Shovelheads

Caught seven last night in the little miami in a big eddy below a riffle on livebait, about half on small bullheads and about half on nightcrawlers. Had a run on a bullhead that was 8 or 9 inches long that dropped it before I got to the rod. Plus three small channelcats on shrimp, two saugeye and two smallmouth and a crappie on a grub and a quillback sucker around 4 pounds on worms. Built a big fire, cleaned one of the channels, sprinkled on a bit of pepper and cajun seasoning, wrapped it in foil and baked it on the fire while I fished...pretty good night on the old river.

A big largemouth

One of the nice things about visiting my parents is that right on the way is a wildlife area that has one of the best ponds I know of. You have to walk a ways to get to it and that keeps the pressure down. It's amazing to me how no matter how good the fishing is people just will not walk out of sight of the truck to fish. They might drive 500 miles but walk twenty minutes? No way. Today with all the drizzle and dark skies I knew I'd have to stop at the pond on the way home. Sure enough the bass hammered a spinnerbait fished shallow. All small fish but they were hitting ofton. Then I threw past a small cattail covered point. A big wake rose up behind the spinnerbait following for a few feet as a big fish hammered it. Then she jumped three times giving me a heart attack each time. Last year it seemed like every big bass I hooked threw the hook. She came up again shaking her head and I was already thinking I was going to lose her. Finally after what seemed like an eternity I lipped her and could breath again. I snapped a few photos and released her getting back in the truck just in time to hear Joey Votto hit a grand slam to win the game....a pretty good day all around.

Bull Bluegills

To me one of the most enjoyable things about spring is chasing bedding bluegills with a flyrod. You go to fish the pond one day and there they are, those round saucers dug into one corner that says non stop action. This is also one of those few times a year I'll keep a mess of fish to eat too for there's no better eating than a plate of fried gills and potatoes...

Horseshoe Falls

Well I led my first walk for Little Miami Inc. this weekend. I was a bit nervous but everything went well. We started at the Flat Fork picnic area at Caesar Creek State Park and took a beautiful trail to horseshoe falls. Horseshoe falls is the lovely waterfall you see on all the literature you see for the state park and on the front page of their website. It's a great little hike and I recomend it highly.

Once in a while...the fishing really is great

I guess it's really a case of just pay enough dues and fish enough hours and you'll hit it just right. Went out friday to THE LAKE WHOSE NAME CANNOT BE SPOKEN (southern ohio, that's all I'm saying about where..) and thought about turning back. You could just hear a solid rumbling of thunder in the distance. But it just barely missed me, sliding by just to the north. Lots of wind, flashes of lightening a few miles away, but no big storm but you had the feeling you were going to get absolutely hammered any momment. And the darker and windier it got the more the bass hit. Three times I caught a fish on five consecutive casts and if a fish missed my spinnerbait another would slam it before I got it back to the bank. And this went on for three hours, I dunno seventy five fish?, a hundred? I lost track. I'm not claiming it was due to any super tactics, just chuck it out and wind it back. No big giant bass either just one right after another... The funny thing is, the day before I caught zip in two hours of hard fishing. I guess that's why you have to throw it out there, you never know whats gonna happen.

A big crappie for the Little Miami

Went today to one of my favorite smallmouth spots, a big eddy below a riffle and the place was infested with crappie. Caught quite a few nice ones on a 1/8 ounce jighead and 3 inch smoke metalflake grub fishing for bass. Including this guy over 13 inches and another just a bit smaller. Kind of surprising out of the river

If only Jerry Springer fished...

It's never boring at the lower dam in Hamilton. First off the fishings pretty good and when it does get slow there's always the "wildlife". Situated in downtown Hamilton and with a bike path running right behind it, in the typical hour your liable to see at least two or three teenagers dressed like extras from a bad vampire movie, two guys yelling at each other in Russian, at least one hottie rollerblading and scads of heavy middle aged women exercising (why the bigger the woman the tighter the clothes??? why, lord why??) If this wasn't entertaining enough in the last three days I also caught nine species of fish and saw one or two others caught. Lets see, channel cat, carp, smallmouth bass, sauger, saugeye, buffalo, sucker, drum, and a nice shovelhead that hammered a plastic grub. Also I saw landed white bass and a largemouth but didn't catch any of those. On two days I saw a couple guys speaking with what I thought were African accents stringing up sauger and keeping them to eat, braver than me I guess. Most smallies were 10 to 14 inches but I caught one over three and saw a guy catch a gorgeous saugeye pushing five. I also hooked and landed a plastic lawnmower around six pounds. On light tackle in the current it put up quite a fight before finally sucumbing. If you go take plenty of guebs and jigheads, medium running crankbaits and some nightcrawlers. Oh and a video camera. Hang out there long enough and your bound to videotape something that will end up on TV. It might be America's Funniest Home Video or the Jerry Springer Show but who know it might just be a big fish....