Chris and Walter go fishing

After work Walter came up and said we should go fishing at the pond real quick. I said "sure why not!"

We headed down to the pond and I tossed in a lure I carved today. I immediately snagged it on a stick. Oh well, that's how it goes. Walter sniffed things as I tied on another.

I tied on my newly painted flatfish lure- the one that almost caught some bass yesterday. I reeled it in nice and slow. I saw the green flash of a bass coming out of the shadows and attacking my lure.

Walter didn't know what to make of it. He licked the bass lips and then walked away, doing a small roll in the grass to scratch his back.

Then I caught another one, a much much bigger one, on the same lure. I showed Walter, but he just sniffed it and walked away. It must have been 16" or so- and fat!! but instead of congratulating me he went to smell something new.

That's ok, I know he likes frisbee a lot more than fishing.

Drinkbourbon and CBFishes go fishing

Anthony (@drinkbourbon) and I have been trying to do some fishing together for some time now. We've been corresponding via all the various internet ways like Twitter, Facebook; Anthony's got a blog, and it seems like we've got a lot in common. Obsessed with fishing, not sure how everything works exactly with the whole fishing thing, oh and did I mention obsessed with fishing?

I got to the pond a little while before Anthony, and had a great time almost catching a bunch of fish. I tested out some new lures I made, this time before painting them. I just wanted to see how they ran. A little crankbait I made with a plastic lip flipped over itself at any speed, suggesting I might need to change the lip position. I snapped on a weird looking lure I carved and finished with my new Dremel (that thing is freaking awesome). A while back I found a couple "flatfish" lures at Busse- I don't know if they're "Lil' Ikes" or "Flatfish" but the idea is the same. They were so unusual I wanted to see if I could make them myself.

The Beckfish (flatfish imitation)

I was immediately in love with the action of this lure. With a very slow retrieve, it wobbled a ton back and forth, so much so I almost took a swipe at it. On the second cast, I saw three bass come up and try and take it. One of them made it, got hooked right in the lip, but threw the hook in an impressive aerial display of power.

Well that was awesome. It confirms something I've been thinking and hearing from other anglers I respect a lot- it's all about the action. There was no paint, no eyes, no 3D holographic foil coating, no patented impregnated scent... Just some wood and some metal with some nice action. Maybe the bass apreciated the extra-smooth finish I was able to achieve with my new power tool.

I'm now the proud owner of a power tool

 I ended up catching a nice bass a few minutes later by dragging a t-rigged tube over some weeds and letting it drop down right at the edge. A big bass gobbled it up. Great idea Sam! Just like a frog but cheaper.

A few minutes later Anthony walked down to the water. Although we'd never met, we had corresponded a great deal via the internets, so we already went way back, so to speak. He started fishing, I did my best impression of a fishing guide and told him what had and hadn't been working lately. I kept my tube tied on, missing a bunch of hits and catching a few fish.

Anthony and I talked about our fishing background; how he grew up fishing, didn't fish for a long time, then recently picked it up in a serious way. We seem to have similar ideas about fishing- catching a little fish is still a fish; there's a big difference between catching one fish and zero fish but less between two and ten; we don't know why the fish choose to hit certain lures at certain times.

I managed to catch a few bass while we were talking, but felt bad Anthony wasn't getting any fish. I was the guide after all. It was cool to have somebody else around to take pictures- most of my fish pictures are from an arm's distance away.

After a few misses (the fish were biting really weirdly) he connected with his first CB's Secret Pond bass!

Anthony and a nice bass

It was a great time. The fish were certainly biting, although strangely. Most of my hits came from ignoring my lure for a minute while Anthony and I talked; then I'd have a bass on my line. No giant bulldozer hits, just a "gulp" and my line swam away. I suppose it is a cold front after all. I did, however, catch my second bass on my firetiger crankbait. I cast it out to the middle of the pond, let it sit for a few seconds; the bass inhaled it after two revolutions of cranking my reel.

Another fish caught by a hand-carved lure

We caught some more fish (I think I managed 6 bass total that outing on t-rigged plastics and my crankbait), talked about fishing, made a lot of casts; we each had some equipment issues, but it was a great time. Thanks for coming out Anthony! Next time I'll have to experience your secret pond.

Anthony and another sweet bass

Green sunfish and the creek monster

The view from the water

Early this morning I headed out to the local pond, which is the answer to my fishing fix when I don't plan ahead. The pond is there, it's full of fish, I usually do pretty well there. For a while the bass seemed turned off, and now they are back biting at everything. Could that be the "post-spawn funk" I've been hearing about?

Last week my lovely wife suggested we get another fishing rod. Well ok, sounds like a plan to me. We went to the big store and looked through all the rods until I found what I was looking for. I should clarify that, because I have no idea what I was looking for. I was hoping for a very light rod that I could use for a variety of fishing situations- pond bass, panfish, maybe even smallies. I normally fish with medium rods, but I wanted to try catching big pond bass on a light rod.

Turns out, it's a hell a good time. (Did I say that right? Should I say "hella" instead?) This morning I missed 2 and landed 3 on my new 5'6" light action (action? weight? not sure) rod. Each fish felt like a river monster. It was awesome. 1 came on a texas-rigged tube (thanks for the idea Sam) and the others on a plain old t-rigged worm. Brown. They attacked the $%^# out of that brown worm.

Later in the day I headed out to good old Salt Creek. It's a fairly polluted body of water, as I understand it; but I've caught a fair number of small fish there before. Even kayaked there once. I stopped by for literally 10 minutes and caught 4 green sunfish and two bass. They were small, but I really enjoyed catching them. I tried throwing some new little spoons I assembled, but they only followed and wouldn't strike. The white jig and twister, which is quickly becoming my go-to lure, took them all.

For 10 minutes in the middle of the day, I'll take it. The bass hit like tanks; they didn't know how small they were.

This evening I had been planning on kayaking Mallard Lake, now that I've got the Dupage county license to do so... But with 15 mph with gusts up to 30, I knew it would mean a frustrating outing. At the last minute I changed my mind and decided to wade Salt Creek.

I've never heard of anybody targeting green sunfish- not for bait- but that was exactly my plan. I wanted to go wading on a Monday night, 5 minutes from my house, and catch a bunch of fish. Beside the gale-force wind, it was a perfectly fantastic outing.

Perhaps you might think it's silly to wade in a tiny creek only home to tiny fish; or a waste of time... But just like the local pond is a smaller version of a lake, the creek is a scaled-down version of a river. All the same rules apply. There are still riffles, pools; seams, undercut banks... It's just all in miniature. The water was surprisingly clear, so as I fished I could not only view all the structure in the river, but I could see where my fish came from. Learning to fish a little creek will help me understand bigger moving water, just like learning to pond fish pays off in larger lakes.

It was incredibly informative. I learned that, in Salt Creek this evening, green sunfish prefer to be in the shade, under trees if possible, and in whatever deeper water is available. In any given stretch, I took a long hard look, and made a guess cast to where the fish would choose to be. Most of the time I was right, which was a prize in itself! And then there was this feisty, underrated, and very pretty little fish that I kept catching.

Greeny

I was having a great time. I explored the creek, slowly wading downstream; I saw a raccoon crawl down almost into the water and disappear into a hole in the bank. I saw a muskrat waddling along, oblivious to my presence. I noticed tons of little baitfish hanging out in the miniature eddies that appeared occasionally. It seemed like the creek didn't have too many places for fish to be; no big boulders, not too much downed timber, no obvious fish-holding spots. I wonder if the channelization of the original stream caused those things to disappear.

Call me silly, but I was perfectly happy to catch these little fish. I was catching more fish in this outing than any of the 113 previous outings this year. It was great.

And then, after hooking into a little greenie in the shadow of an undercut bank, I saw a long green shape suddenly lunge out from the darkness and take a swipe at my hooked fish.

And then it was gone.

I froze, forgetting I had a fish on my line, and questioned the reality of what I just saw. It looked a little like a bass, but was much longer. I saw a flash of scales that appeared green through the water. But so did most things when viewed through this water... I estimated it's length at three feet, but it could have been less. I quickly ran down the list of possible species... I concluded it was either a bass- a BIG bass, a pike, or a musky.

It was a BIG fish. It dwarfed my 5" green sunfish. I know musky or even pike may sound ridiculous to you reading this, an account of fishing in a little polluted creek... But Busse Lake flows into Salt Creek, and they stocked musky at Busse. There's even a picture on the internet somewhere of a guy holding a Salt Creek musky. So it's not completely out of the question.

But even if it were a bass, it was certainly a very big fish. And for the water it was in, practically a trophy-sized fish.

Obviously I fished that spot for about an hour after the sighting.

I threw everything- I got some follows on my new little spoon, but I think it was just little greenies. I used a green sunfish as bait, which seemed like a great idea considering that's what triggered the attack in the first place.... But I never saw that large flash of scales again. Eventually, as the sun began to set, I decided to call it a day. As I waded upstream, it occurred to me how much more difficult it was than wading downstream. My thighs and calves burned. The wind tore through my ears and threatened to blow my hat off. I caught some more fish, and it was ok. I ended up catching 11 green sunfish, which is 1 more than my record this year of number of fish in one outing.

The idea of that giant fish swimming so close to my house will keep me up at night; I'll have dreams of catching whatever it was the next time I go down there. It's amazing, you just don't know what's in the water... until you catch it.

EDIT: Writing this now, after the fact, I suddenly remember I noticed that fish in the picture looked like it's pelvic fins were bitten off. Maybe there is some other reason it's missing fins, but for now I'm just going to assume they were taken by the giant aquatic creature I caught a glimpse of.

99 Fishing Trips

I go fishing a lot. Every trip used to be a huge adventure; setting foot into the outdoors was a major production because of my unfamiliarity of it. Going to Busse and exploring the Amazon had a lot more in common to me than improvising over the chord changes to Cherokee at 300 beats per minute. That I could do. Since then, I've spent a great deal of my time outside. Many weeks I'll go fishing every day, sometimes more than once per day. A lot of these trips are quick and to the point, without much adventure or story to relate... But I do want to record some of the highlights of the past week or two- the parts I haven't yet posted. Here goes...

Claire and I went fishing on Lake Pleasant in Michigan (near Hillsdale); I caught a bunch of little bass, and hooked into one on her "last cast" real close to shore, but it threw the hook.

Walter and me on the way to Lake Pleasant

My father in law let me tag along with him to his golf club- while he golfed, I caught 10 awesome largemouth bass out of some golf course ponds. My first time fishing a golf course (with permission or otherwise)! 9 of the bass came on a Heddon Torpedo I found floating at Busse a while back. It was amazing; a landscaper driving by on a riding lawnmower gave me a tip to use something that floats and makes a lot of noise to land fish there, he'd been fishing there for many years. I tied on the Torpedo, cast it out, and the bass took swipes at it. I didn't even have to move it much, once it landed on the water usually three or four bass would come investigate, eventually smashing into the lure like a ton of bricks.

This one apparently swallowed a little animal...
Mouse? Muscrat? I'd never seen that before!

Probably the biggest of the day.. I don't usually put fish
on the ground, but this one fell. It was probably
a safer way to remove the treble hooks too

I've been looking for new ponds to fish; my go-to retention pond is almost entirely filled with weeds and a thick floating scum. The fish are still there, and they're still biting, but sometimes I want to use a crankbait! I "discovered" a new, tiny pond next to an office building. Surprisingly, it doesn't say "No Fishing." I pulled some fairly big green sunfish out of there on my trusty jig and twister.

Big ol' green sunfish- hit like a bass!

I went night fishing the other day, hoping to catch another one of the retention pond catfish. Something possessed me to use hotdogs as bait. The internet says you can do that, so I did. After tremendous difficulty casting without tossed the hotdogs off the hook and into the water, I finally managed to get a line in the water with a hotdog on it. While that stewed I tossed out some topwaters for bass, which got hits every so often. Nobody connected though; it wasn't all bad, as I got to watch the almost-full moon rise and try out my new headlamp with a red LED. Pretty sweet. When I was packing up, around 12:15am, when I went to reel in my hotdog line there was something connected- something big! After a pretty awesome but short fight, I saw exactly what I hoped to see. A big old (channel?) cat.

23" (channel) cat caught on hotdog!

I recently started a new job; it's fast-paced and exciting, I'm really enjoying it, and because I'm working from home my commute is substantially shorter. For the most part, when I close up shop in the "office" I head out for some fishing. Much of it has been local, especially in the morning and at lunch. When I'm not fishing, I've been making lures. I think I'm getting the hang of it now; I've probably made 15-20 wooden lures now. Some of them work great, some are complete failures.. but I learn from each one and use that experience on the next.

My copycat of a Heddon Torpedo, made out of cedar
This one got a lot of hits at night at the pond

Glow-in-the-dark firetiger crank made of balsa

That firetiger crankbait, which glows in the dark because I mixed green, yellow, and glow paint together, might be my most successful crank yet. I made a little video (and the music) of the lure in action.

And then yesterday morning, I caught a fish on it!

I carved it, painted it, fished it, and caught this fish with it

This one dives medium deep and has a nice wobble. So far
one fish has taken a swipe at it

Oh yeah, and I got a fish finder! It's a Hummingbird Piranhamax 160. So far I've taken it out twice, and I love it. It's great to find out what's beneath me. I took it on the yak to Busse, found some fish in some deep holes, but couldn't get them to connect. I also took it to a big local retention pond (not the retention pond) and discovered the whole pond is about 2-3 feet deep with a thick mud bottom.

Yesterday I hit the local pond with my new fly rod for about 10 minutes and saw tons of little bluegill hanging out in very shallow water. I caught about 5 or 6 of them in rapid succession; one I didn't even know I hooked and ended up back-casting it 20 feet away from the pond! It seemed fine when it swam away.

Last night I kayaked the big retention pond; didn't catch any fish but I did catch two bullfrogs mostly by accident. It seems they'll take anything! I considered keeping it after reading Dan the Impractical Fisherman's post about bullfrog legs, but read the season for them doesn't open until June 15. When the season opens, might I keep a frog or two and try some wild-caught frog legs? When the zombie apocalypse happens I might need to...

Whew, that was a lot of fishing trips. Last night marked my 99th fishing trip of the year. I've caught 111 fish of 13 different species in two different states while kayaking, wading, shore fishing, still fishing, and fly fishing, at pretty much all times of day, on live bait, grocery store items, and lures both store-bought and homemade.

I caught my first walleye a couple weeks ago. I even almost caught a fish with my bare hands! I think I've had a great fishing year so far; I've learned a whole lot, spent a bunch of time outside, and generally had a great time doing it.

Although I've learned a huge amount about fishing, the primary thing I've discovered out of all these trips is how much I like the outdoors. I like catching fish, but if I had to be inside to do it, I doubt I would have gone fishing 99 times this year.

CB Goes Fly Fishing

In an effort to get these posts written up and out there (I've got about 9 completely undocumented trips I want to tell you about!) I'll keep this short and to the point. Edit: I'll try and keep this short and to the point. Already I'm rambling.

Rogue River guide Rob Vink

Rob took me back to the good old Rogue River; after demonstrating proper fly casting technique for me, I butchered it entirely, but yet he put a fly rod in my hand and told me where to cast. It's a small miracle I even made it to where we were standing in the river, after tripping over every rock and slipping on every weed along the way. Rob moved through the woods like some kind of cougar, he navigated the rocks in the river like some kind of river creature. Although I followed the same path he took through the water, every step or so I almost ended up face down in the river. He claimed it was his experience, but I think maybe he had magic wading boots.

After a few tries, I somehow managed to get the tiny little dry fly to land kind of where Rob told me to put it. It was so strange, all that line flying around all over the place; the little tiny fly indistinguishable to me among all the other stuff floating on the surface of the water. Eventually I got the hang of it, kind of. I created huge tangles of the strangely thick and colored line every other cast, got the fly caught on trees, and generally felt like a total newbie. I was a total newbie; just like when I first started fishing a couple years back. It was frustrating and exciting.

I did my best to keep up with Rob's cat-like navigation of the river. I didn't fall in, but I came extremely close every few steps. We made it to a spot, Rob told me where to cast, I did my best to get the fly there... and then... there was a fish on the end of my line.

And I didn't know how to reel it in!

I asked Rob how to reel it in, holding the line with my left hand, the fish just splashing around. I wondered if it wondered what I was waiting for. Following his instructions, I pulled the weird colorful line with my left hand while he got out his fancy trout net. In a few seconds the fish was netted, and I had landed - with Rob's help - my first fish on the fly!

First fish on the fly!

It was awesome- when I hooked the little rainbow trout it felt like I was grabbing it with my arm. When it did it's thing and tried to swim away, I had the sensation I was holding it by a string. Which I kind of was.

I couldn't believe that smart little fish could, out of all the stuff floating on the surface of the water in that scum line, pick out my fly and identify it as possible food.

I also couldn't believe I caught three more in the next hour or so- on the fly! As we waded, I practiced my back cast. That contributed to my constant tripping, but I think it also made my casting better. Pretty soon it was dark, Rob caught some trout too, and we headed back to the truck after a successful trip.

°°° 

The coda to my little fly fishing prelude, if you'll let me get away with writing something like that, is the fly rod and reel combo I bought when I got back to Illinois. After spending an hour trying to make sense of all the new terms- backing, fly line, tapered leader, tippet - and learning some new knots, Claire and I headed to the pond. Since she encouraged (read: tolerated) my purchase of a fly rod, she made the first few casts on it. It was tough, due to the weeds everywhere and the scum all over the pond. Pretty soon she switched to a spinning rod and I manned the fly setup.

First cast, my dry fly hit the water nice and light, I saw a bluegill come up and take it, swim away, and it was on! I reeled in the line with my hand, and there it was: my first fish on my first fly rod.

There! Can you see it?

I caught a bunch more 'gills, and even got a bass! As the sun set, we kept on casting. Once it started to get dark I realized why I'd never heard of night-fly-fishing. But we kept catching fish.

First bass on the fly

While I struggled to control my fly line as the sun set, Claire caught two nice bass on a texas-rigged chigger craw I set up for her. Although I caught more fish by number, she caught more fish by weight. I'm fine with that arrangement.

Claire and her nice bass

Where's CB and is he fishing?

The answer is right here and yes, of course I'm fishing.

A variety of circumstances have prevented me from my usual flurry of blog posts as of late... One of them is the new job I started last week. So far I'm very much enjoying it- I'm working from home, my new coworkers are awesome, the job is exciting and interesting, and there's a lot to learn. Since I'm working from home, those 3 hours I used to spend on my commute are no longer travel time anymore.

It was during those 3 hours of travel I wrote most of my blog posts. Sitting on the metra, typing on my laptop; that's where most of CB Fishes came from.

The story behind this brown trout?

It didn't feel like hanging around for another picture

Now, there is no transit time to my job (besides the 10 second walk up the stairs). Once I'm done with work, instead of sitting down and writing new posts I head out into the world and go fishing. Or kayaking. Or pretty much anything else besides sitting down in front of a computer and typing up a post.

I've certainly had some adventures recently- now they're getting older, sitting on the shelves of my "need to blog about this" library. Last weekend in Michigan I experienced my first canoe trip with Mark and Rob, caught some trout; then went fly fishing for the first time under the expert tutelage of Rob Vink, fly fishing master. Naturally, I came back to Illinois and purchased a fly rod/reel combo. Saturday night Claire and I went to the local pond, where I proceeded to catch 3 bluegill and a nice largemouth bass on the fly!

First cast, first flyrod, first bluegill on the fly

It's been exciting, with the fly rod in my hand I feel like a complete novice, the way I felt with a spinning rod about a year ago. To be clear, I'm still a total newbie to fishing, but at least I know how to handle a spinning rod and jig. The fly rod, well, that's another story. I can catch some fish with it, but I have a suspicion I'm doing it wrong...

Claire caught this one on a black and red chigger craw

Should I still blog about adventures that are more than a week old? I think I will. When will I be doing that? A very good question. In the meantime, I'll keep posting new pictures to Instagram and Facebook should you be so inclined to see the most recent catches even without the story behind them. I've also gotten on the Twitter bandwagon: follow @cbfishes to get a stream of mostly fishing-related posts shorter than 140 characters. And a bunch of pictures too.

One of 5 smallies I pulled out from one spot
on the Rogue River in Michigan

A very short post

The other night I went to Mallard Lake, the scene of the crime so to speak for my first walleye. Worked some areas, nothing, nobody else caught anything. Then I threw out my white jig and twister, this guy jumped a foot out of the water.

30 minutes, 1 fish.. not bad

Yesterday afternoon I investigated the west branch of the Dupage river which flows through Mallard. Took about half an hour to find a place to park anywhere close to the river. When I got there it was about 4 inches deep, a carp was hanging out in some weeds.

Last night I didn't fish after work... But by 7pm I was bored and decided to go fish the pond for an hour before River Monsters came on. I got to the pond, there must have been 6 dudes standing on the shore fising. What!!??

I headed to Songbird Slough, about 5 minutes from there, and fished for about 45 minutes. Tried everything, no fish. I got a very strange hit on my jig and twister; in my head I thought it was a walleye, definitely didn't feel like a bass. Couldn't get it to happen again.

I'm extremely obsessed with fishing.

Here's what the sunset looked like as I was leaving to go home and watch Jeremy Wade battle giant catfish and eels and stuff:

Sunset at Songbird Slough

Kids throwing rocks, me catching fish

Suburban fishing

Originally Claire and I were thinking about going camping this weekend. We had a tent (thanks Kim and Leo!) and sleeping bags, but not much else. Instead of scrambling to purchase everything we needed at the last minute, we decided to get stuff now and camp next weekend. That meant two things: we ended up at L.L. Bean, I got some early birthday wading boots (!!) and we wanted to be outside. The temperature and sun were just right. Claire suggested we go fishing at a local reservoir, so we did.

We brought our new camping chairs, a little cooler, three rods, beverages, and Walter the Boston terrier. I'd like to call him our fishing dog, but he doesn't seem to care about fish whatsoever. He'll sniff for a second, then wander away, unimpressed. I visited this water before, noticing a couple doing exactly what we were doing: relaxing with a bunch of rods in the water. I remember looking down on their style of fishing. Why would you want to just sit there when you could be actively fishing? Only now do I think I know the answer. Well, there are two: carp and catfish. In fact, the same trip (in the kayak) I found what I later realized was a whole mess of catfish fry. I'll need to do some catfishing here later...

So we hung out, enjoyed the sun, and I watched what I could only assume we're carp wakes all over the water. I tried corn on a hook, then white bread squeezed around a hook; I even threw out little smushed pieces of bread to try and bring the carp in. I wonder if that technique is more of a cumulative thing, meaning I should do that every few days to create some awesome carp fishing...

Retention pond crappie

Claire hopped on her bike to do some laps around the trail, and no sooner had she left than I got my first and only fish of the day: a white crappie, around 8". My first of the year! It attacked a gulp minnow under a slip bobber, and didn't mind I used a piece of grass to keep the bobber in place. It works remarkably well, and grass is readily available and biodegradable. Walter was unimpressed. He was much more interested in watching the bike path to see who would be riding by next.

After a couple hours enjoying the sun, Walter rolling around in the mud like a little pig, and one single fish, we headed home.

Not too soon after getting back home and unloading the car, I got back in and made my way back to the Fox River. I have a great wife who lets me go fishing frequently and for long periods of time. The one stipulation is usually that I prepare some kind of food to eat; this time I fed her tomato soup and cast iron grilled cheese. I'm not a grilled cheese fan, but I'm fairly positive grilled cheese in cast iron is superior to every other kind out there.

Muddy dog

Anyway, soon I found myself back on the fox, the weather even nicer than the day before. I didn't even bring my jacket. In fact, I wore shorts and a t-shirt under my waders, and must say I enjoyed wading barefoot, so to speak. There was some kind of bug hatch going on, which started docile enough but would eventually crescendo into an all-out Chris attack-fest. At least it felt that way.

It must have been my third or fourth cast when I hooked into the first beast of the evening- and it felt very big. Based on my luck the previous day- 3 smallies and 10+ almosts- I was excited to jump back into the fray and fight some scrappy river smallies. This first one seemed big; it headed down, fighting with raw power. It took a minute or two to horse it in, and that's when I realized why it felt so big.

Somehow I had gut hooked it, the hook stuck in its chest instead of its mouth. I brought it close, and quickly lipped it so I could get the hook out in as little time as possible. This is where I face the eventual certainty of fishing: although I never want to hurt an animal for the sake of hurting it, and will only kill if I intend to eat it, the very act of fishing can hurt the fish. Although I certainly didn't mean to harm the fish, I was after all dragging a very sharp hook through the water, hoping a fish would out it's lip through the sharp point. There's some debate on whether fish feel pain or not, and like most people I can't know whether they do or not. I could rationalize and explain how it is I sleep at night, but the short answer is I try to avoid hurting fish as much as possible when fishing.

I felt horrible having harmed this beautiful creature in this way; I looked at its wound and it reminded me of some bird-inflicted wounds I'd seen on other fish. It occurred to me that although I don't intentionally hurt fish, there are plenty of animals who would love to make a quick meal out of any smallie, and we certainly can't find fault in that. They are animals, and all animals need to eat. Including us.

For a moment I considered keeping the fish for the table, as it was at least 14" (the legal minimum) and would rather eat it than let it suffer and die wantonly. But as I carefully removed the hook, I noticed the wound wasn't deep at all, and the fish seemed fine. I got the hook out, and held the bass in the water to see if it could swim away on its own. After a second, the bass chomped down on my thumb - hard- as if to scold me for injuring it. It burst away like the annoyed little rocket it was.

I'm new to the outdoors, to nature, to animals, but there's something that seems to be a recurring theme: nature doesn't care. A blade of grass growing in the sidewalk doesn't care it's not in the forest; a heron doesn't care if it eats an endangered fish; nature doesn't care if you're there or not, it will continue to do its thing. To the smallmouth bass, I was just another predator, and a dumb one at that. What predator would voluntarily set his prey free?

I was happy the bass was fine, hoped it would prosper, and wondered if the run-in with me would make it smarter and more wary in the future. Perhaps it would live longer because of this brush with death. It had a new lease on life. But perhaps it would die in a day due to an infection or something else. Either way I was pretty sure nature wouldn't loose sleep over it, even though I might.

Pretty nice fish right there, I think

But back to fishing. I managed to pull out two more bass with that same tube jig, standing in the same spot from the night before. One jumped from the water a few inches, shaking its head when it saw me. The other swam so fast and seemed so strong I was convinced it was some species new to me. Then I saw its bronze back, stripes and fiery red eyes and knew it was another smallie.

There were some teenagers hanging out near the shore, having an animated leaf race as they put leaves into the current. Then they started throwing rocks into the water. Although they were quite far from me, I found myself getting angry at them for disturbing my peaceful (well almost) fishing. Then I thought back to the few times I'd been on the water as a kid, and my first instinct had always been to pick up rocks and throw them into the water. It makes a fun splash!

Instead of yelling at the kids, I wondered what the fish thought of it. Stuff falling into the water happens all the time naturally, so really this wasn't anything fish hadn't seen before. I guessed they would swim away from the rock explosions, which just so happened to be in my direction. Turns out I might have been right, as that third smallie was caught seemingly escaping the rock explosions. It didn't care what or who was causing them, it just wanted to get away.

I kept fishing, but just like the day before the fishing suddenly dried up. As usual, I was faced with a few choices, not sure which would be the right one. Should I try a new spot? Should I switch lures and/or vary up my presentation? Did I catch all the fish in this part of the river?

What an awesome looking fish

The current was very strong, and a few cursory attempts to wade to other spots convinced me not to continue. Since I was pretty sure there were more fish there, I tried to entice the fish with a variety of other lures. Crankbaits, twisters, spinners, more tubes, but nobody would bite.

Recovered gear! And trash cleanup

Reluctantly I tried heading downstream, staying close to the shore and wading very slowly. The water was rushing fast even though I was far from the main current; a few times I felt close to loosing my footing in the river. I made my way to some fishy looking spots, managed a few hits on a twister, but no other luck. Besides the big eddy I'd been fishing in, almost the entire remainder of the river around me was a gushing torrent of water, constantly threatening to push anything and everything downstream. Nature didn't care.

When I looked over to pick up a Gatorade bottle trapped in some branches by the current, to my surprise I saw my lure from yesterday! You know, the one that snapped off my line and went flying downriver in the dark.

The sun was setting; I had hoped to fish a trench I knew of just a few yards out in the river. As I slowly attempted to wade out there, the sound of water bombarding my waders became deafening. The river was bullying me to go back to shore. This wasn't a fight I would win, so I let the river push me around and made my way to the shore. I found a trail and hiked back upstream to the eddy.

On the way back I saw a little snake, which turned out to be dead. Although nature didn't care, I enjoyed seeing a snake up close. Too bad he died, I thought, but he'll be a nice meal for some racoon or fish or bird sometime real soon.

I've been paying close attention to the ground lately, curious about what other animals hang out around the rivers' edge. I saw some shockingly big footprints in the mud, next to a few bike tracks. At first I though it was just a big dog, but I'm fairly positive they were coyote tracks based on some Internet "research." Don't know why I didn't take a picture. Maybe because it was dark and there was a coyote running around.

I fished the eddy until it was definitely dark, throwing most of the arsenal in my fishing vest. Even the stuff in my little backpack. No walleye obliged, nor did any more smallies.

Once again, my last cast was chosen for me, with a snap I saw my lure slowly arc into the air, flying away into the darkness. Maybe I'd find it next time.

Sparring with smallmouth bass

After a delicious meal of various BBQ'ed meats, beans, and cornbread with my lovely wife, there was only one thing I could do. Night fishing!

I started the "2012 Fishing Season" (i.e. January 1-December 31) with a few goals- catch a walleye and a pike. Since then I've been adding things like "catch a carp" and "catch a monster catfish on a live bluegill." I decided to try for the latter this outing. But first, of course, I'd have to catch a bluegill.

The pond was almost completely covered with thick, mucous-like weeds. In the dark, I could see only a few spots where the water surface reflected the cloudy sky. The rest was weeds. Using my new glow-in-the-dark bobber and my not-so-new glow-in-the-dark charger thing (looks like a glasses case; you put a lure inside and it flashes to make it glow) I was able to fish with a bobber in the dark. Pretty soon I had a nice bluegill that went after a 1" Gulp minnow.

Night fishing for bluegill

It seemed too big to use as bait, so I carefully tossed it back into the muck. That was a mistake, because I wasn't able to catch another one. That one must have told it's little brothers and sisters to avoid my offerings. I suppose I could have used it as "cut bait" (which is a nice way of saying "disassembled bluegill pieces") but I'm not ready for that yet. Seems cruel unless I'm the one eating it. Then again I don't feel that way about cutting up nightcrawlers, so where is the line?

I enjoy night fishing tremendously, especially when the weather is nice. Things are quieter than usual, except for the constant roar of the many expressways that surround our suburb. Sometimes I dream of living somewhere where there isn't an expressway ever few miles, but then I think of how inconvenient that must be. I wonder if I would prefer the convenience or the silence. Not to mention the planes flying overhead every three minutes or so; the pond is due west of one of O'Hare's landing paths, so there are always low-flying planes passing by. Sometimes loudly.

But yes, I still like it- and I also enjoy the new sound of frogs at the pond. I heard at least two different types of frogs croaking. Every time I hear frogs I'm amazed at how freaking loud they are. The whole pond was filled with the sounds of frogs, which helped drown out the expressways and the planes.

The next day, Saturday, I hit the road and headed west. I was standing on the bank the Fox River with my new wading boots 45 minutes after leaving my house. It was a beautiful day- warm enough I immediately took off my jacket and enjoyed wearing short sleeves while wading. Haven't had too many of those occasions since my first time wading back in October.

I walked up to the edge and saw a boil on the surface- I've been seeing a lot of that lately. I think it means big fish chasing smaller fish. I happened to have a black spinnerbait tied on (from the previous night at the pond) so I casually tossed it into the water. One hit, then another; seemed like I was getting stuck on branches.

And then in an erupting of water, a big smallmouth bass came to the surface, shaking it's head at me. From the shore, this looked like the biggest smallie I'd ever hooked into! My drag was set too loose, and it was able to pull out a ton of line. I couldn't keep the tension, especially not standing from the shore. As I admired it's size and tenacity, I noticed the spinner fly out of it's mouth and land on the shore next to me.

Well, that's ok, I thought. Maybe there were more.

After fan-casting the area, I carefully entered the water. Pretty soon I sacrificed my black spinner to the river gods, and tied on a lure that has been successful for me so many times before: The tube jig. Lately it seems the smallies want a very particular color- olive- and will pass up anything darker or lighter. I usually carry a variety of colors, and I've been testing them to see which ones get more hits. Perhaps it's more than just the color, but the smell or the material (I buy various brands indiscriminately) but I feel like it's the color.

And so began one of the most fun times fishing I've had yet this year! Hit after hit, smallies attacking the lure and quickly throwing it out of their mouths. Some came to the surface and I was able to see them. Most stayed down in the water, but I could feel them. I hadn't had this kind of action, well, maybe ever! Even though I wasn't catching any, it sure was fun to spar with strong river bronzebacks.

All of the sudden something changed, and I caught three in a span of ten minutes. Three! Most of my fishing trips this year ended in the skunk, only a few had a a single fish to post; this was excellent. I found them everywhere along the shore. I was standing in a big, extremely slow eddy that was far from the main current or any seams. These fish were just hanging out by the shore, ignoring the seams and current where I have found them in the past. My new buddy Sam Bennett and the internet tell me higher waters will push fish toward the shore, and this certainly was happening. With all the rain we've gotten recently, the Fox was high and strong, and these fish were chilling out feet from the shore.

I was glad they were, because when I tried to get close to any current, the strong flow gave me reason to turn back around and go back to the shore.

One of three nice fish caught on Saturday

All three were about the same size- around 12" and somewhat beefy. I find myself returning them to the water very quickly most of the time, not even thinking about weighing them or measuring them. I was just happy to catch them and return them safely to fight another day. Then again, if I caught a really big one, you can bet your ass I'd bust out the scale so I could brag to the nearest ounce and closest inch.

Another one (this one was fatter)

Just as soon as the smallie-fest began, it stopped, and they weren't hitting my tube anymore. I tried spinners, cranks, some new home-assembled swim jigs (football head jigs.. are those swim jigs?) and good old reliable twister tails, but no more takers. I tried a few other spots; I saw a carp swimming in very shallow water, it's dorsal fin sticking out of the water like a vegetarian shark, but no other fish volunteered to be pulled around the river.

The sun set, and I kept fishing. I really, really, really want to catch a walleye. The main reason is because I haven't done it before. Once I catch one, maybe I'll be satisfied. But until then, every chance I get, I'll be bombarding the river with skinny crankbaits at sunset, looking for Mr. Walter.

I tried casting my cranks along deep holes I had inadvertently discovered earlier. I hear they like holes and trenches. I also tried casting parallel to the banks, because I also hear they like to swim along the shore around sunset. If you've read ahead, you'll notice I don't have a picture of a beautiful walleye and me together. I did not hook into anything else after those smallies, as hard as I tried as night fell.

My last cast was decided for me: I made a hard, long cast downstream. Immediately I heard a small "ping" and watched my little crankbait fly through the air, untethered by any kind of fishing line. It was dark, and the water was rushing all around; I didn't even hear it splash in the water. Another lure sacrificed to the gods of the river, that they may someday permit me to find one of their elusive walleyes.

Sunset

CB makes a bow and arrows

I fished the Fox on Sunday morning,  and although I didn't catch a single fish, it was a pleasure to be outside. My first wading trip was last Fall, and the majority of my wading trips have been in fairly cold weather (usually cold and rainy). This was one of the first times the water was pleasant, the breeze wasn't chilly, and I even rolled up my sleeves.

I saw a lot of wildlife- a couple of deer came to the river to drink, and seemed perplexed by me. Once they returned to the woods, I saw them watching me through the trees. Maybe if I'd caught a fish while they were watching it would have made more sense to them. I suppose just standing in the middle of a river does look strange.

Can you see the deer?

Later, in a different spot, I saw a bunch of adult geese with a many baby geese. I had no idea they were yellow when they were young- I would have guessed they were baby chickens if I didn't see them next to their parents. I wonder if they taste like chickens.

Geese and goslings (?)

A couple days later I fished the retention pond. The weather has been colder this week than last week, and the fishing has shut down for me. I managed to get one hit from a bass about a foot from shore- I reeled him in, and as soon as he saw me he simply opened his mouth and spit out the chigger craw. I didn't even hook him! That was one of the more crazy fishing experiences I've ever had. That fish was determined.

A few days ago I finished the amazing book "The Mindful Carnivore" by Tovar Cerulli. I think I might write a formal review of it, but not today. My summation of his thesis is that no matter what we do as humans, we hurt other living things, and there is no way around it. Even growing vegetables requires at the very least the killing of insect pests; apparently many farmers regularly kill deer to protect their crops.

The author went from being vegan to hunting because he wanted to face the death necessary for his sustenance head-on, without disguising it behind layers of plastic and styrofoam or words like "free range" or "organic." I'm no hunter, although I do occasionally keep fish I catch and cook them. I could relate to much of what Tovar wrote. This book was a great account of his journey from veganism to meat-eating, and his great respect for nature and all the life around him.

After finishing the book, and not wanting to go fishing due to the lack of action and colder weather, something possessed me to try and make a bow and arrow. I promise it has nothing to do with "The Hunger Games." If anything, it's more related to my current obsession with outdoorsy-ness. I also just wanted to see if I could.

I found some downed branches, took them home, cut off the bark with a knife, made notches for the bow string, for which I first tried using monofilament fishing line. I have a lot of it laying around, and now that I pretty much use braided line exclusively, I didn't mind using a bunch of mono for my bow. As you could probably guess, the line snapped fairly easily. I found some twine we had laying around, and using a "slip knot" (which I just learned) I was able to tie the line to the bow. I wrapped duct tape around the handle to prevent splinters and whatnot, and put some around the twine to assist in holding the notches in the arrows.

Then I took some sticks (which I thought were straight but are obviously quick crooked) added some cardboard for the "feathers" (don't know the archery term) and whittled the points down so they weren't completely blunt.

What I had was this:

Believe it or not, it works... kind of

And it works! By the time I finished everything, it was dark. This morning before I headed out to work I tried shooting my new arrows. I propped up a cardboard box, and was very surprised by the power of my new bow and the arrows I made. I was able to put arrows through two layers of cardboard from about twenty feet!

Aiming is difficult, and where the arrows end up is anybody's guess... I'd never shot an arrow before yesterday, except of course in Wii Sports. I really liked it there, which suggested to me I might like the real thing. I figured instead of investing money on something I might not enjoy whatsoever, why not make my own and satisfy my urge to make stuff from scratch in the process.

What have I gotten out of this exercise? If the zombie apocalypse comes, and I find myself in a forest with a knife and some twine, and maybe some cardboard, I might be able to construct my own bow and arrows. If I'm lucky I might confuse the zombies enough to allow for my escape.

Also, this might be an activity worth pursuing with some store-bought gear. Then I can be just like Katniss.

The pond explodes with fish

You can't see them, but there are 20-30 little
fish right under the bobber in this picture

When I got to the pond yesterday afternoon, I wasn't sure what kind of fishing I would be enjoying. The series of storms passing through the area, the hot and humid weather, watching bass on their beds a few days ago... When I walked up to the pipe I watched a very nice sized bass casually swim away about two inches from the water surface.

What I found was pretty crazy- the water was rising from all the storm water coming down the pipe, and the pond was teeming with fish. I saw literally HUNDREDS of little fish, no bigger than an inch, swimming around in schools near the surface. Thanks to my polarized sunglasses, I could see almost to the shallow bottom. They were hanging out in weeds, next to any kind of structure. They looked like bluegills to me; but then I saw lots of little skinny fish that looked a lot like bass fry. It's almost like overnight all these baby fish had been born!

It also seemed like the huge resident bass population was having a field day making quick snacks of these little fish. Every so often I saw huge boil on the surface, accompanied by loud splashing, that I was sure was big bass eating these little fish.

I brought two rods with me- and slip bobber rig with a gulp minnow to catch some bluegill, and my regular rod rigged with a chigger craw (which had been so successful just a few hours before). My idea was to catch a little bluegill and use it as catfish bait, to see if I could land any of the big cats in the pond.

Since I could see the fish react to my bait, it was an unusually informative fishing experience. 20-30 fish would gather around my bobber, trying to figure out what it was, while a few bigger fish congregated around the bait. They nipped it, but for the most part wouldn't commit. I was able to land a nice bluegill, but I though it would be too big for catfish bait. It was a pretty nice fish though!

A nice pond bluegill with some nice colors

I let the bobber hang out, and I cast with the chigger craw. No hits, so I cycled through texas-rigged worms, spinners, crankbaits, and nobody was the slightest bit interested. It occurred to me the bass might be stuffed from the buffet of tiny fish snacks everywhere, or put off by the storm fronts, or something else.

I fished for about two hours and only caught that one bluegill. It wasn't a total waste for sure, because I learned a lot watching the fish. I am even more convinced now that the pond has a flat bottom that stays around 3-4 feet, and the fish relate to weeds more than changes in bottom contour. I can see why so many people learned how to fish fishing ponds like this: the lessons learned here can be applied to other waters.

I'll be back soon, to trick some more bass and find some more big cats... And if there are carp in there, I'm going to find them too.

The pond is back

The pond, an hour before sunset

As soon as I stepped off the Metra into the warm breeze, I knew I had to go fishing.

Turns out, I planned on it and had my gear in the car all ready to go. When I got to the pond I could almost feel the energy. The past few weeks it's been asleep, barely any movement or activity, not too many fish moving around.

first fish of the day

Today was different- every few minutes the surface erupted with what I can only imagine was bass chasing smaller fish. I had a black texas-rigged chigger craw tied on from yesterday, so I threw that out. Almost immediately I was getting hits- similar to yesterday, but harder. Pretty soon, I had a fish on.

Pretty much the next cast, I had another one! This one was bigger than the last. These fish were on their game today- they fought like champs, splashing water everywhere. I bounced and dragged the crayfish look-alike along the bottom, and when I paused it for a moment, that's when they attacked. They were so aggressive at one point I noticed a fish bit off one of the little legs!

I moved around the pond, trying different spots, and got hits in all of them. I found fish all over the place; close to shore, in the middle, at the surface, and at the bottom. Dragonflies were everywhere, I saw many of them getting it on. I watched them hovering just above the water, hoping a bass would come up and demolish them... but no luck. The frogs- the frogs that are apparently new residents at the pond - were close to deafening.

Oh, it's ON fishies

Looking across the pond, I could see dark shapes in the water near weeds... I wondered if they were fish. When I cast to the areas I saw these shapes, I could make out multiple bass dispersing. Crazy!! I wondered if the whole pond was shallow, and if they were just making their spawning beds everywhere.

I fished for about two hours, and hooked into 6-8 fish. I managed to land a total of 4, which is a much better number than I've been getting lately. The other fish were able to throw the hook, but that's ok... It was fun to tangle with them.

This little trip gave me a taste of the warm weather fishing season about to happen... I am giddy just thinking about it, after fishing through the cold months lucky to get a single bite per outing. With the forecast, it looks like things will stay nice; maybe this means the pond is on. I'll find out soon enough.

the biggest (full of eggs?)