Ben's Madison fishing log

Golden Shiner

2011-06-06T17:27:00.002-05:00

+1 to my life list. Caught a golden shiner while canoeing in Lake Wingra.

White bass

2011-05-28T11:06:00.003-05:00

Spring is in the air, and the white bass are spawning in the Yahara! Went up to the river yesterday to see what was biting and found a big group of white bass that were more than willing to go after my lure. Used a small mepps spinner with a silver spoon. Also caught logperch, perch, largemouth bass, bluegill, and pumpkinseed. Great multi-species day!

The white bass came home for dinner. We did a fish fry with half of them, and the other half went in the freezer for a day when we get skunked.

Coho salmon

2011-05-11T17:26:00.000-05:00

Back for a surprise post! Visited my friend Terry in Milwaukee last weekend and managed to squeeze in some early morning fishing in between beer tastings, a movie, and a house warming party in honor of Terry's first house. It was a nice day in the city, but once we got out on the water it felt much colder. Coffee took a while to kick in. We trolled a half mile outside the harbor, and after about an hour pulled in a nice little coho salmon in about 50 feet of water. We were marking plenty of fish on the depth finder, so hopefully more were on the way! Unfortunately, the fishing slowed down as soon as the sun came out, and we didn't get another bite for several hours. Other boats were having similar luck as us, and one by one we watched them head out to deeper water. We didn't want to stay out all day, so we stayed by the harbor and made sweeps past the areas where we marked fish. Finally, after 3 hours of waiting, one more fish! Terry pulled this one in; it was slightly larger than mine. Didn't measure them but they were probably 20 inches, 5 lbs-ish. After pulling in the second fish, we put away our gear and headed in. +1 to my life list!

New Beginnings

2010-05-17T11:55:00.002-05:00

Hi guys,

It has been a long time since I've posted. Yes, I'm still alive. And yes, I've been keeping up with your fishing blogs (for those of you on my blog list). It's been fun to read about all of your adventures!

I have good news on multiple fronts. First of all, I finished my long overdue master's degree and have begun work on my PhD. I had to give up pretty much all my hobbies during the last few months, but now I should have a bit more free time, at least on weekends, to get out and do some fishing. The other good news is that my back has been slowly but steadily improving. I've stopped taking pain killers all together. I do stability exercises every day and use a foam roller to keep my back and legs loose in order to keep the tension off my lower back. My replacement for ibuprofin is raw ginger root. If you have problems with inflammation, give it a try. Your mouth and throat will feel like they're on fire, but it really helps.

Yesterday I made it out on my first fishing trip of the season. I traveled over to Milwaukee and went out on Lake Michigan with Terry. We trolled for salmon and trout, but didn't get any hits. It was still a great day nonetheless. I meant to take pictures, but my camera battery was dead right off the bat.

More posts to come soon!

Ben

Visit from my brother

2010-01-24T19:01:00.002-06:00

This is a bit of a late post. My older brother was in Wisconsin last weekend for some skiing, and was able to spend a night at my place Friday and go ice fishing with me the next morning. I took him to the triangle hoping it would be a sure thing. No such luck, we didn't get a single bite. We did, however, have a lot of fun with my roommate's new camera. There were bluegill everywhere you turned, about a foot off the bottom. It was encouraging to know that the fish were down there, because without the camera, we wouldn't have known if it was a slow day, or if we had picked a bad spot, or if we were fishing at the wrong depth, or if we were just terrible fishermen. Turns out it was just a slow day. You'll have that. Besides the bluegill, we saw a couple largemouth, one perch, and 3 or 4 big muskies swim by. One of the muskies swam so close to the camera that the side of his head took up the entire monitor. That was cool!

-

Ice fishing at the triangle

2009-12-23T13:51:00.002-06:00

Chuck and I took the shanty out to the triangle on Monona this morning for some pre-Christmas ice fishing. We joined the already sizable village of ice shacks around 7am, and had our jigs in the water by the time it started getting light. Visablity was pretty good, probably about 6 or 7 feet. The fishing started out slow, but eventually Chuck began to catch a few. None for me, but that was ok, I was sure they'd come eventually. Chuck kept catching them - more and more were being added to the bucket to take home. Still none for me! I was starting to get worried, but around 9am I caught my first fish, a small one. I didn't want to make a big deal about it, but I was pretty excited, considering that Sept. 6th was the last time I caught a fish. A few minutes later I caught another, this one was pretty big at 7 1/2 inches. It ended up being our last fish, we packed up around 10am, satisfied with our catch. Fried bluegill for lunch, good stuff. :)

Ice fishing will be here soon

2009-12-11T09:00:00.002-06:00

As of last Wednesday we now have 18 inches (45.7 cm) of snow on the ground. Temperatures were down to -4 deg F (-20 deg C) last night.

I bet the lakes are freezing. :)

(pic taken from my house Wednesday morning)

Keeping the aquarium clean and the fish healthy

2009-11-28T16:50:00.001-06:00

Thanks for the comments. About keeping the aquarium clean and the fish healthy:

1. I use two Whisper filters that are each rated for up to 30 gallons, in a 29 gallon aquarium. I felt this was important because I’m breaking the rule of thumb not to have more than 1 inch of fish per gallon of water. The fish I have came from a fast moving stream, so I'm sure they appreciate as much oxygen and water movement as possible.

2. I feed gold fish flakes to the dace (the darters won't touch flakes), and then I throw in a cube of frozen bloodworms (i.e. mosquito larvae). The darters and logperch go into a frenzy over the bloodworms, and afterwards there is rarely anything left to get sucked into the filter or settle into the gravel. Uneaten food is the quickest way to make the water nasty.

3. I change out 5 gallons of water about once every other week, and then maybe once a month I’ll take the fish out, stir the gravel up so all the crap floats up, and then change out around ¾ of the water before stuff has a chance to settle back down.

4. I wait as long as possible to change out the carbon filters, because they’re expensive. I take them out once a week and rinse them out in the sink to get big stuff off them.

Aquarium update

2009-11-21T16:29:00.005-06:00

Hi guys.

My fishing gear has been put away for months, but I got the itch to post something, so I thought I'd give an update on my native fish aquarium. The darters got moved to the 30 gallon aquarium, and are doing fantastic. According to my latest census, there are about a dozen orangethroat darters, one fantail darter, two logperch, three southern redbelly dace, and one madtom (not sure what kind he is). Some good news is that I have not lost a single darter that I caught back in May! Last weekend while I was visiting my parents in Illinois, I caught the dace and a few extra darters to add to the aquarium. Everyone is getting along, everyone is eating, and everyone is looking healthy and showing some pretty vibrant colors.

My back is getting better, slowly.

I'm looking forward to ice fishing!

Cheers,

Ben

Summer wrap up

2009-09-06T19:26:00.003-05:00

That's about it for the summer. Unless I make it out again in the next week this will be the last post for a while. I've been dealing with some back problems for the past 18 months or so, with the last 6 months becoming more and more difficult to get out. I'm having surgery on the 16th which will hopefully take care of most of the problems. Fishing will be on hold though, probably until the lakes are iced over.

Chuck and I headed over to the Yahara after school Friday. Visibility was so-so, the water was low, and there are still plenty of weeds. We were both using small spinners, working our way up the river from Lake Monona to Lake Mendota. Fishing was slow, but I managed to pick up quite a few different species. Bluegill, rock bass, green sunfish, largemouth bass, and white bass (+1 to species count for 2009) were all biting. Caught the 2nd largest LMB of the summer at 16". Not very impressive compared to 2008, but I'll take what I can get! We brought home 1 bluegill and 3 or 4 white bass.

2009 species count:
1. Largemouth Bass
2. Rock Bass
3. Smallmouth Bass
4. White Bass
5. Bluegill
6. Yellow Bullhead
7. Black Crappie
8. Freshwater Drum
9. Round Goby
10. Logperch
11. Yellow Perch
12. Northern Pike
13. Pumpkinseed
14. Green Sunfish
15. Hybrid Sunfish (Pumpkinseed X Green)
16. Walleye

Terry catches salmon in Lake Michigan

2009-08-19T10:32:00.004-05:00

Cigars and trout

2009-08-03T10:33:00.008-05:00

Friday was Terry's birthday, and what better way to celebrate than go fishing and smoke cigars! We picked up cigars at a smoke shop on State Street and then headed over to Tenney Park to see what the catfish were up to. The catfish were no where to be found; all we caught were 2 drum. Cigars were good though, something you gotta do every now and then.

On Saturday Chuck and I headed north to a trout stream. I wanted to see some trout before I buy a trout stamp (probably next season), and this trip turned out perfectly. The water was clear with plenty of trout. Chuck caught 3 browns and 1 brook, and had about 6 come off the hook as he was reeling them in. He released all the fish he caught.

Sunday I went fishing by myself at Picnic Point and Lake Monona by the terrace. Nothing was biting at the point, but by the terrace I caught a pretty big drum on a spinner. (PR at 14.5")

Can't do work, gotta fish

2009-07-15T14:24:00.006-05:00

Our linux server at work was down yesterday, which I depend on for my research. I knew it wouldn't be up and running this morning so I went fishing instead. I hiked out to the end of picnic point and had my line in the water by 7am. Feeling lazy, I stuck with nightcrawlers and a bobber, hoping to catch a few fish to bring home. My first cast got a hit and I pulled in an 8" perch. It was pretty fat and went into the bucket. After that... nothing. I switched spots, and after not getting hits there either I began reeling in my line. However, I saw a drum following my bait in towards shore, so I slowed down to let him grab it. That made for an easy catch. At 14", he was a PR for me. After that things really slowed down. At one point a school of small perch came through. I caught 4 or 5, but they were all too small to keep.

When I got home I filleted the drum and perch for lunch. I breaded the fillets with a mixture of Progresso parmesean bread crumbs, extra spicy Mrs. Dash, and garlic powder, and fried them in olive oil. The drum was pretty good, but when I got to the perch - oh man! It was really really good, I'll have to try to duplicate that recipe next time I catch perch.

4th of July in Milwaukee

2009-07-05T17:05:00.003-05:00

I visited my friend Terry in Milwaukee for the weekend. We got up at 4:30 on Saturday to go fishing on Lake Michigan. By 5:15 we were in the harbor. We went about 2 miles off from shore to 70' of water where we planned to troll for trout. Terry got the downriggers set up, we got our lines in the water... but when Terry was trying to start the trolling motor he broke a piece on the fuel line. That was the end of that! The big motor apparently can't idle down low enough to troll with, so we had to head back to the harbor.

We had seen people fishing for perch from the rocks around the harbor, so we followed suit and anchored along shore in 15-20' of water and dropped jigs down to the bottom. No perch, but we caught plenty of round gobies. Definitely not the fish we were after, but they were pretty entertaining. +1 to my life list and 2009 list.

Yellostone Park, WI

2009-06-15T13:27:00.003-05:00

Went camping with some friends at Yellowstone Lake State Park, WI, over the weekend. Terry brought his boat and we got a chance to do some fishing Sat. morning and Sat. night. In the morning we followed the south shore, casting crankbaits and spoons. I caught an 18" largemouth and a ~12" largemouth. We had a couple of additional hits, but that was it. In the evening, we set up 3 poles for trolling and worked our way around the lake, staying in about 10' of water. I caught one small walleye, and we lost two fish as we were reeling them in. Despite the fishing being slow, it was a gorgeous weekend and very nice to get outside the city for a bit.

Catching up

2009-06-08T10:09:00.004-05:00

5/31/09 - Chuck and I walked the length of the Yahara river from Lake Monona to Tenney Park by Lake Mendota. It was a really nice, sunny day, which unfortunately meant the fish weren't very active. We saw a lot of white bass and largemouths, but couldn't get any to take an interest in our lures. I settled with throwing a worm on the bottom and picked up 5 or 6 rock bass, 1 bluegill, and 1 largemouth.

6/4/09 - Second try at catfishing off of the pier by Tenney Park. The water was calm and very clear. Even at night I was able to see the bottom a ways out. Last time, we got set up after the sun was already down, so this time I wanted to start earlier to see what will bite as the light is transitioning. I threw out two lines, one with a chicken liver and the other with a nightcrawler. The nightcrawler got three fish, a largemouth while it was still light out, a smallmouth as it was getting dark, and a drum once it was dark. No catfish!

6/7/09 - I remember catching boatloads of crappie around this time last year on Lake Wingra. This was after the heavy rains and flooding, and the increased water level by shore probably brought the fish in. The water is much shallower this year, but I thought maybe I could still get some crappie like last year. Using a small plastic spoon with a rattle, I caught several bluegill, 1 crappie, and 1 largemouth. I also lost a crappie and a largemouth right by shore, probably due to the very small hooks on the lure I was using. As the sun was going down I switched to using worms and a bobber, and picked up over a dozen bluegill.

Monster catfish

2009-05-29T11:14:00.007-05:00

Last night Chuck and I went catfishing in Mendota over by Tenney Park. Armed with chicken livers and nightcrawlers, we each threw 2 lines out into the water around sundown to see what we could catch. Not long after we got there, a young guy was pulling in a 8-10 lb channel cat, so we were optomistic about our chances. Just a few minutes later, Chuck got a hit and it was big! He was using 8 lb line and a fairly small pole, and whatever was on the other end decided it wanted to fight. It took probably 10 minutes to get it up to the shore - a monster channel cat! Some passerbys had a scale and weighed it at 14 lbs.

I was hoping for a monster of my own, but I had to settle with something a bit smaller. My chicken liver didn't get a bite all night, but I soon hooked up on a small bullhead on my nightcrawler. Please excuse the overly cheesy smile. :D

As the night continued on, I caught 1 more bullhead and Chuck caught 3. We took all 5 home, where they are chilling out in my spare aquarium until we clean them tonight. (The channel cat was released.)

Memorial Day weekend

2009-05-25T12:42:00.005-05:00

Hit up the Yahara again on Saturday, more to enjoy the fine weather than to actually fish. The bass were biting more than the day before. I caught 4 largemouths and had several come off the hook. I finally caught my freshwater drum under the bridge. I took it home and breaded and fried the fillets. People consider drum a trash fish, but I say who cares, they taste pretty darn good when they're fried in butter!

Under the bridge

2009-05-22T14:16:00.003-05:00

With the water temperature rising (about 57 deg F now), the fish have moved back into the Yahara from Lake Monona. I spent the late afternoon by the first bridge, seeing what there was to see and enjoying the weather. The water is very clear, and I was able to see quite a few different species of fish:

Largemouth bass (caught 1)
Rock bass (caught 1)
White bass (saw near the bridge)
Bluegill (saw all over)
Carp (saw all over)
Freshwater drum (saw near the bridge)
Logperch (caught 16)
Muskie (saw by the opening of the lake)
Green sunfish (caught 1)

I took the rock bass and a couple of the logperch home for the aquariums. As of this morning the rock bass is doing fine in the big tank with the other sunfish and bass, and 2 of the logperch are being quite active in the darter tank and ate bloodworms that I feed to the darters.

Fishing from Terry's boat

2009-05-19T11:43:00.005-05:00

What a great weekend! Terry brought his new boat to Madison to fish Mendota all weekend, and we definitely made the most of it.

Friday night - Launched the boat around sundown and fished the bay north of picnic point. Each caught a northern on crankbaits in 10 ft of water. (no pictures)

Saturday morning - Got up early and hit the water at 7am. The wind was pretty strong from the northwest, so we trolled the north shore of Mendota with the same crankbaits in 12 ft of water. Terry caught a big smallie and 2 northerns, and I caught 2 northerns followed by a 16.5" walleye.

Saturday night - The wind was starting to die down. We basically did a repeat of Friday night only on the south side of picnic point. Terry and I each caught a largemouth and a northern. I lost 3 or 4 fish because I didn't set the hook very well. Need to work on that!

Sunday day - No fish, but holy smokes was it a gorgeous day!

Darters feeding (video)

2009-05-15T14:35:00.003-05:00

Here's the new set up. The third tank will be for feeder minnows. Haha, I just noticed in the picture that both bass and one of the sunfish are quite interested in the darters. They must be able to see them through the glass. Oh man that's going to be torture.

Darter tank

2009-05-14T10:11:00.003-05:00

Set up a darter tank with some fish I caught in a stream by my parents' house in central Illinois. The majority of the darters seem to be orangethroats (originally thought to be rainbows). There's also one fantail darter and a southern redbelly dace. They are all very entertaining! I'll get a video of them feeding and put it up here. It's quite the show!

This is how you deal with an invasive species

2009-04-22T19:50:00.004-05:00

My buddy Chuck sent me an email with the same title and the following picture. He caught those rusties near his home town of Green Lake. They're mean buggers, a lot more aggressive than other crayfish species.

He said they were delicious. :)

Spring is here!

2009-04-18T20:38:00.003-05:00

Highs were in the low 70's today, and I did my best to make the most of it. The big lakes were too murky to catch anything, but the lagoon in Vilas Park was doing just fine. There's never anything big in there, but I had a good time catching small sunfish. Caught a total of 11 bluegill and 4 pumpkinseeds. I could see bass and a couple muskies swimming around, but they had their minds on other things (and aren't legal to fish for yet).

This time of year there is always a crowd of people at the dam separating Wingra Creek from Lake Wingra. There is a sign up that says no fishing allowed, so why are they there? The muskies are trying to jump up the dam to make their way to spawning grounds in Lake Wingra! The following two pics are of a musky swimming under the creek side of the dam, and one that made it over the waterfall and was building up courage to swim the rest of the way to the lake side of the dam.

Rainbow darter

2009-04-06T11:34:00.003-05:00

Traveled down to visit my parents in central Illinois on Saturday. They have two streams running through the back of their property, and I wandered back there to see what fish I could catch with an old butterfly net I found in the garage. The larger of the two streams seems to be doing very well! I caught plenty of minnows, chubs, and dace, as well as a handful of rainbow darters. I really wanted to take them back to Madison to add to the 10 gallon aquarium with the sticklebacks and sculpins, but I didn't think they'd last the trip without an aerator. I'll find a good battery powered one before I go down there next, probably in May.

Mottled Sculpin

2009-04-01T13:38:00.004-05:00

My first collecting trip! (Not counting the hundreds I did as a kid in Illinois.) Chuck and I drove west of Madison today to see what we could find in the creeks around the area. Unfortunately, most of the decent streams are designated trout streams, where netting is prohibited. We used a game/fishing map of WI of Chuck's to find some smaller creeks off the beaten path to try.

Mottled sculpin were the fish of the day! We caught 5 of them at the first stream, and 2 more at another. We also caught 1 brook stickleback. You can see most of them in the picture below, along with a few bait shop minnows.

My next task will be to get the small tank set up better for these guys since I'm going to keep them for a long time. I'll add more rocks and fake plants to give them plenty of cover. Hopefully Chuck and I will be able to find some more interesting species to put in there in the future (logperch, darters, dace, etc).

Update 4/3/09 - I moved all of the bait shop minnows to the big tank so the sticklebacks and sculpins will have more space. The sculpins are doing great. They aren't territorial (yet?) and even like to sit close together. They've been eating flake food and small pieces of nightcrawlers. The two sticklebacks swim around together part of the time, but fight each other at other times. They nip at each other's fins, something that you'll hear a lot about on forums. One of the sticklebacks ate a piece of nightcrawler as well, but they haven't touched the flake food.

Brook Stickleback

2009-03-26T09:50:00.005-05:00

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I have a 10 gallon aquarium stocked with minnows from the bait shop that I use to feed the sunfish and smallies in my 30 gallon aquarium. The number of minnows has been dwindling down, and yesterday I found a surprise visitor to my tank, a brook stickleback! I've never seen one before, but I'm 99% sure that's what it is. I can clearly see the 5 spines on it's back. Sorry for the crappy photo, but it's the best I could do with such a small fish that insisted on staying at the back of the tank.

I took a short video too. The stickleback has some interesting behavior. He has to furiously move his pectoral pins to swim around, and tends to stay on the bottom like a darter when he's resting. I have no idea how to care for it; I'm really hoping he'll eat goldfish food.

Overdue post

2009-03-20T15:48:00.003-05:00

Ice fishing really slowed down since my last post. I think I made it out on Monona twice, but didn't have any luck either time. I was really hoping for the 'late ice crappies' that a lot of people were talking up, but apparently I wasn't out there on the right days. Below is a pic from inside the portable shanty that Jeff is letting me borrow.

I was down in Champaign for one day 2 weeks ago and stopped by that small subidivision pond to do a little bass fishing with Jeff. The fishing wasn't spectacular - we each caught 2, but I was excited to fish open water for a change (the lakes in Madison are still frozen!). After Jeff took off I stumbled upon a channel cat sitting in the shallow water and grabbed him by hand. Does that count as noodling from land? It looked like he was sick and hadn't been eating because he was very thin. I let him go and he swam off, who knows if he'll make it or not.

I really need to get more sun. Dang I'm pale!

Monona on Friday, Winnebago on Sunday

2009-02-15T18:21:00.004-06:00

Went out on Monona on Friday and caught my limit of bluegill. My friend Chuck joined me for the afternoon and we enjoyed some awesome Mountain Creek's, a very cheap, yet surprisingly drinkable Wisconsin beer.

Today Chuck and I drove up to Lake Winnebago and tried jigging on a spot just out from Oshkosh. We caught a good number of perch - the only problem was that most of them were between 3 and 4 inches! However, we were quite entertained and had a good time. I also caught a pumpkinseed that was very colorful. He and one of the 4" perch have joined my aquarium.

On the drive back we stopped by the place where the sturgeon are registered. They're speared through a hole in the ice, which is why they look pretty beat up. They were really impressive fish though, and I was glad I got to see some for the first time.

Lots of perch

2009-02-08T12:09:00.002-06:00

Round 2 for the weekend, this time an hour and a half up north. The perch were biting! Caught them at a depth of about 17 ft using wax worms and small minnows on jigheads.

Jigging in Madison and Aquarium Update

2009-02-06T17:57:00.002-06:00

Finally I got out on the lake! I've been dying to try out the gear that Jeff is loaning me, and with temps in the mid 30's, today was the perfect day. Went out at about 7:30 with a few friends and set up shop at a depth of about 8 feet of water. We set a few tip-ups with shiners and then got to work enticing the bluegill with small jigs and waxworms. There were plenty of fish down there, but we had our work cut out for us getting them to bite. After 4 or 5 hours if fishing we went home with 12 keeper bluegill and 1 perch. We also saw a few big crappie and largemouth swimming around but weren't able to catch any.

I haven't put up pics of the aquarium in a while, so here's what it looks like now. The residents are 1 pumpkinseed, 1 green sunfish, 2 smallmouth bass, 1 white sucker, and 1 shiner. I added a few more artificial plants which I think are a nice touch. I also have a 10 gallon tank set up for minnows and shiners - to serve both as food for my fish in the big aquarium and to use as bait when I go fishing.

Ice fishing weekend

2009-01-24T12:07:00.000-06:00

Spent all of last weekend up north ice fishing by Terry's hometown. He and his dad are pretty well equiped - they have two shacks that stay on the lake all winter, one very comfortable with a heater, stove, table, and benches, the other smaller with doors in the floor for jigging. We arrived Saturday morning and put out two tip-ups each, then got settled in the smaller shack to jig for perch. Terry brought his Vexilar depth finder, which was pretty cool as you could see the fish come off the bottom to look at your jig. We caught plenty of perch, none of them real big though. When we headed out on Sunday we had about 20 of them that were 7-8". Northerns were hitting our tip-ups all weekend. We had 3 keepers at 28, 29, and 30". We caught maybe 4 or 5 that were under.

This was my first ice fishing trip with a fishing licenese, so I got to pull in my first fish, the 29" northern in the pic below.

Next weekend Jeff will be up for a seminar, and hopefully we'll get some good time jigging around Madison. Expect more ice fishing posts in the future!

Ice fishing delivery

2009-01-12T13:25:00.000-06:00

Terry had a successful Saturday before coming down to Madison for a visit. He brought down a nice sized lake trout (23") and a northern (24"), plus about a dozen perch. We gutted the laker and plan to cook it whole sometime on the grill. The northern and the perch got filleted and will contribute to a fish fry when we get around to it. Thanks Terry!

Update: Terry sent me this photo from his ice shack. His dad kept all but one of the northerns.

Finally identified, Takifugu niphobles (grass puffer)

2008-12-08T12:47:00.000-06:00

I got bored at work today and decided to figure out what species of puffer I caught last August in Japan, or die trying. It actually wasn't that difficult, even though I had spent considerable time trying to identify it when I first got back to the states.

Image from fishbase.

Picture of me holding two of the puffers from Shiraishi Island, Japan.

Goals for 2009

2008-11-26T09:17:00.001-06:00

The name of the game for 2009 will be to add more species to the list of fish I've caught. In the past 6 months I've caught 18 distinct species (see my profile) plus several hybrid sunfish that I'm not very good at identifying yet. Counting previous years, I've also caught channel catfish, as well as several fish in the Florida Keys back when I was in high school. The only one I remember for sure was mahi mahi, but I can't remember if I was the one to actually reel any of them in, so I won't count it.

http://www.wiscfish.org/fishid/wFrmWisconsinFishList.aspx

There's a huge list of fish native to Wisconsin that I've never caught. This should make my task of adding to my species count easy enough. My challenge will be to get out of my comfort zone of going to the usual spots in Madison, and also learn to fish with methods that I'm not currently familiar with.

1. Catch 2 or 3 species of catfish.
- should be in any of the local lakes, but probably go to the Wisconsin river

2. Catch at least 1 species of carp.
- seen them feeding regularly in Lake Monona, need to find a good bait

3. Catch a few minnow, sucker, and darter species.
- get some lighter tackle and find smaller streams outside of Madison

4. Catch a gar.
- Jeff says he's seen them at the warm water discharge from the power plant on Lake Monona, verify this and try to catch one!

5. Catch a musky.
- any of the lakes or channels in Madison should be ok, fish the same way as for northerns

6. Catch and identify a new kind of sunfish.
- first of all make sure I can identify a longear sunfish, warmouth, and various hybrids etc.

7. Catch a lake trout (ice fishing).
- my buddy has an ice shack on a lake about an hour north of Madison, we caught a big one last winter but I didn't have a fishing license and I didn't really help at all

8. Catch another kind of trout in a stream.
- a few people I know have experience fishing for trout in streams, ask them for suggestions

Maybe I should start fishing in my aquarium

2008-11-10T09:38:00.001-06:00

The pumpkinseed and the sucker (under the rock).

The two smallies, aka the eating and pooping machines.

A new season for fishing

2008-10-17T09:28:00.000-05:00

It's cold now!

Chuck and I went out to the Yahara yesterday. Unfortunately, the sun was going down almost as soon as we got out there, so we weren't able to fish that much. It finally started to get cold this week, and it has had a big affect on the river. The water level has continued to drop, and the weeds are all dying off - leaving the water much clearer than we've been used to. The first thing we noticed is the sunfish are gone; they must have moved down into the lake. There were plenty of minnows though, and we could hear the white bass feeding on them against the sides beneath the bridge, so that's what we went after. Chuck caught 2 of them on his first few casts, one of them pretty big. I didn't have as much luck on my side. He was using a small plain silver spoon, something I don't have in my tackle box. Next time I go shopping I'll have to pick up a few so that I have more choices for white bass besides small spinners.

Jeff inspired me to try out buzzbaits and spinnerbaits, so I gave both of them a try. I used the orange and yellow one with silver blade (below), and the spinnerbait on the far left. The spinnerbait was too heavy for the river, but the buzzbait worked well right up on the surface or a few inches below. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be anything moving in the river. With the clear water I could see the bottom almost half way across the river, but no fish.

Well... this is the first time in 2008 that I got skunked! Chuck gave me the smaller white bass (12") though, so I still got to eat fish for dinner. Delicious! Edit: I just realized... yesterday I didn't eat any storebought meat. I had a duck for lunch that my friend Terry gave me, and I had white bass for dinner. I'm a man of the land!

Pics from 9/27

2008-10-07T08:42:00.000-05:00

Chuck, catcher of 8 inch bluegill... as well as every other fish in the entire river.

Ben, who tried to display his 7 3/4 inch pumpkinseed but it kept flopping around. Dangit!

Cleaning up the catch, I think the white bass fillets are already in the bowl.

Fish fry, no pics yet

2008-09-28T11:18:00.000-05:00

My friend Terry came to town this weekend, and on Saturday we met up with another friend, Chuck, and did some all-day fishing. We took a canoe out to picnic point so that we could get at all the hard to reach spots along the shore. Not much was biting though, and we left after a few hours with one pumpkinseed in the bucket. It was a PR for me, at 7 3/4 inches.

Back to the Yahara! We set up shop under the bridge where I'd had luck in the past. Pretty soon we had several 8 inch bluegill added to the bucket. There was a lot of splashing going on under the bridge by the sides, and we found out that white bass had moved in to feed on minnows. Chuck was having a ball with them, catching 3 or 4 with two good keepers. He also caught a 14 inch walleye that we threw back. He was having quite the day! He even had a huge musky on the line at one point. It came up to the surface, thrashed around and really churned up the water before coming off the hook.

Terry wasn't having as much luck, catching a few crappies that were too small. He had his dog out with us too, and when some other people came by with dogs that wanted to play... well let's just say the fishing was pretty much done. After his dog was tired out, we took our catch back to the house and had one heck of a fish fry. All three of us ate as much as we could, and now I probably have 2 lbs of leftovers in the fridge. Fish sandwiches anyone?

Terry took a few pics on his camera, so hopefully I can get those up in a few days. What a day to forget my camera!

Still fishing?

2008-09-26T09:32:00.000-05:00

Took some time off work yesterday to throw some hooks in the water. I went to the spot on Wingra creek where I've caught northern and largemouth in the past. I had some worms I wanted to use up, and the bluegills were happy to help out.

While I was down there, two game wardens pulled up and came over to check my fishing license. One of the guys read it over several times, and then asked for my ID. I gave him my IL drivers license. He frowned at that, and asked me if I had a 2nd ID for verification. I gave him my university ID. He looked back and forth at the two pictures several times and then read my fishing license again. Then he looked back to the road and asked if that was my car. Yeeeess...? He asked my why I was fishing down here. I told him I was catching bluegills. He said, why aren't you up at the lake with everyone else? I told him there were plenty of fish here. At this point, a car load of black guys went by, and one of them yelled out the window, "hey you still harrassing people???" and drove off. He frowned at them, turned back and frowned at me, and asked if they were friends of mine. I was laughing at this point and told him no. I think the only reason he left then was because he was so frustrated. I have no idea why!

I saw a northern going after bluegill in the weeds, but by the time I got my gear ready he was gone. It was pretty cool seeing him in attack mode!

I gave up there and drove over to Lake Monona to get away from the weeds and fish some deeper water. It was a nice day still, but the water was cloudy with dead plant matter and the action was slow. I did end up catching one largemouth, at 14.5".

My girlfriend the fish expert!

2008-09-15T21:31:00.000-05:00

She did it! The last person I expected to ID the fish I caught in Japan (no offense, if you're reading this) was my girlfriend. It's called a Japanese whiting or シロギス in Japanese. It's popular fried in tempura.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_whiting

Here's the website she used to ID it.

http://fishing-forum.org/zukan/fjysrch.htm

Fish in the freezer

2008-09-15T09:45:00.000-05:00

Went out yesterday with a guy from the lab. We had an early start at 6am out at picnic point. It was cold and windy. Not a lot was biting, mostly small perch and smallmouths. The only keeper was a 12.5" drum. We cut our losses around 9:00 and went to the Yahara to catch bluegill. We got 6 or 7 nice big ones and an 8" perch. We finished around noon and took the fish back to my house. Filleted them up, now they're in the freezer. :)

Big fat bluegills

2008-09-13T19:18:00.000-05:00

Went fishing on Lake Monona between the terrace and Monona Bay. I caught bluegill, green sunfish, rock bass, smallmouth bass, and largemouth bass. I kept the 3 largest bluegill and filleted them up at home. The largest was 8 inches and the other two were 7 1/2. They made for a good dinner. :)

Aquarium update

2008-09-11T14:54:00.000-05:00

1. Very few minnows left. I tried to move them to a 10-15 gal tank but must have done it too soon, because a lot of them died. I don't think temperature was the problem, so it must have been chlorine or whatever else was in the tap water.

2. The pumpkinseed seems to be doing ok, but I haven't seen him eating. He may have been eating minnows, but I'm not sure. He doesn't show much interest in the worms I drop in.

3. The two green sunfish are eating pieces of worm I drop in, expecially the smaller of the two. They seem to be easy to take care of given their aggressive nature.

4. The logperch is plenty active but hasn't been eating anything that I've seen. I have to be very careful about making sudden movements around the aquarium because he freaks out easily and rushes around the tank scaring all the other fish. It's amazing how much commotion that one darter can cause!

5. I stirred up the gravel last night to see if it was getting dirty. Holy smokes! The water was swirling with bits of dead worm and uneaten fish food and other waste. There were even a few dead minnows that somehow made it under the gravel. It smelled absolutely terrible. I wish I would have moved the fish to the small tank before I did it. From now on, I plan on getting smaller red worms that the fish can eat whole. Right now I have been tearing off small pieces of earthworm. The pieces don't move at all so the fish lose interest once they settle on the bottom. If the fish don't eat the food I give them, I need to take the pieces out of the tank, and not leave them on the bottom in hopes that the fish scavange.

6. The inlet tube for the filter is pretty long, but doesn't quite reach down to the bottom of the tank. I wonder if I get another attachment to make it longer then it will pick up more junk before it settles on the bottom.

7. The fish need more rocks to hide under. The green sunfish try to get under the one rock with the darter and the darter gets agitaded and tries to push them out. It's funny to watch, but I'm sure the fish would be a lot happier with more hiding spots.

A successful Saturday!

2008-09-06T21:28:00.001-05:00

The weather was great today and I had no desire to sit around and watch football like everyone else in Madison. I'll take a day at the Yahara over TV any day. :) One of the first fish I caught was a 9 inch perch, which I brought home. It was actually the first time I've eaten perch. I got two small but decent filets from it, and fried them up in butter with three cheese bread crumbs. It was incredible. I'm going to get hungry any time I see a perch in the future!

I also caught a PR rock bass, at 7 3/4 inches. I know that's not very big, but I was pretty happy with it. I also caught plenty of bluegill, pumpkinseed, and green sunfish.

I couldn't stop thinking about those darters that I tried to put in my aquarium the other day. I was determined to try again, so I went to the same spot and put on my smallest hook. It took a while, but I managed to catch two more of them. One was pretty small and the other was the biggest I've seen. I took them home and slowly added water from the aquarium to the bucket they were in. The little one wasn't doing well and went belly up. The big one seemed to be ok, so after 15 minutes of slowly adding water, I put him in the aquarium. He was breathing rapidly for quite a while and I thought I would lose him like the other ones, but he calmed down and began to swim around the tank and respond to the other fish. He's been in there several hours now and is doing just fine.

Bonus points if you notice the other two new fish in the tank. Unfortunately they will have to be temporary because they'll definitely get too big.

Logperch pro, I'm famous, and 2 greenies in the tank

2008-09-04T09:59:00.000-05:00

Went out to the Yahara again last night when I should have been doing research. My plan was to prove my logperch catching skills and then move down to the bridge and try for a walleye. I really need some smaller hooks for these tiny fish! I was getting bite after bite but could never hook them. I caught the one in the picture below, along with some perch, bluegill, green sunfish, and a tiny smallmouth, and then headed up to the bridge.

As I reached the bridge, another guy who had been fishing the other side came across on his bicycle. He stopped to ask me how I did, and then asked, "You don't.... have a fishing blog, do you?". I wasn't expecting that! He said that he googled Yahara river fishing to see if there was anything in there, and my blog came up as one of the hits.

If anyone in Madison is reading this blog and wants to meet up to do some fishing, you're more than welcome to join me!

I didn't catch any walleye, but I got plenty of other fish. I caught largemouth, rock bass, pumpkinseed, and one drum. That's a total of 9 species in one evening, which I believe is a new personal best. :) As it was getting dark I decided to catch a few small sunfish to take home. I chose two green sunfish that seemed healthy and were very small. They are doing well in the aquarium now. The pumpkinseed checks up on them from time to time to remind them not to hang out in his favorite spots, but for the most part doesn't care that they're in there with him.

Mystery solved - logperch!

2008-09-02T10:36:00.000-05:00

Need help ID'ing this species

2008-09-02T09:41:00.001-05:00

It's some kind of darter. I caught two of these while fishing with nightcrawlers yesterday. My first thought was fingerling muskies because of the vertical bands, but after looking at some google images I ruled that out. I put both of them in my aquarium, but unfortunaly they both died within the first hour. I remember catching rainbow darters with a net when I was a kid, and never being able to keep them alive in our fish tank either. Maybe they're just not able to handle the change in environment.

The aquarium is set up

2008-09-02T09:25:00.000-05:00

Shiraishi Island

2008-08-29T16:30:00.001-05:00

Fishing in the sea?! Is that allowed on this blog? My girlfriend and I were staying a few days on Shiraishi Island, which is a 30 min ferry ride from Kasaoka, Japan. There was a small restaurant/shop by the shore that offered all day fishing for $5. They had a shed full of tackle and a freezer with shrimp for bait. No supervision, you just took whatever you wanted and returned it at the end of the day. The owner recommended that we fish out on the end of a floating dock nearby, by I was eyeing some big rocks a 1/4 mile down the coast and took my girlfriend there instead. We were able to hop from rock to rock until we could fish in 4-6 foot deep water. I had my trunks on and eventually just jumped in and waded around to find good spots. Fishing was easy. It only took a few seconds to get bites. The only challenge was hooking the shrimp well enough so they didn't fall off too easy. We lost a lot of bait. We caught a lot of fish too though, especially puffer fish like in the 1st and 3rd pictures. We caught over 20 in the one day. We were also catching fish called "bera" or "bela" in Japanese. They are in the 2nd and 4th pictures. My girlfriend caught the biggest one (2nd pic) of the day, and the shop owner said it would sell for about $5 in a sushi restaurant. I'm not sure what the fish is in the last picture.

Good times... if you're ever in western Japan and looking for a relaxing day, this is it. :)

Asahi River Dam - fishing in Japan

2008-08-21T02:55:00.001-05:00

Getting the boat ready in the morning.

The awesome view.

Jun, one of my powerlifting friends from Okayama.

Nagase, pro bass fisherman and super nice guy.

And the trophy fish of the day, a whopping 12.5". :)

Asahi River Dam preview

2008-08-17T18:28:00.000-05:00

I don't have my camera cord with me right now, so my pictures will have to wait for a few more days. This is a pic from Nagase's blog.

The kids go fishing in Japan

2008-08-14T01:57:00.000-05:00

Yes that's right, I have already dominated the fishing scene in Japan! :) I went out with my girlfriend, her sister, and her sister's boyfriend to do some fishing on a small river in the area a few days ago. We used waxworms and the smallest hooks imaginable. What do you catch on gear like that? The smallest fish imaginable! We caught 3 or 4 different kinds of minnows. The fish in the 2nd and 3rd pictures is a funa (sp?). It looks like it's related to the carp family. After we got bored of the little fish, we drove around till we found a small pond by the side of the road. It had a healthy population of largemouth. I caught 5 or 6 and my girlfriend caught one. She was pretty excited about catching her first bass, but she refused to put her thum in its mouth, lol. Her sister and her boyfriend didn't do as well though, getting skunked on the bass pond.

The last hoorah before Japan

2008-08-08T09:23:00.000-05:00

Walleye! I finally got one! Caught my first walleye last night under the same bridge where I caught the white bass. I was using nightcrawlers on the bottom, and was catching bluegill and drum when this guy finally got on my line. 15" may not be impressive, but I was a happy camper.

I also had some luck with some small blue plastic worms I just bought. Caught a few nice largemouths on them.

Prior to catching the walleye, I also caught a smallmouth, a rock bass, two drums, a hybrid sunfish, and more bluegill than I cared to count.

There's something about that first cast

2008-08-03T17:30:00.001-05:00

16.5" smallmouth at Picnic Point

Catching monsters with Terry

2008-08-02T17:08:00.001-05:00

My buddy Terry was in town so we went over to Lake Monona for an hour or so. The bluegill were biting fine, but not a whole lot else. Terry caught a handful of bluegill and 1 green sunfish. I caught over a dozen bluegill, 1 rock bass, 1 smallmouth, and 1 largemouth. The smallmouth was definitely a trophy fish. (see the pic below)

And completely unrelated to fishing... I bench pressed 325 lbs today!!!!!!

First time using rubber worm

2008-08-02T09:40:00.000-05:00

I left the live bait at home last night to make sure that I could still catch fish with artificial lures. For the first half of the night I used a small crankbait that my brother gave me. I caught one largemouth with it, and then I had this little guy go after it. I suspect that he was attacking it for going through his territory, because there's no way that lure could be food, it wouldn't fit in his mouth! Tim, is this another hybrid sunfish? Pumpkinseed and green sunfish maybe? Sorry I didn't get a shot of his whole body.

I've never used a rubber worm before, because I never knew how to use them. I decided to be a man and give them a try anyway. By the way, I was fishing in Wingra Creek. The spots I was fishing were ideal for trying out the worm because they were too weedy to use any other lures. I tossed the worm over to the other side of the creek and let it fall down without a weight. I felt a few taps and then a good tug. Success on my first cast! I caught 4 largemouths that way, including the guy in the picture below. He was definitely hungry. :) I also had a couple hits where I didn't set the hook. It seems I need a little more practice on that.

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

2008-07-31T19:27:00.001-05:00

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

2008-07-30T09:34:00.000-05:00

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

2008-07-27T19:45:00.001-05:00

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!

2008-07-24T21:30:00.000-05:00

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!

2008-07-20T19:22:00.000-05:00

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

2008-07-19T20:49:00.000-05:00

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

2008-07-17T12:54:00.000-05:00

Action at the dam

2008-07-16T19:55:00.000-05:00

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?

2008-07-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

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?

2008-07-14T11:17:00.000-05:00

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

2008-07-14T10:58:00.001-05:00

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

2008-07-09T09:05:00.000-05:00

Buying an aquarium

2008-07-07T15:09:00.001-05:00

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

2008-07-06T21:17:00.000-05:00

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?

2008-07-04T12:58:00.000-05:00

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

2008-07-02T21:32:00.000-05:00

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.

The bass were biting and I brought my camera!

2008-06-30T20:41:00.000-05:00

I decided that whenever I go fishing from now on, I must bring my camera. Taking pictures of the fish you catch is just as much fun as catching them! I admit, I went a little overboard tonight, taking pictures of even the smallest bluegill. The first 4 pictures are the star of the evening: a 16 inch largemouth that I caught on my first cast. All the other pictures are different fish, there aren't 2 pictures of the same fish. I ended up with 8 more largemouth, a few bluegill, and I finished the night with a nice little pumpkinseed.

I caught a perch.

2008-06-29T13:20:00.000-05:00

Yup, that about sums up my fishing outing yesterday. I caught a 7" perch. It had really bright orange coloring on its fins and looked pretty cool. I also caught a largemouth off a bridge, and had to reel him about 20 feet up in the air. Then I looked down and saw two big carp meandering along through the weeds. I cast my lure over one of them, reeled it in until it was just on the other side of him, let it fall down his side, and then jerked up hard on it. I hooked him in the side, but when he pulled away the hook came out. I didn't end up empty handed though, there was a 1 inch by 1 inch scale stuck to my hook, lol. I don't think fishing that way is legal...

Lake Wingra's dam

2008-06-28T13:24:00.000-05:00

The platform at the dam between Lake Wingra and Wingra creek is usually really crowded, but yesterday there was only one guy there with his gf. I got a good number of bluegill on both sides, the largest of which was 8". Don't worry Jeff, I lined up the tape measure with the tip of his head this time. He wasn't quite as meaty as the one I caught in Champaign though. I also caught two small largemouths (maybe 10" each).

I got talking to the other guy there and he recommended a good spot on Mendota to catch catfish. It's somewhere up by the Eagle Height's apartments, where he said he caught a couple 5 or 6 lb cats using worms.

Old fishing pics

2008-06-26T14:54:00.001-05:00

All of these pictures are from the subdivision pond in Champaign, except for the 6 lb bass. It was caught in an even smaller subdivision pond down the road.

Pic 1 - two good sized bluegill
Pic 2 - 11 lb catfish being scientifically weighed
Pic 3 - the 11 lb catfish after I got him out of the water
Pic 4 - a typical sized largemouth from the pond
Pic 5 - a 6 lb largemouth, also scientifically weighed :)

Fishing heaven is in a small subdivision in Champaign, IL

2008-06-24T15:04:00.000-05:00

I was down in Champaign for a friend's wedding on Saturday. After the reception I headed over to a small subdivision pond that I used to fish at when I was an undergrad at Illinois. The sun had already gone down so it was a race against time to get as much fishing in before it got too dark. I was out there for about an hour, and the fishing was great. I caught 18 largemouths and one bluegill that was 9". The largest of the largemouth were 13". Most of them were 10-12". I was planning on switching to catfishing after it got dark, but changed my mind because I wanted to make the drive to Peoria that night.

Monona Bay

2008-06-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

Went fishing along Monona Bay last night for the first time. I started off with a medium sized spinner but couldn't get a bite. I saw a few small bluegill swimming away from shore as I walked along; I figured I could catch some of them so that I wouldn't get skunked. I put the ultra light spinner on and pulled in a monster, a 3 1/2" bluegill. I thought I had the world record for smallest bluegill, but 10 minutes later I caught one that was 3 1/4"! I got a laugh out of that. I walked to the north side of the bay where the water looked deeper and switched to a rapala type minnow. I made sure to crank it extra fast at the beginning to make it dive down deep. I thought maybe the fish were all hanging out in deeper water and that's why the spinners weren't working. Sure enough I got a hit and reeled in a 12 to 15" largemouth. As I pulled it out of the water though, the knot came undone on my lure and the fish dropped back in the water and got away. I felt really embarrassed. I've been fishing for how long, and I can't even tie a fishing knot correctly? I felt really bad too that the fish had that big lure stuck in its mouth. I put a new lure on, and when I went to cast, something caught my eye floating about 50' out. My other lure! It must have come unhooked somehow. I spent the next 15 minutes trying to get it with my 2nd lure, and got it eventually. On the next cast I got another largemouth but it came off the hook right when it got to the surface. At least my lure stayed on though!

Enough of this wind!

2008-06-12T10:23:00.000-05:00

Went out last night around sundown. The wind was bad on the lake again. I caught 1 largemouth, 3 crappie, and 2 bluegill.

Windy and no catfish yet

2008-06-07T15:09:00.000-05:00

Went out to Wingra yesterday in hopes of catfish. While it was still light out I did some regular fishing and caught 3 largemouth, 5 bluegill, and 3 crappie. Once it was dark, I put chicken gizzard on a treble hook and threw it out as far as I could. I sat out there for quite a while, but nothing. It was windy with a front moving through, so maybe the fish weren't in the mood for chicken gizzard?

Yahara river at nightfall

2008-06-06T10:52:00.000-05:00

Went out last night with a guy from work to fish along the Yahara river (the segment that connects Mendota and Monona in town). I liked the looks of it more than Wingra Creek. The water was crystal clear, there were no weeds, and plenty of big rocks along the bank that the fish hung around. The fish weren't particularly active though. The water was clear enough that you could watch your lure and see if the fish were going after it or not. A lot of the bass didn't seem to care. A couple of them must have been hungry though, because I caught two decent sized largemouth, one crappie, and two bluegill. I also had a carp try to eat my lure but he spit it out before I could set the hook. It would be pretty cool to catch a 20 lb carp sometime.

When little fish are biting, you catch little fish

2008-06-02T10:12:00.000-05:00

Right around sundown the smaller fish were really biting on Wingra yesterday.

32 crappie + 8 bluegill + 5 largemouth = 45 fish total

I caught all of them on the small spinner exept for one of the largemouth on the gummy bear fish. It was a little over 12 inches, probably around a lb.

I bought some chicken gizzards & hearts... now it's time for some catfish.

Long day, but I'll take it

2008-06-01T10:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I exlpored Wingra Creek from its start at Lake Wingra all the way to its end at Lake Monona. It turned into quite a long day! I was probably out there 5 hours at least. It was a gorgeous day but the fish weren't really biting. Too sunny perhaps? I made sure to hit all the shady spots but still nothing. I didn't see anyone else catch a single fish the whole day so I don't think it was my poor fishing skills that were to blame.

I was switching between the gummy bear fish (see last post), the little spinner, and the crankbait minnow, hoping that one of them would work. Finally, down by Fish Hatchery Road I got a bite on the gummy bear fish. I pulled in an 18 inch northern, which is the first that I've caught in years. It couldn't have been more than a lb but it made my day nonetheless. Considering that I didn't see a single fish among all the other fishermen, I'm declaring myself the champion of the day.

I finished up around dusk back at Wingra and caught a few bluegill with the spinner.

Next I'd like to try some live bait. I remember catching all sorts of fish with leaches when I went to Canada years and years ago. I also want to get a fishing scale to keep in my tackle box.

First success! - fishing off of Wingra

2008-05-30T20:47:00.000-05:00

Left work early today to go fishing (that's acceptable right?). I started off with a small spinner and caught a few bluegill and a really small largemouth on the north shore of Wingra. Once my confidence was up, I switched to a crankbait minnow in hopes of getting a larger bass or a northern. Didn't get any bites so I moved down past the dam to the start of Wingra creek. Still nothing. I even saw some decent size bass up close to shore (spawning?) that were completely ignoring my lure.

I was about done but decided to try out one of my lures that I had never caught anything on. It was a gummy bear textured fish with a big weight in the center. It had a rubber tail that wiggled a lot when you pulled it through the water. Pretty soon to my surprise I pulled in a nice largemouth. There was this dirty old guy a ways down from me that shouted, "nice fish!!", and hurried down to take a look. This was one nasty guy. His teeth were all yellow and crooked, he had this crazy look in his eyes, and his breath was this awful combination of old liquor and cigarettes. He whipped out his tape measure to check my fish. 14.5 inches. He said, "shoot, another 1/2 inch and he's a keeper." I told him that if I caught a bigger one I'd let him have it.

On my very next cast I got an 11 inch crappie. Snaggle tooth guy practically ran down to look at my catch again. His breath.... wow. After a long conversation about fishing strategies and big fish that got away (from him), he asked me, "you going to keep that fish?" I said yes and he replied, "shoot, I was going to make me a sandwich out of that feller."

I took the crappie home. My cleaning skills need a little refreshing. The fillets weren't very big, but after I breaded them and fried them in butter they tasted great.