the time to start searching for them.
That “other
story” occurred during a fishing trip many years ago, but rest-assured, if you
plan on doing any fishing at this time of year the skunks will be the least of
your worries! In fact, the only skunk I have ever seen happened to another ice
fisherman who, unfortunately, did not catch a fish while my buddy, Tony, and I
were hand lining perch and largemouth bass one right after the other. Tony
introduced me to ice fishing during the last week of December this year and I
have been literally “gut-hooked” ever since! Tony is a great guy and he took
the extra time necessary to get this “boater” trained to the idea of setting
out a bunch of tip-ups and then waiting for the flag to signal that something
was actually happening down there under the ice. It wasn’t much fun at first,
in fact, I was glad that I had packed as much food as I did that day, however, I
found through my ice fishing adventures with Tony that there is really no time
for eating, daydreaming, or screwing around once you have found the fish. Tony likes to
suspend a medium sized minnow about a foot off of the bottom and he has a system
that is too detailed to explain for getting his bait perfectly positioned. Once
we have all of our tip-ups set, we rarely have to wait very long for a bass or a
yellow perch to inhale our offerings and set that flag a waving like a
jack-in-the-box that just popped-up! I think everybody has an adopted
grandparent and I believe I have found mine with Tony. When the fish aren’t
biting, which is rare, Tony is very helpful to me with my situations as a new
business owner and a future husband. For all of his insight, I am grateful. When I’m not
searching for dropped antlers or ice fishing with Tony, you will likely find me
scouring the countryside for “brushwolves”. I call them brushwolves because
they are so much larger than their western brethren and there doesn’t seem to
be a genealogical link between them and the eastern coyote of the Carolinas.
“Our” coyote has a genealogical past that is untraceable according to most
experts on the subject, but I believe that the northeastern coyote may actually
be the brushwolf that early settlers would only see on occasion. Have you ever
seen one? Well, believe it or not, no matter where you live in the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania, this critter has probably traversed your backyard while you
were at home and you never even knew it!
So he must be a
wolf and not really a coyote, right? Well, consider this, wolves have been wiped
out everywhere that they have been persecuted. The “brushwolf” has an
uncanny ability to rear larger than average litters in areas where he is under
heavy hunting pressure…definitely a coyote trait. Whether you call him wolf or
coyote, two things are clear, he is here to stay and he will respond to a rabbit
in distress call. Rabbits are one of his favorite foods, along with mice, the
occasional housecat, grasses, berries, carrion (including road-killed deer),
birds, and anything else he can get fairly easily. The secret to hunting the
northeastern coyote is to find fresh sign because they tend to be very nomadic.
He goes wherever the feeding is easiest and doesn’t set-up a territory with
boundaries the way most other predators do. Also, never give up. He is the
wiliest critter in Penn’s woods and has stumped the best hunters ever since we
came to this country! The Pennsylvania “brushwolf” is a worthy opponent for
anyone who consider themselves a good hunter, and he is closer than you think… So whether you
prefer to fish on hard water, search for lost ivory, or chase ghosts through
snow covered landscapes there is plenty for you to do in Pennsylvania’s great
outdoors this winter…just be sure you are dressed for the occasion…it’s
cold out there! -Brian Clark Brian’s
Bass Expeditions, LLC It’s a brand new
year and time to start planning for the upcoming fishing season. Last year’s
guiding business experienced a few growing pains, which I expected since it was
my first year on Lake Wallenpaupack. First, I had just begun to establish my
clientele and second, my tournament schedule was so full that I was away from
home as much as I wasn’t. This year I have scaled back the tournament fishing
considerably and I intend to dedicate a lot more time to guiding and educating
other fishermen. I will be starting
off the year in late March doing a series of video shoots with Bob Murray on
late winter/early spring tactics for bass at Lake Wallenpaupack. As soon as that
is finished, I will open my schedule up to fishermen who would like to try
tackling Wallenpaupack’s early season bass in what usually turns out to be
very good action with an excellent shot at fish up to five pounds or bigger! The
best days to fish are during the spring and early summer, and then again in the
fall. I offer ½ day trips during the summer so that we are off the water by the
time the skiers and other pleasure boaters come out and drive the bass deep. Fishermen had
thirty+ bass days last spring when the weather cooperated and I expect the same
this year. Smallmouths provide action through the open water season if you know
where to look for them. The fall offered quite a fishing bonanza as well, with
some of the biggest largemouths of the year coming in September and October. We
also caught plenty of hybrid stripers and channel catfish over ten pounds last
season. Bass fishermen can book with me all the way to the end of November. It
can be cold that late in the year, but trust me when I say that the action is
usually RED HOT! Book early with me to guarantee the best days…my spring
schedule is already filling up. Last year I was
surprised to find that there are so many people who enjoy perch fishing up at
the ‘Pack, so this year I have added the “Pop-Pop Special”: an adult/child
combo package for $165.00/day that includes all of the yellow perch and bull
bluegill fishing that two people can handle. Action was fast and furious last
year from late spring through most of the summer with quite a few jumbo perch
over 1 pound and several gills over ½ pound caught on a variety of lures. And
it’s okay with me if we accidentally catch a few bass during these outings! As always, I
recommend that clients bring sunscreen, raingear, a fishing license, lunch and
enough refreshments for themselves, and their own fishing rod that they feel
comfortable with using. I can provide fishing rods for those who don’t bring
them. The last thing you will need is the willingness to learn and have
fun…leave the rest to me! All trips are for 1 or 2 fishermen and various rates apply. All fishing is catch and release. To book a trip with me, call 570-842-4493. Email questions to PVBAOY2001@aol.com. Editor Note: Bob Murray and the staff of DVO highly recommend Brian guide service. Brian's knowledge of the area will guarantee a successful fishing trip. Musky! Recently, I had the
opportunity to fish for muskies on the Delaware River with Bob Jones, president
of Muskies Inc.- Chapter 50. The weather forecasters were calling for a strong
coldfront to be moving through the area sometime early that afternoon and Bob
felt that any chances of seeing a musky were going to occur before the front
hit, so we made sure we got an early start. The water temperature was a frosty
42 degrees and the air wasn’t much warmer…Bob was confident …the only
thing I was sure of is that Brian wasn’t going to fall out of the boat! I
don’t think I would last 30 seconds in water that cold. We zoomed up river
in Bob’s boat to his favorite musky hotspot and were immediately greeted by a
territorial duck hunter. Now, I’m not against duck hunting, but I am all for
being a good sport and courteous at all times when I am sharing the water with
other people. So, even though there wasn’t a single decoy on the water that
would have tipped us off to his presence, we apologized for our intrusion and
headed for Bob’s second favorite spot and Plan B. Thankfully, Bob felt just as
good about Plan B as he had about Plan A! Moments after our
arrival, I noticed a “leviathon from the deep” following Bob’s twitchbait
back to the boat. Bob noticed it too, and began doing the fabled “figure
8’s” with his rod alongside of the boat, but the musky had other ideas and
didn’t bite. Bob remarked that the fish only appeared to be around 42 inches
long…ONLY? We continued down the bank with the trolling motor on low speed,
Bob diligently worked his bait back to the boat at an average of two casts per
minute. I tried to keep up with him, but my arms were already beginning to tire
from casting the rig that he had set me up with. Bob’s gear consists of
seven-foot heavy action rods attached to over-sized baitcasting reels that are
necessary to hold enough 80 lb test line to effectively lob(cast) musky plugs a
long distance (@30 yards). Most of the lures he brings with him are a foot long,
but I saw a few in his boat that were over fifteen inches! Needless to say, all
the bass fishing in the world could never physically prepare me to fish all day
long with the gear that serious musky hunters use on a daily basis. We hadn’t gone
very far down the bank when Bob started to tell me about another fish that was
following his bait, however, he never really completed the sentence before the
musky engulfed his lure and headed for parts unknown, doubling his rod over in
the process! It took several minutes to land the fish despite having such heavy
equipment. I quickly snapped a few pictures of Bob and his musky before he
released it back to the river. We didn’t measure the fish, but Bob assured me
that it was not as big as some of the “fifty inchers” that he has caught in
his lifetime, so we guesstimated the muskies length at 45 inches and the weight
to be in the neighborhood of twenty pounds!
If you are
interested in learning more about Muskies Inc – Chapter 50 or would like to
become a member, then you need to visit their website at www.mi50.com.
There is an interesting forum where the members share fishing stories and you
can download and print all of the necessary contact information and a membership
application, too. There is also a scrapbook section with photos of the members
and some of the muskies they have caught and released from waters in Eastern
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It’s a pretty cool website! Anyway, I didn’t
catch a musky that day, but it was still a lot of fun to try my hand at musky
fishing. In fact, I have rigged-up a rod for muskies just in case Bob invites me
out to try again and I purchased a few musky lures, too. They look like brightly
colored fence posts adorned with giant turtle hooks compared to my bass lures! I
can’t wait to see the look on my partners face when I bring one of these baits
out during the next bass tournament “There are no
secret baits…just better ways to use the same old lures (or fence posts!)” Brian Clark
On a recent shoot for DVO TV on Fairview Lake
Brian Clark on stage at Bassmaster from last summer. |
Thunder Shad are the finest hand-crafted balsa wood crankbaits available on the market today. These beautiful baits are unique in today's mass-market world. You'll appreciate the fine quality details from the Gamakatsu hooks to the hand painted finish.  
Chompers®
-
by Table Rock Bait & Tackle Company, makers of ultrasoft plastic lures,
jigs, and fish attractants.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
Email
me 
Walleyes
have a reputation for being a deepwater species that likes to suspend under
large schools of pelagic baitfish, such as threadfin shad and alewives. That
would make them the perfect target for somebody who knows a lot more about
trolling than I do, so I won’t even begin to tell you how to get started on
that subject. However, I do know for a fact that not all walleyes in a reservoir
will be taking advantage of the same forage at all times, so I can offer a few
tips on how to locate and catch the walleyes that are a little more structure
oriented and those that feed on yellow perch.
I
like to find offshore humps that are around 20 feet deep on top and fall off
into deeper water the whole way around them. I will begin my search for walleyes
on the side of the hump that has the steepest break on it, or if the main river
channel sweeps along one edge of the hump, that’s even better! Keep in mind
that walleyes could be using the entire hump and separate schools of
“gators” could be doing different things at the same time. I prefer walleyes
that are hanging tight to the lip of the structure near the top of the break,
but you may see others on your depth finder that are relating to the bottom of
the break or suspending out away from the structure. I’ve always had my best
success with the “eyes” that are at the top of the structure.
My
favorite walleye lure is a yellow twister-tail grub and I have my best success
when I hop it up and down off the bottom. I also like to use the Lindy
Maxi-Grabber jigheads with a Fuzzy Grub for a trailer. White, chartreuse and
yellow are good colors for Fuzzy Grubs and the Maxi-Grabber is the best jighead
I have found for adding a piece of crawler or a small minnow to whenever the
walleyes insist on a little something extra to make them cooperate. This has
also helped upgrade the size of my walleyes on occasion, so if you happen to be
catching plenty of small “eyes” try adding a little spice to your jig and
see if it doesn’t help you catch a bigger walleye!
The
date of the excursion is important to note because fish of all species are
always in some type of seasonal transition. Bass, for example, begin moving
toward spawning areas after the ice melts in the early spring, but they stage in
specific areas between their wintering holes and their spawning grounds until
conditions are perfect for spawning. Referring to past fishing trips by date
alone may put you in exactly the location you need to be to score big on
today’s fishing trip! Of course, knowing the name of the location where you
caught all those fish on a previous trip is also very important. Get a good map
of the lake you are fishing and use the names of the points and coves that are
on the map when you are recording the information in your log. If a location
doesn’t have a name, give it one and write it on your map and in your fishing
log.
I
have caught bass on just about every color of suspending jerkbait, but I have
the most confidence in shad colors since that is the food source that most bass
will be keying on during late winter. Most of my baits have a white belly on
them, but I make sure I carry at least a few baits that have an orange belly as
well, because some bass may be feeding on yellow perch or sunfish and that
orange belly seems to ring the dinner bell for those bass. As a matter of
course, I always start with a larger 5 ½ to 6 inch jerkbait since they cast the
best and I work my way down to the smaller 4 inch jerkbait if the bass are being
picky. I have found that the bass are more aggressive toward the larger
jerkbaits on windy and overcast days, while the smaller profile baits work
better on calm, sunny days.
I
can think of more than one way to fight off the effects of cabin fever this
winter. The weather may not seem very inviting, with gusty cold winds and
temperatures nearing sub-zero, but good times are still to be had if you’re
serious about enjoying your outdoor passions. I’ve always spent this time of
year anticipating the first opportunity I would have to go “shed hunting”,
but there is no need to wait since the over-populated deer herd has eaten
themselves into a nutritionally poor winter condition…I will explain shortly.
Where
should a shed hunter expect to find fallen antlers? Well, wherever there happens
to be deer is the simplest way to put it. I have a thick hemlock stand behind my
house that the deer in my area are drawn to during heavy snow or when wind
chills dip well below freezing. I live on a south-facing slope on the side of a
small mountain and the deer can be seen lounging all along this slope during the
middle of the day as they absorb the heat from the sun. Both are good areas to
begin looking for shed antlers in the Poconos, however, if you are from the
“corn-belt” in Pennsylvania, then you might be better served if you search
for shed antlers around Christmas tree plantations or grown-over farm fields.
Deer in your area have better nutritional support so you might have to wait a
few weeks to begin your shed hunt. Other good spots to look for sheds are near
fences that deer have to jump over or around “widow-makers” that deer need
to crawl under. A widow-maker is a tree that has tipped over and is caught on
another nearby tree. Such trees are easier to go under than they are to climb
over…watch out for skunks during the warm weather seasons if you plan on going
under a “widow-maker”, but that is a different story!
Some
have tried to explain the above average size of “our” coyote by saying that
he is crossbred with feral (wild) dogs. Well, that may be true, but after most
cross breeding experiments one could expect to find physical traits of both
animals present in the offspring and I have yet to see a “brushwolf” with
spots, a curly tail or long, floppy ears. “Coy-dog” as some call him…I
doubt it. A more believable theory may have resulted from the western coyote
detouring through Canada and mixing with the Grey wolf or the Algonquin wolf,
but that doesn’t explain how our “brushwolf” can attain sizes larger than
both of his parents. Have you ever caught a 60 pound hybrid striped bass? Me
neither, so how is it that the northeastern coyote can, on occasion, grow to
larger proportions than an adult male Algonquin wolf?
I
was impressed with Bob’s efficiency with regards to landing and releasing such
a large fish. He told me that it is vital to release a musky as quickly as
possible so that another musky fisherman can enjoy the fight that these fish put
up. There are more muskies in the river, and other places, these days thanks
mostly to the volunteer work of the people at Muskies Inc, however, these fish
do not grow to huge proportions overnight and need to be cared for delicately by
anyone who catches them. A 45 inch musky could be as old as twenty years, and to
have beaten all the odds for that long, deserves the opportunity to live out
it’s life in the river. That’s how the members of Muskies Inc. feel and I
agree whole-heartedly! With their continued effort we will begin to see muskies
in lakes and rivers throughout our area where we have previously only seen a
few, if any.
