I don't know what it is, but it sure is delicious!

First off, I had a much more enjoyable fishing experience on the Yahara today. I only caught 26 bluegill, less than half as many as last time. :) I also caught 1 rock bass, 2 smallmouth, 2 green sunfish, 5 pumpkinseeds, a PR drum at 13", and what I think is a hybrid striped bass, which was 12". If it's not that then it's a white bass. I also caught this bluegill thing in the first picture below. It has coloring on its face like a pumpkinseed or green sunfish. Do you think its some kind of hybrid? The black spot is kinda long and pointed upwards, is it a hybrid with a longear sunfish. Help!



When I caught the drum, the hook got burried in his gullet. He wasn't going to make it, so I did the responsible thing and kept him to take home. I've been wondering if they taste good like people say on the internet.



I took my gear down to the first bridge going over the Yahara and cast into the middle underneath it. That's where I caught this hybrid or white bass. I was pretty pleased to have caught a new species, but once again the hook was buried in the gullet. That seems to be a problem when I fish with worms on the bottom. The fish swallow all of it before I get a chance to set the hook in the lip.



I took both of the fish home. Here's what they looked like before...



... and here's what they looked like after! I soaked the fillets in lemon juice, and then dipped them in egg and covered them with italian seasoned bread crumbs. Fried in butter, they were dee-e-licious! I was really impressed with both of them. They tasted very different but were both very enjoyable. I'll consider bringing home more if I catch good sized ones again.

The Yahara is getting better

I've been watching the gage height, discharge rate, and velocity of the Yahara, and yesterday it was finally looking good enough to try fishing again. It was definitely a lot better, there wasn't as much debris, but the visibility still wasn't very good. I tried using a small crankbait that my brother gave me for my birthday, but no bites. I suspect the visibility was to blame. I brought worms too, so I used them for the rest of the day.

I caught a LOT of fish, but unfortunately they were almost all bluegill. How many bluegill is a lot? How about 55? Yeah... I'd rather not catch another bluegill the rest of the year. I also caught 8 pumpkinseeds, 1 rock bass, 1 little smallmouth, a 9.5" drum, and also my first green sunfish of the year. All of the non-bluegill and non-pumpkinseed fish were caught where the Yahara opens up into the Monona. I'll definitely spend more of my time down there next time I go. It seems like a good spot to catch a lot of species.

Overall not a bad day, but the largest fish I caught was the drum, so I went home a little dissapointed. I was fishing without a bobber most of the time, letting my worm go to the bottom with a sinker. I was surprised that I was catching so many bluegill off the bottom.

BIG ONE Okayama Field Report

Next month I'm going back to Okayama, Japan. My girlfriend knows how much I like fishing, so she said I should go out with her sister's boyfriend, who also likes fishing. He's not familiar with the Okayama area though, so I was a little concerned that we would waste too much time looking for a good fishing spot. I started searching through Japanese blogs, and found this one written by a guy that fishes the Asahi River, which is right next to my girlfriend's house.

http://yaplog.jp/bigoneokayama/


This guy definitely likes his laregemouths. I posted a comment on one of his entries, telling him that I liked his blog and I was looking for a good place to go fishing on the Asahi. He posted an entry that you'll see at the top of his blog. He's excited to hear from me and says that if I can come up on a weekend, he'll take me around the Asahi River Dam, which looks like its about an hour north of my girlfriend's house.

Fishing on my birthday, more PR's!

I fished the shore of Lake Monona along John Nolan Dr. today, south of Monona Terrace. It's an excellent place to catch all sorts of fish with all the big rocks along shore and relatively few weeds. I had three worms with me, and I was determined to make the most of them. The bluegill were hitting hard, and I managed to stretch 3 worms among 27 of them! I measured one of the biggest ones, he was 8 inches.

That's not all I was catching on the worms though. Next up was a 7.5 inch rock bass and a 9.5 inch smallmouth (PR).

But that wasn't all that was going after the worms! I also got a 16 inch largemouth to hit a tiny piece of a worm. I was definitely entertained. :)

.

Once I ran out of worms I switched to a medium sized spinner and the smallmouths started hitting again. I caught three in a row that were 9.5, 7.5, and 11 inches (PR) respectively.

At this point, I felt like the smallmouth bug had bit me. Jeff would be beaming at this for sure. Largemouths were a thing of the past, because these guys were so much more fun. Not so fast though, because the next fish that hit my spinner wasn't a smallmouth! It was a monster largemouth, and it was the first time that a fish pulled line out of my reel while I was fighting him. I got him into shallow water and got my thum in his mouth as quick as I could. He bit hard! I got him up in the grass and measured him. 19.5 inches, a new PR! I'm guessing he was a solid 5 lbs, definitely the bass of the summer.

PR largemouth, PR bluegill, not what I was expecting!

I've had a relaxed weekend, so I went out to picnic point again today to see if I could do better than yesterday. I went out to the same spot, but the wind (and therefore current?) had changed direction. The water was really choppy and the waves were bringing my bobber right back to shore. I caught 3 perch within an hour or so, but was not having much fun. I walked back in the direction of the mainland, keeping an eye out for a good spot to fish on the south side. The water was as calm as could be on that side, and the visibility was excellent. I found a small opening in the trees and set up shop. I immediately started catching bluegill, and all of them were huge! The biggest was a PR at 9 inches. Then the fishing died down for a while. Were those the only fish in there? Noooope, because on one of my next casts, the bobber dove under water like a bowling ball was attached to my line. This wasn't a bluegill! I fought him for at least a minute, it was an 18" largemouth. Another PR! I caught a 12.5" largemouth on the very next cast, and another perch after that. Not bad. :)

A beautiful day at picnic point

Went fishing with nightcrawlers at the end of picnic point today. I caught five different species, and two of them were for the first time! I started off with a bluegill, which is what I was expecting to catch on the worms. Then I pulled in a nice little rock bass, about the same size as the largest one I caught on the Yahara. Next was my first smallmouth, at a whopping 5" long. Then I caught two fish that I was not expecting, freshwater drums (or sheepshead). The first was 12" and the second was 12.5". They were very interesting. The first was silver, but the second was silver with some red and blue hues, kinda like you would see in a soap bubble. Perhaps they were female and male? Next up were perch. The first one I caught was a PR at 10 inches. He had some serious bulk on him for a perch! Not long after that I caught an 8" one. I ran out of nightcrawlers then and had to call it a day. :)

Mr. Snapper under the bridge

Action at the dam

The dam at the end of Lake Wingra was the place to be tonight! It wasn't very crowded, which was nice. On the lake side we had a hispanic guy and myself. He was bobber fishing with worms and I was using a medium sized spinner. On the river side was a a black guy and three black ladies, all using bobbers and worms. The hispanic guy was real nice, and we talked the whole time while we fished. He probably caught 50 bluegill during the time I was there. He also caught the pumpkinseed in the first picture. I did a fine job catching bass on the spinner. My first one is a new Madison PR at 17 inches. He put up a good fight too! Two casts later I caught a 13 inch one, and later I caught a couple that were 10-12 inches. The black guy caught an interesting fish. If google is telling me right its a freshwater drum. See the pic below. He was super excited about his fish, and wanted me to take a picture of him with his fish and my bass. Later another guy showed up and caught the 25 inch walleye in the last picture. He didn't keep it, saying he didn't really like the taste of walleye!

Dang carp! What do ya'll want to eat?

What works for carp bait? I went out to that same spot on the bridge again last night, this time armed with quite a concoction. Half a loaf of white bread, maple syrup, brown sugar, lots and lots of brown sugar, peanut butter, and flour. I stirred it all up in a frying pan until it thickened up into a playdough consistency. I had 2 poles in the water with balls of the stuff wrapped around treble hooks. Didn't get a single bite all night. I did see some 20-30 lb carp swimming through the area though.

Any ideas?

Is there a sport for snapping turtle fishing?

My fishing yesterday wasn't spectacular, but I did come home with an interesting story. I caught a few largemouth and bluegill throughout the afternoon. As the sun was going down I headed over to the bridge where the lagoon in Vilas Park starts. I was hoping to catch my first carp, using pieces of a peanut butter sandwich rolled up into a ball as bait. There were 4 or 5 big carp swimming around the area, but I couldn't get any of them to take an interest in the bait. I saw something else moving towards my bait though, a big snapping turtle! He was probably 2 feet long! I should have pulled my bait out of the water at that point, but I couldn't help but sit there and stare. He headed straight to my bait and bit on to it. I hooked him, ran to the end of the bridge, and pulled him in to shore. The funny thing was, he didn't fight me, he actually swam towards me! I wasn't sure what to do at that point. I didn't want to put my hands anywhere near that mouth, but I definitely didn't want to leave a treble hook in there either. I shook the line back and forth a couple times (while carefully watching my toes), and luckily the hook came out. He swam back out in front of the bridge and proceeded to clean up all the pieces of sandwhich that came off my hook earlier. Guess it the ordeal didn't bother him that much, lol.

I was a little disappointed that the carp never went for my pb sandwich. They were swimming around together in a pretty tight pack. Maybe they were spawning or something?

An excellent fisherman

Remember the picture I put up of the kid in the blue shirt holding up a catfish? Of all the people I've seen fishing Lake Wingra and Wingra Creek, he's the best I've seen so far. I ran into him for the third time yesterday down by Fish Hatchery. He was at the exact same spot where I caught the 18" northern earlier in the year. He said he was going for bass, but almost immediately after saying that he got a hit from a northern. He got it in and I measured it for him. 26.5" (the limit is 26") I took a few pictures and then he took off on his bicycle holding the fish over the handlebar.

Aquarium pics

Buying an aquarium

Tomorrow I'm planning to buy a 2 month old used aquarium from a guy on craigslist. It's 29 gallons with a concave front surface and includes a hood, lights, filter, etc. I think that should be big enough to put 3 or 4 small bluegill or other sunfish and a handful of minnows. I kept green sunfish from the boneyard alive for quite a while in a 15 gallon tank (until our monster crayfish ate them!), so I think I can easily handle some bluegill. It would be pretty cool to eventually have a collection of small native fish all living together: bluegill, pumpkinseed, crappie, perch, etc.

Back to the Yahara

Went back to the Yaraha (connecting Mendota and Monona) to give it another try. It was a success! Bluegill, largemouth, and rock bass were all biting, as well as a crappie that came off my hook as I was pulling him out of the water. I believe this is the first time I've ever caught rock bass, and I ended up with three! The bluegill I was catching were very colorful. You can see the poor guy in the second picture that I hooked with all 3 hooks. Caught 3 largemouths, with the largest being 11 inches. Mosquitos were terrible...

Can you see him?

Is that a log in the middle of the first pic? Nope, its a big northern! He was alive and well, but his head was buried in the weeds so it was hard to get him to notice any lures I threw in. I tossed one in where I thought his head was and jerked hard. Sure enough, I hooked him, but not in his mouth (oops). I pulled him a couple yards towards shore but the hook came out and he got away. I'm guessing he was 36".

Caught a few

The fish weren't too active tonight but I wasn't disappointed. Caught a few nice bluegill, another yellow perch (look at the bright orange fins!) and 2 largemouths. I went down to the dam and this kid caught a bullhead by dangling an empty hook in front of its mouth. He and his sister were catching bluegill for their grandma, so I gave them all the ones I caught while I was down there. I thought most of theirs were too small to be worthwile, but they said they would make their grandma happy. Ah well.