Susquehanna River Fishing Report for November 2011

By Lance Dunham

As I sit here writing this months column, it’s raining yet again, the river is rising yet again, and it looks like I’m about to loose my last two charters of the season…. yet again. I got a bit of a sinus headache now because as we were just filming on the river a couple of days ago for a video on cold water techniques with hair jigs a strong gust of wind hit me and of course my hat goes flying into the river. Yes again! The good news is that I stopped using hat cams this year and I only got a wet hat out of the deal so I didn’t loose another camera in the river. The bad news is that with age I seem to be missing a significant amount of hair on the top of my head and it’s cold without a hat, a condition for which I blame my wife for buying the wrong kind of shampoo. Yeah, that’s got to be it! I wrung my dripping hat out with my hands and placed it lightly back on my head in the 35 degree windy morning air. My camera man said that I was going to make myself sick doing that. OK, so I got a little cold going on now, but it was so worth it because it had to be close to the perfect video. We only had three hours to film enough fish to go along with some studio/man cave instruction I did on cold water fishing. I picked out four locations on the river that I knew would produce some nice smallmouth bass quickly within five miles of the access so I could get back in time. With 40 degree water I needed a slower current with a rocky bottom to hold the minnows which the bass are looking for since the crayfish have mostly wintered now under the rocks. Each time the wind would slow down to where I could present the lure correctly, WHAM, a bass would hit the hair jig. It was like the bass had read the script! There was no “curse of the camera” that day! I used just two hair jigs that day. The Mrs Simpson with rattles, AKA Mouthy Marge, and a new prototype marabou jig in black with a bit of orange that was given to me that morning by Dave Pelachik of JJ’s Jigs. I believe he now calls them the Chilly-Bou jigs. A good name choice for the conditions we used them in. Since the water was clear and cold I suggested that he make them slimmer more like a minnow instead of bulky like a fat crayfish and also suggested some other colors I’d like to use for walleye. If it doesn’t ice up in December, I’ll give them a try from the boat. I know they will work and I’ll be dressed warmer with an extra hat in the boat locker. I would imagine they should work for ice fishing as well, but there I might tip them with a fat head minnow because they will just be sitting in one spot waiting for the fish to come by.

   To fish the hair jigs in very cold water 40 degrees and below from a moving boat, you need some good patience in presenting the jig for you don’t work it the same way as warm water. You must move your jig as slow as possible. Instead of a jigging motion it’s more of a slow lift. With a good quality rod you should be able to feel that jig scrape slowly over the rocks. Control your drift with the electric trolling motor and go slowly down current. Don’t cast way up river because you won’t be able to feel and lift the jig over the rock without getting caught. Casting way up river will give you more of a side pull action instead of the lift you need. Lift the jig only enough to clear the rock, most of the times only about 3” and keep the jig on the bottom as much as possible. After casting only just slightly up river keep your rod between the 10:00 and 11:00 position. Lift up to the 11:00 position and pick up the slack by reeling down to the 10:00 position. This will consistently keep you in contact with your jig and you will feel more bites. When you get caught on the bottom and we all do, the boat will spook the fish in the clear water so you might as well move down to a new area. The bite will feel like a slight tap or it may only feel like a little additional weight. Set the hook sternly and don’t let the fish jump by “Keeping your tip up”. Reel it down in the water and fight it like the pros do, down in the water keeping constant pressure on the fish. The jig itself should be made out of a fine material thickness so it will pulsate in the water even when sitting still giving it that breathing living effect.

   When ready I’ll send the raw footage down to Alan Probst Productions for some expert editing to make a good “How To” video production. And speaking of Alan Probst, at the very end of last month he came up and filmed a TV show with me. The unusual thing about it is that we only used American Made Products! Be honest, when was the last time you saw that on a TV fishing show. The rods, reels, fishing line and lures were all “Made In The USA” which we talked about on the show. On film I teased Alan that he should call his show “All American Fishing With Alan Probst” instead of “All Outdoors With Alan Probst”. Something tells me you won’t see that part air on TV. We caught many fish and some big ones in the time he gave me which was about five hours. Many of the fishing shows you see on TV take a day to several days to make. Alans fishing shows never take over 7hrs and most are much shorter. You get a true look at a days fishing. If the fish happen to be short that day, so be it! That’s what you’ll see, that’s fishing! The techniques are the same for both big and small fish. However we will always catch fish. I can’t remember exactly but I’m sure he caught more than me again with his favorite jig, the LD Smallie Slammer from Alluring Baits. This is a 3” green pumpkin Trick Stick with a chartreuse tip with which we catch and release several thousand bass a season. I try to get in as many American Made lures as I can that might work for the day and some don’t, but I do believe I caught the big fish of the day on a green pumpkin 3” tube jig from Venom.

  People are always asking where can we see you with Alan on TV with a local channel that we can get. Well next season starting in July, you will see his show on more of the local FOX networks that most viewers can get with their standard TV package. Check out his website for times and stations.

   Even though it’s cold out, I still see an abundance of wildlife along the river. Almost every morning now lately I’ve seen a mature bald eagle sitting across the river from me while I wait for the clients to arrive, sometimes up to three are sitting there as if saying, “well you going to fish or what”. For a while this month there were at least fifty or so wood ducks flying out of one place every day. You rarely get to see that many in one place. It’s turkey season now and I can show you turkeys every day flying across the river along with gobblers in small bachelor groups. As always the mink are running up and down the river banks looking for food and the bank beaver seem to be getting ready for winter. I never get tired of watching all the wildlife. I do love this so called job!

 Well that’s it for this month, for further daily reports, photos, and chartering information please visit me on my web page, www.ldguideservice.com or on my Facebook page. Boat safe on the cold water, Happy Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you on the river

Susquehanna Fishing Report for September

by Lance Dunham

Finding a topic for this months article took some mind searching. After looking around in that cobweb mind of mine I came up with a few to choose from. There was “How to fish in flood waters”, or “How to navigate flood waters on top of your favorite fishing camp”, or maybe “Finding fish on Main Street”.  I could go on but you get the drift, oh there I go again.

  The river was already muddy or at least dirty brown from what rain we got from the outside edge of the Hurricane a couple of weeks before. I had just finished a charter on the 6^th where we caught 30 some fish in the heavy rain and the river came up a foot while we were out there. We noticed almost all of the campers were all still on the campgrounds where they had been all summer. A mistake we all would soon regret. During the next few days I had rescheduled my charters for the following week as the river jumped up to historic proportions. When the computer flood gauge went above the 30ft mark I knew it all had to be a bad situation.

  I went over to the river to see how my fish camp made out as soon as I could find a passable road. Of course like many I found devastation all over. My camp was built in 1974 after the Agnes flood of 1972 and built high enough off the ground and river to withstand all the 100 year floods or that is what I was told. There was too much debris to drive the last couple hundred yards so I parked “Big Blue” the “Pimpmobile” as we all endearingly call it with all the sponsor decals and walked in. The area was hardly recognizable. The foundation was still mostly there and to my surprise so was the outside deck that was fastened to the top floor. The camp however was down river crumpled   up and flat as my wifes pancakes.

  Being self employed means if you don’t work you don’t get paid so I was very interested in getting back on the river. I was also very surprised that there was no mud on the river access by the camp. With all the rumors that the fish were either washed away, beat up on the rocks or thousands were stranded and died were wide spread on the internet. I knew I had to check this out for myself and quickly. The muddy conditions didn’t concern me for we have been fishing in mud since spring and knew how to fish in that environment. With a buddy along to help we went out for a few hours to prefish five spots along the river within a seventeen mile stretch. We stopped at each place, caught a bass and moved along to the next. I a few hours I had my answer that confirmed what I knew to be true. We were back!

   You see for most of the river the rocks are shore to shore and the fish just tuck themselves down on the bottom behind thousands of rocks, out of the way of the flood waters for the most part. There have been several floods since Agnes and the fish did just fine. I had a charter the next day with a guy that had fished in the mud with me in the spring. He knew that I would find him some fish somewhere or his charter was free anyway and he was anxious as I was to try it out. He and I fished the day and caught 30 smallmouth bass and a channel cat by using big black tubes with heavy weights along with hair jigs and fishing slack water eddys. None of the fish were beat up and were fat and full of life. The river dropped in height quickly and cleared up to a dirty green stain in less than ten days after the flood. Our fish counts went to sixty one, then fifty one, then ninety nine, eighty seven, One hundred and five with just one client and one hundred and three as of the 25^th of this month. Sounds like the fish survived just fine if you ask me.

  However you have to pick the correct lures and presentations to get these higher numbers of fish. Picking the right lure for each water depth, clarity, and current speed is key for consistently catching fish. I usually carry four or five rods beside me in the boat and am constantly changing during the charter to find the highest producing lure for the conditions presented. Right now I’ll have a jerk bait, crank bait, spinner bait, a plastic jig, and a hair jig. If the river clears up enough, there will be a surface bait there soon. After awhile you will know which lure to use just by looking at the water.

  As for the wildlife, they are all back now. The eagles, kingfishers and ducks. We are seeing some dandy bucks now along with some gobbler turkeys if you get out at the right time of day.

 Now I know I just said the fish didn’t get hurt at all but that meant the 8” fish and up that we catch on our lures. This years fry along with the one and two year old fish being so small and weak could have been greatly hurt, there is no way for me to know until the Fish Commission does their shocking program next year. That means we should conserve what we have and practice catch and release sport fishing at least until we get next years report. These small fish could represent up to three years of replacement fish and we may find ourselves in the same predicament as the Main Stem of the Susquehanna is in right now with few fish for even sport fishing.

  With October starting, the minimum keeping size of smallmouth bass goes up to 15” and those are 7 to 8yr old fish here in the upper North Branch. These are our main breeder fish and should never be kept if we have any interest at all of seeing our children and grandchildren enjoy the same quality of angling as we do.

  Well that’s all for this month, lets hope that next month is much dryer. In the meantime be safe out there and I’ll see you on the river. For further reports and daily information along with charter openings and photos, please visit my website at www.ldguideservice.com or on my Facebook page under Lance Dunham.

Susquehanna Fishing Report for June 2011

By Lance Dunham

   This month has been super busy with fishing at last! I’m starting to get caught up with double charters each day because of all the high muddy water in April and May that made me reschedule charters. I got behind in posting customers fish photos and updating my “Daily Newsletter” on my web site, sorry about that folks, I’m working at it now. I’m up at 4:30AM and don’t get home until 9:00PM. It sure makes the month go fast and I’m very happy to be able to do it! My wife hasn’t had to cook super for me in quite a while, hope she doesn’t forget how. OK, just kidding Dear.

   While it’s fresh in my mind, I want to tell you about a new experience myself and TV host, Alan Probst had this month. I may as well start at the beginning. Alan approached me at his outdoor expo last January to try doing a fishing tournament. I was never a big fan of tournaments but I had never done one and wanted to have the new experience. Alan had never been in one before either so neither one of us knew what to expect. Alan graciously invited me to stay at his log home and office during the tournament because the tourney was only an hour away from there. His home is a huge building to say the least and I got a tour while I was there. His editing room was impressive with four computers running all at once doing separate things to make a TV show happen. There is a product room with samples from his sponsors used to make commercials and another being rebuilt for a studio. His home is an outdoorsman’s dream with wildlife mounts all over the place, (it could use a few fish reproduction mounts Alan). Honey, can I have one? However, his schedule and responsibilities to his sponsors is one that I could never keep up with.

   I picked up Alan at his home early on Friday to prefish the immediate area of the tourney and to find the river channels where I could get through without crashing my boat which I needed to guide with on Monday. We drove another hour and found the access where we would be fishing the next day. The smiling tournament director met us there by some barricades closing off the Public Access. “Sorry but we closed the access today because we didn’t want boats here to interfere with our setting up”. Public access closed so we couldn’t prefish, that’s strike one in my mind and we knew we were doomed from the start. Not wanting to cause any trouble we just smiled and said OK, but it would have been nice to have the chance to prefish. Maybe you could have informed us. “Well we put it in the paper”, and they did, the local paper there that neither one of us has in our area and an e-mail is the way to go these days. So we went back to Alans place and at the required time of 3:30AM we were back to get checked in. After check in Alan backed me and the boat in the river in the total darkness and Alan went off to park the truck. In the dark, Alan parks in the wrong place (who could see!), and a staff guy tell me to move it. OK no problem, so I hop in and proceed down the road and come up to a bunch of trucks with boat trailers and I park with them. The same guy comes down in the dark and tells me again we’re in the wrong parking spot! This time it’s getting a little harassing and my guide patience is being tested. I tell the staffer that I parked with all these other boat trailers so what’s the problem. “Well this is for staff members only’ he says. We’ve been here since 2:00AM! Hmmm, are you guys also fishing in the tourney I asked? Yes, some of us are! Are you all here? Yes we are, with his voice becoming louder. Then it’s ok for us to park here since there is room and we’re not taking anyone’s place . He spit and sputtered and finally said, “Then at least turn it around and point your truck in the same direction as ours”. Not knowing why, I did as commanded.  Strike Two against this tourney thing in my mind, too many bossy volunteers. Noticing that I had kept calm and took the guys harassing crap, while laughing, Alan said we can leave at any time if wanted to.  Nope, this was a new experience and I was going to see it through. The fog was thick but the guys that knew the water channels went off out of sight at the start, leaving us and the guys with propellers in the slow waters.

We ended up catching only nine fish with me catching a nice big smallie that come to find out would have made the cut and placed us to fish the finals the next day, yes the fishing was that poor. We knew that it would be about the same scenario the next day, we were bored, a little aggravated, and we both had things we could be doing tomorrow. I know that Alan was swamped with work to do and so was I. The rules stated that the first flight of twenty five boats had to be in for weigh in no later than 1:30PM. The second flight which we were in had to be in no later than 1:40PM. We decided to call it quits at 1:00PM and go home. We go in only to find that they won’t weigh anyone in before 1:30PM. So we wait and at 1:30PM and I get in the back of the line for one of only ten official weigh in bags they had. “What’s your boat number” the staffer asked. Number 27 I said. Sorry you can’t get weighed in before 1:40PM, and you can’t get your boat out of the water until after every fish has been weighed. At this point I’m laughing at the lack of common sense that abounded here and the frustration attached to it. There were empty bags to be had and all the first flight had been weighed in. Strike three and yer out of there I thought. But it was their tourney and I had to abide by their rules even though they were not written down as such. These were the things not written down that maybe a seasoned tourney angler might already have known. And if we had known there wouldn’t be any prefishing allowed from that access the day before, or the hassle of parking, or any of the rest, I doubt if we would have signed up in the first place. There were many boats that didn’t catch any qualifying bass at all so you only had to catch one qualifying bass to go on the next day and we had one. While sitting in our boat waiting with all the rest of the contestants, we got to talking with them and they were all great guys. To me that was the best part of the tourney except for joking with Alan all day. Since we were not planning to come back the next day, I told the guys that I might as well release my bass and not bother with the stress of weigh in for it and possibly give another boat that wants to come back the opportunity to do so.  They all said don’t do it, you may do better tomorrow. I looked at Alan and he agreed to release it. I took it out of the live well, held it up for my new friends to see and released it back into the river to their amazement. Catch and Release guys, that’s my game. Some guys love the fast pace of tourney competition fishing but it was obvious that it just wasn’t our game. We prefer the peace and solitude while fishing the river and enjoying Natures beauty around it.

   Such as the quiet of the morning watching the deer coming to the river to drink, the sweet smell of the wild flowers on the bank, or just the smell of the water alone without the exhaust fumes of fifty boats mixed with it.

  Last week I saw my first albino grey squirrel, pink eyes and all and as I took some photos of it I wondered how it got to adulthood when predators could see it so well. I saw my first swans on the river this month. As I was taking photos of the pair, one of them fluffed up it’s plumage as if to say “that’s quite close enough”. I guess I was meant to be a fishing guide because tourney fishing just isn’t my style and I’m OK with that.

  Well that’s all for this month. For further reports, photos, and charter information , please visit me at my web site at www.ldguideservice.com . Good fishing in any form you choose and I’ll see you on the river.

Susquehanna River Report for May 2011

By Lance Dunham

   This month just seems to continue to be one of the wettest springs I can recall since I started guiding 31 years ago. We have been fishing in some extreme high, fast, muddy waters lately but we have also been catching some really big fish.

  Now to start with, let me take you back to the end of last month. It was raining very hard, as usual, when my clients drove up. It was John Snyder and Jeff Trauger from South East Pa. We nearly didn’t go but after an hour of talking the rain stopped so we decided to give it a try just for a half day. The water was high and muddy so we concentrated on whatever slow water we could find behind islands, up in creek mouths, or any slack water found along the side of the river. We needed a bigger profile lure that would show up in the muddy water. The water was also very cool so a slow working was needed. I chose a black tube jig, fished as slow as we could in any slack water we could find. We started to catch small mouth bass here and there and with the conditions faced, we were doing fine. We had caught 12 smallies when Jeff thought he was caught on the bottom which was common with the fishing pattern we were using. He was tugging at it when I saw his line start to move. I leaned over to Jeff and suggested that he set the hook firmly because his snag was now on the move! And with that the fun began. At first I thought it was a big 30lb plus carp and told him to just keep constant pressure on the fish and have fun. “Lets see if you can get him in for a photo” I said. Jeff fought him well keeping his cool and not getting excited over what we thought was indeed a big carp. I kept the boat out of the way and positioned so he could keep pressure on the fish from just one angle, that way the jig wouldn’t open up a bigger hole in it’s mouth making it easier for the fish to get off. Also with that much strain on the 10lb line I didn’t want it to touch the boat which would have cut the line immediately.

After about 15 minutes or so I got a glimpse of the huge tail and the color of the fish itself. “Musky and a big one, get the cradle net” I said to John in maybe a too excited voice!  “Just keep fighting him the way that you’ve been doing Jeff and when it’s tired enough, slide him into the cradle net”. I looked at the five foot long net and then at the fish and I thought to myself, is this thing going to fit in! After going around in circles and back and forth for what seemed forever, the big fish finally came up to the top after about a 30 minute total fight. Jeff led that fish into the cradle net just like a pro and I put the aluminum poles together closing the top like a big purse. John helped me lift the monster fish in to the boat. I let out a war hoop that could be heard in the next county! Along with some very basic, but very happy words that can’t be printed here. After getting some photos it measured out to 48” and weighed 32lbs with a 24” girth, the biggest musky that ever came into my boat, that’s for sure! We put that monster fish back in the river unharmed and watched it swim away to spread its genes and maybe give another angler the fish of a life time. I was by far much more excited than either of my two clients over Jeff catching that trophy musky. I realized just how special that fish was and it wasn’t until Jeff sent in for his catch and release angler award from the fish commission did he really realized what he had caught.

According to their e-mail, the Fish Commission didn’t know that the musky got that big on the North Branch up here and sent the information to several department heads. Jeff is getting a reproduction mount done by Just Fish Taxidermy in Stevensville, Pa. That big musky was the 13^th fish caught on that day. The number 13 may be unlucky for some folks, but for Jeff it was his lucky day. That little 3” black tube must have just gone by the big fishes head and he snapped at it in the muddy water. Fish that big will not expend the energy to chase after baits that small. The jig was in the center of the muskys top lip away from all those big teeth.

  Just last week another client was fishing with me and at the end of the day he caught a 30” musky on a crank bait. Up from the tail about 8 inches there were teeth marks on both sides showing where a much bigger musky had tried to eat the 30” one! There was also a chunk of flesh taken out of it’s side. We caught this fish about 16 miles from where Jeff Trauger caught his monster. Could there be even a bigger musky lurking in the depths of the Susquehanna bigger that Jeff’s? I sure hope so. Kind of makes one think of the “Jaws” theme music playing in the background. Anyone for a swim?

   Since the river is still  high and muddy I thought you would like to know what we are using this month. Pretty much, when the water gets muddy you need to increase the lure profile, go with dark colors for contrast, and slow down your speed. Blacks, dark blues and purples work good. I make a jig spinner called the “Ultimate Thumper” which is a #4 deep cup Colorado blade for maximum vibration in a gold color. This is attached to a spinner arm to which I attach a 4” black tube on a 5/8 oz jig head that has a 3/0 or 4/0 hook. I can slowly work this spinner across the bottom of the river for maximum vibration and attraction. I suggest you use a clip swivel when using this bait because the extra vibration will weaken your knots.  Another thing is to take a large crank bait with rattles and a big bill so it gets down to and almost plows the bottom of the river. Paint the lure black with a plastic spray paint in muddy situations. It doesn’t need to be a great detailed paint job, remember it’s muddy water. When just using a black tube, add a glass rattle up into the plastic by the head. Also you can add scent to your tube by applying it to the lead jig head first, then inserting it into the tube. Run out of dark lures of any kind on the water, no problem, just use a black magic marker to darken lures up. I always keep one in the boat. In place of the tube you can substitute a large stick worm or creature bait in a dark color.

   Well that’s all for this month, for further reports, photos, and chartering information, visit me on my web site at www.ldguideservice.com . Boat safe and I’ll see you on the water.

February Susquehanna River Report With A Susquehanna River Guide

By Lance Dunham

This month the push is on to finish getting ready for the new fishing season. With the exception of a good cleaning, the boat is ready to go. I’ve installed new bucket style seats in cammo print of course, courtesy of my sons Christmas gift cards he gave me, he always knows what dad needs. The guys up at Snake Creek Marine have my 115/80HP Merc running good as new. The owner, Allen Coy and the guys know that I can’t afford to be down for repairs even one day so when I asked them to go over the boat and trailer and make them run like new again I said, “whatever it takes”! I’m always curious as to what they may find to improve the boat and trailer. Last season they installed some custom trailer bunks for me so I could load the boat on the trailer in fast current. It’s always amusing and easy to tell on a fast river which boaters are the experienced ones and which ones are the Newbies. The Newbies will try to get lined up straight behind the trailer about 20ft and shoot in before the current pushes them by. Quite often they will run over the trailer bunks, crushing or bending them over. Last season I saw a guy come in too fast and completely miss the trailer when the strong current pushed his boat down river. He crashed into the river bank putting a pretty good dent in the bow of his boat. I can say I was amused because many years ago I was the same guy. Lucky when I started my boats were pretty cheap and full of dents anyways. Now with twenty thousand dollar plus bass boats out there it pays to be much more careful. The proper way to load your boat on your trailer in a fast current is to go slow with your bow into the current parallel with the shore line. When you get to the trailer just hook the bow on the down river edge of the trailer bunk, give some gas and turn into the trailer. When you are straight with the trailer give it enough power to push you up on the trailer far enough so you can hook the bow winch on and finish the job. Yes it might take some practice but soon you will get the hang of it. The side pressure of the water on the boat and trailer bunks can be tremendous so the bunks must be made to withstand these pressures. My one bunk was starting to bend out a little with all the use I gave it so they reinforced the custom bunk by wielding on braces. A nice little improvement. Some fishing line got into one of the trailer wheel bearings and wiped it out so a new one was installed. That could have been a bad thing to have your trailer wheel bearing burn up on the way to a charter. They installed an automatic bilge pump for me so I don’t have to pay attention to that and I asked them to install an automatic aerator in the live well that keeps the water fresh and full of oxygen so the fish don’t get stressed out while in transit in a tournament situation. Tournament! Lance you don’t do tourneys!  Well that’s true and I have never been a big supporter of them either but then I’ve never been in a catch and release tourney and it was always hard to be fair and objective about them. So when Alan Probst of the “All Outdoors With Alan Probst” TV show asked me to be in a river tourney with him this summer I said sure, lets find out what this is all about. We will be going into this with an open mind, enter as contestants and see what happens. Yes the TV camera will be along. Yes we will most likely be soundly beaten because as I told Alan, it would be very hard to beat a local angler in a local tourney on his home waters. Heck, that’s part of the reason anglers want me to guide for them up here. I know all the spots in my 70 mile territory where the fish hide out during each season and condition of the year. But one thing is for sure, we will have fun! I told Alan that the only person I got to beat is him and I’ve done my job for the day, hee, hee, hee. We’ll see, Alan seems to get better every time we do a show and is a very good jig fisherman. He often catches more fish than I do on his show now but I still seem to be lucky enough to get the larger ones. Good, bad, or downright ugly, I’ll tell you about it later this year.

   The other thing that I did this month was to make new plastic creature baits out of old plastic worms. You see my boat goes through about 1800 plastic worms of various shapes each year and I accumulate a big bag, oh about the size of a plastic shopping bag of used worms each season. So instead of throwing them into the trash I decided to recycle them this year and make new creature baits out of them. I bought the aluminum pour molds and I thought I was ready to go. The instructions said, or at least what I read of them was to use in a well ventilated area. I figured the downstairs bathroom had a ceiling ventilator so that would be fine. Now what to use for heat to melt them in? My wife had a small microwave in the kitchen, yep I figured that would do. What kind of bowl to melt them in? I dug around in the wife’s cooking cabinet and found her Pyrex two cup measuring cup, yep I’m sure she won’t mind. Now when to start? Now I’m not that dumb so I waited until Sunday to try the deed. I knew she usually went to church and then sometimes visited with her Mom afterward giving me several if not many hours of man time to experiment with this new endeavor. Well Sunday came, my dear wife went to church and I quickly put my plan into action. I got everything set up and put about a cup of old worms in the 2 cup measure and turned on the microwave that I had placed in the bathroom. The first thing I learned from all the sparks going on in the microwave is to wash off all the old dirt and grime from the worms before you start! The next thing I quickly learned is that when they say to use in a well ventilated area they really meant it! I guess I cooked it too long because when I opened that microwave door the smoke coming off that plastic was bad enough to knock down a bull moose! It stung my eyes, burnt my nose, made me nauseous, and I’m sure I lost at least a few more brain cells in the process. I flew the window open, brought in two more fans and aired out the place for an hour! I then rushed off to Walmart because I found out that burnt plastic doesn’t come out of microwaves and Pyrex measuring cups, the smell never leaves! Good thing I didn’t use her new over the range microwave! I have since moved the operation out of the house, bought a good respirator, and have successfully made creature baits from old plastic worms without loosing anymore brain cells. The whole ordeal didn’t cost over a couple of hundred bucks to make a 35 cent creature bait. Well that’s all I’ve got for this month. Next month I’ll be on the river! For further reports, photos, and chartering information please visit me on my website at www.ldguideservice.com . Fish safely and I’ll see you on the river.