Bantam Pike w/ Larry MONSTERS!

Decided to go to Bantam today with Joey because of the forecast for clouds early figuring we could leave if the bite was slow,needless to say,we stayed and the bite was far better than we could have ever dreamed.Joe started off the day with a solid smallie on a black buzzbait,about 10 minutes into the morning. Then there was a brief lull, and we decided to change locations and toss some spinnerbaits for Pike. Our personal bests for pike before today were me, at 26" (I've lost many)and Joey on a rod and reel 31" .

Around 10 minutes after we made our move, all this changed. Joey ,rolling a spinnerbait outside a weed line, gets slammed and boats his new personal best at 33", not knowing that this would soon be eclipsed....he went on to catch three more to my zero. I was sobbing with joy when he offered one of his bigger spinnerbaits for me to use! Within a few casts , I had one in the boat,28". Right after this Joe and I failed to hook up 8 times with a very large pike. This fish was smashing the water after our spinner baits and within a few more casts,I had her 38" and thick. All this time we are visibly shaking and in disbelief. Joes very next cast,he hooks up with another large fish,pulling line making hard runs. In the boat at 37". By now we've handled more big pike than I could imagine in one day. 

Just when we though it couldn't get better, we proceed to get two double hook ups!! One being twin 32 "ers, and the next two being two 35" ers! I must add here that it is hard to boat two pike in a 14' boat at once without some cuts. (none severe thankfully) This action lasted three hours,and slowed the higher the sun got. Joe started throwing a chatterbait, and got two more, and a firetiger spinner bait worked for a couple more for me. Closing out one of the best fishing trips ever. We ended the day with

Joey:

- 10 Northern Pike 37",35.25",34.5",34",33",32",31",30.5",30",28"
- 1 Smallmouth
- 1 Pickerel

Larry:

- 9 Northern Pike 38",37",35",33",32.25",32",32",31.5",27".

No weights because we measured photoed and released as fast as possible. No fish we caught rolled over, and none were bad bleeders all swam away healthy.

A day like this may never happen again in our lives. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Me and Joe's new personal best are the ones at the bottom. 

Written by Larry Johnson.

Massive Fish Kill.. ( Carp )

Last weekend me and josh were fishing up in the North West corner of CT for bass and we stumbled upon one of the worst things ive ever witnessed on a fishing trip. First we smelled what we figured to be a dead fish.. as we got closer we saw what looked like a bone yard. Every rock had between one and 4 dead carp for about a 50 yard stretch. There were some that were still alive but just barely with there eyes burnt from the sun and wounds from the vultures all over there bodies.

To our left was a small waterfall that fish cant get past so when the water level came up they tried to go around to the right and when the water went back down they all got trapped. We found one pool no bigger than 4x5 feet that had 6 dead fish in it and one that looked very alive and somewhat healthy. There were maggets all over the place and the smell was terrible but i felt like it was my duty to save this fish. As i tried to grab its tail it would shake me off. Still had alot of strength which made me want to try that much more because i knew this fish had a chance to survive.

This carp was about 16-18 lbs maybe a bit more and trying to grab him from that nasty water was proving almost impossible. I snagged his lip with my grub just to keep him in front of me but that didnt work and he broke the line. By then i was getting pissed and i just reached in and flipped him onto the rocks.  With fish in hand i started walking back to the river and josh started to film it.  The fish probably wouldnt have made it another day so i think we were just in time. As i got him to the nice cool running water he swam right away down river.  I hope he makes it but i guess only time will tell.

Josh went back up to film some of the devastation. I know that carp is some what of a junk fish but its sad to see that with any kind of fish. There were literally around 100 dead carp and in that small river that could easily be more than half the population in that section. Makes me wish we were there a few days sooner. Maybe we could have saved some more.  I will post the video once its uploaded.

Winchester Lake w/ Larry & Josh

Larry gave us a call on friday night asking if we wanted to go check out Winchester in the morning and having never fished it before we said yea why not.. We were on the water by 6:30am.  Having read reports from fellow members and talking to a few people it seems like one of those places that can be very very slow so our expectations weren't very high. We tossed spinner baits, bass jigs, chatter baits, rubber worms, double paddle tail grubs, osmo's, buzz baits and the buzz baits were the only one to not catch a fish.

The weather was perfect, completely overcast with water temps of 75..We had pretty solid action most of the day around the stumps fishing water from 6 to 11 feet deep. Larry started off with the hot hand having landed 4 fish before me or josh had one. Larry also got one small pike on the bass jig right at the side of the boat. Josh started getting slammed when he put the rubber worm on and then i finally started getting some hits all on the chartreuse spinner bait. 

Josh hooked into something very large on the osmo and after a quick fight and screaming drag the fish shook the hook. Was most likely a solid northern. Shit happens but by the end of the day we caught a combined 18 largemouth with a handful around 2 - 2.5 pounds. Nothing huge but all fun, 1 Northern, 4 slim darts, a giant rock bass, and one yellow perch. The dark clouds and thunder chased us off the water around 1:30pm.

Its a very cool lake and very different from anywhere ive ever fished. Can also be extremely dangerous with most the stumps being right there sub surface.. Larry did a great job of navigating us around safely but i could easily see someone going there for the first time and ripping your motor right off your boat so anyone going there.. take it slow.  Was hoping for some more action from the pike. But it is mid summer and i dont know how many pike are even in there.

Delayed Champlain Report 07/15-07/16

Got an invite from fellow CTF member Obass to take a 2 day trip to what most call the 6th Great Lake. Lake Champlain is nothing short of massive and by far the biggest body of fresh water i've ever had the opportunity to fish.  It is home to over 80 species of fish and its conditions change constantly.  We left at 4am Saturday morning for Ticonderoga and were on the water by 9am.  The action began immediately with white chatter baits and spinner baits.  We were tossing through some of the heaviest weeds i had ever fished but hey the fish were there so you do what you have to do.  My first fish of the trip   was a northern which i was pretty happy about seeing how it was my first pike anywhere other than CT. At the time i didnt know that would be 1 of 12 that i would catch on the trip.

Mike's DRUM

We caught 44 fish on day one with most of those being LMB with a handful of them in the 4lb range. Our best quality bass were caught on buzz baits which is probably the greatest most fun bass lure to fish. When that was working its hard to throw anything else. The hits are violent and even mid summer the pike somehow were all about crushing them even breaking us off on some hits that sent them 2 feet out of the water.  Was like nothing i had ever seen locally.  Highlight of day one was Mike getting a Drum. What a fight and was a fish that i had never seen before. So that was awesome.   That night we got back to our hotel and there was zero power which was a huge bummer but the disappointment didn't last..

Day 2 was the day that ill never forget, our arms were sore by noon but we fished till 8pm. Combined we caught 111 fish with our best largemouth coming on spinner baits and chatter baits. We caught probably 30 pickerel  another 15 pike and then just a ton of bass with almost all of them in the keeper range. Lake Champlain's water clarity literally is different at ever spot we fished. From muddy to gray to some what clear but the bait that produced the most fish even in the darkest water was the white chatter bait with gold blades and a fluke trailer. We had probably 6 or 7 double hook ups and times where you caught fish on 5 out of 6 cast.

This was a trip that i wont soon forget and i just wanna thank Mike for taking me and once i have a bigger boat i will be making trips up there monthly. =)  

senko

Candlewood 6/12 w/ Captain Obass!

Monday night around 10:30pm i got a text asking if i wanted to hit candlewood for 4am from Mike (obass) from CTF.  At first i wrote that i couldnt go but to keep his phone on. After 5 minutes of thought i qucikly wrote back i was in and after a few short hours of sleep we were at the ramp and preparing for what would be one of the best fishing days of my life.  We started off throwing spinner baits and mepps spinners before sun up and the fish were slamming them. Smallmouth and Largemouth both.

As the sun came up above the horizon the action shifted to the mepps and flukes. By 7am we had already brought a combined 30 fish to the boat. The strikes were all violent with some fish even leaving the water by a few feet. As we would be fighting the smallies most of them had another smallie or 2 or 3 following them trying to grab the fluke off the line.  Then we tried small spooks and they were lighting them up on the surface. Its so tough not to set when you see them strike so we missed countless fish.

All of our fish came on the outside edge of weed beds and most of the smallmouth were 2-3 pounds other than a few that hit high 3's and i got one at 21.25 inches and 4.4 lbs which during the fight we both thought was easy 5 plus. Incredible fights incredible action. Mike knows candlewood thats a fact! By the end of the day we had caught 74 fish total.  14 Largies 1 Yellow Perch 1 White Perch 1 BlueGill and a whopping 57 Smallmouth.  Maybe it wasnt the most fish id ever caught in a day but the number of fish to size ratio was the best id ever had. 

Cant wait to go back.. just makes me wish i could have a weekday to fish every week. Its nice being one of the only boats out there and no pleasure boaters. 

Until next time!

Housy Sunday with a Surprise 1st Carp w/ Video

  Headed up to the housy this morning with josh to do some smallmouth fishing.  Right off the bat the action started. The ticket today was the white grub on a 1/8th oz jig head for me and Josh had most of his action on a small husky jerk. We fished from pool to pool in search of any current breaks or deeper holes and most of the places you thought should be holding fish were. It was a few hours before we got a 12 inch fish, but in this case size really didn't matter. 

turtle we found trying to walk up the waterfall

  After shore fishing one stretch for a while we decided to take a drive down the street and it payed off. The fish started getting bigger and some bigger surprises started to arrive. Josh first cast got a 2lb smallmouth which in current is a heck of a battle just to watch. I missed a few on the flukes and went back to the grub and i got a quick 4 smallies and 4 rock bass.  Then josh yells holy @#$% pike just followed me right in too my feet. So he keep casting there for a while and gets slammed. Fish starts pulling line and is gone. Shook him loose.  

The sadness didn't last long as moments later my rod ( 5.5 foot trout rod with 6lb test ) loads up and i set into something large. It came to the surface but we couldn't tell what it was. It then went up river slowly just taking line and i couldn't stop it. Just held on and hoped for the best. Me and Josh realized it was a carp around the same time and he runs over and starts filming the battle.  I felt like the fish wasn't gonna tire out every time id get him close he would go out again. With the large rocks below it wasn't easy to keep my line from snapping.  After around a 5 to 6 minute fight i have the fish in my arms. My first carp ever!! And it was on a white grub. I was beyond excited.  That was the main highlight of the day but i also had a smallie that kept swimming around in front of me but wouldn't eat what i was giving him so i found a crayfish threw it on there and bam... stole my cray.. try again... stole it again...try one more nope...So i changed over to a plastic crayfish imitation and sure enough after the 20 minutes plus trying to get this fish i got her. 




We fished from 6am-6pm fishing three different towns and miles of river.


Totals for the day were:


Joe:                               Josh:  


29 smallmouth               29 smallmouth
5   rock bass                  1  largemouth
1   carp                           1  brown trout
1   blue gill                     1 Snapping turtle for a quick photo and set free!

Here's the Link for the Carp Video!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZoW4F4hOGE