Big Bluegill on a Crank

Just a quickie post.  I was on my way home from work when I stopped to do a little fishing in a pond I have ice fished.  Since I've drilled it full of holes and measured depth several years in a row I knew the area I was throwing my lure in was 3-4 feet, sometimes shallower than that.  I had a 3/4oz Bass Pro Shops XPS Lazer-Eye EGG  crankbait tied on from my last time out.  This crank can dive about a foot deep if I start my retrieve with my rod tip down or waggle back and forth like a wake-bait on the surface if I have my rod tip up.

I had my rod tip down so the lure was at a foot or a little deeper.  I say a little deeper because I had 8# fluorocarbon line on and fluoro sinks.  My crank was halfway back to the shore and still running below the surface when my rod bent and I instinctively swept the rod to the side to set the hook.  As I reeled the fish in I figured I had a small bass eat my crankbait.  That can happen and the fish that wiggled when I hooked it kept still while I wound it in.  When I got it near the shore I realized I was going to get to add to my "on a Crank" series of blog posts.  I caught a Big Bluegill, fair hooked in the mouth, on a big BPS EGG crankbait!

  

That's why I keep a rod in the car.  If I've got some time I need to wait anywhere I can find some water and go fish it.  If I'm near water I know I can stop and wet a line.  I caught several largemouth this outing as well but none were very big.  What I got was a chance to catch another species in a new way.  I've caught big bluegills before, but this was my first Big Bluegill on a Crank.

Open Water Success (finally!)

It's been too long since I last updated this blog.  It's not that I haven't been out fishing, it's that I haven't been catching much to speak of since ice out.  That changed Saturday for my friends Dave, Monique, and me.  Small pond bass finally got out of their spawn-induced slump and we had figured out what they wanted and how to catch them.

The first pond we stopped at has weeds just starting to form a shallow-water weed line.  Tall grass made casting challenging at times.  I threw a few crank baits early but nothing paid too much attention to them.  It was when I tied on a Z-Man Chatterbait in a bluegill color with a Crabby Bass Crawdaddy trailer I got some largemouth attention.

A nice chunk of a largemouth that hit my chatterbait around four feet from shore; near where a shelf drops off in the pond.  After releasing the bass I made the same cast and slow-reeled the chatterbait back toward the shore.  I was watching the fast-tip of my casting rod do a slow twitching motion in time with the vibrations of the chattering blade.  

My lure should be near shore so I should look down and slow my retrie.....Woah, there comes bass, slow way-down.  The skirt on the chatterbait flares, the claws on the Crabby Bass Crawdaddy flapped, the blade flashed gold, and a big mouth opened up and snatched my lure.

A longer bass and it may be a heavier one.  I didn't bring a scale or tape measure along to measure it.  I was just glad to catch it.  I would catch a few more bass here but fish eluded Dave and Monique.  We decided to hike our way back to the car and head down the road to another pond about the same size as this one.  

The shoreline was mowed and manicured at this pond.  Dave got out his first casting rod; a custom spiral wrapped casting rod with the same specs as the stick I was using today.  It was my way of welcoming him into using a baitcasting reel.  

He had a BPS Egg in bluegill color tied on and 10# Triline Mono spooled onto a Lew's Speedspool. His first cast with the new casting setup he sidearms the Egg in front of a bed of reeds.  I watched as the rod blank arched and loaded up with a bass on the other end of the line. 

A nice bass for his first of the year and the first using a style of reel he was just learning how to use.  Practice casting with rubber casting weights pays off in a day with only three overspins he had to pull out.   Much better than my first time out with casting gear to be sure.

Monique had been using a small paddle-tail swimbait in chartreuse rigged under a float.  I wasn't going to discourage her but I did gently suggest she lose the float and rig the swimbait on a jig-head and cast it.  Off she went to cast at the pond when Dave and I heard her yell.  "Hey, I think I got a fish!"  Soon came confirmation "Yeah, I got a fish!!!  Umm...help?!?"

It turned out all she needed was some direction in what to do.  Once she got her thumb in the bass' mouth she learned the fish generally calms down and gives you time to work the hook back out it. She handled it like a pro after that.  When I joked she was in good company kissing fish and brought up Jimmy Houston she looked confused.  I'll have to send her some links of him kissing bass or Sugar-Boogers as he calls them.  

Dave scored the last fish of the day on a really cool and odd-looking little plug.  A Heddon Crazy Crawler.  

It was great to finally have a good day open water fishing.  We had ice late this year so spring schedules got all out of whack as far as spawning has been concerned.  It's got nature all out of whack trying to adjust.  One thing we all caught that we hadn't intended was something that's been out in force this year; ticks.  Each of us found at least two ticks on us.  We did examine ourselves after we got home but it took a second look to find all of the little buggers.

Do please be careful and check yourselves as you go out into nature! Lyme disease is nothing to mess with!  

As the summer comes and the bass move to more predictable spots I'll be getting out in my kayak more.  I want to spend more time this summer yakking rivers and new bodies of water.  If I catch you'll know because I'll write about it.  Since I started this blog my stats counter has passed 18,000 page views.  I'm geeked to get to 20K!  Thanks to all of you for reading about my fishing!

Want a Ride?

If you talk with me about fishing I'll undoubtedly bring up DuPage Angler and the impact it's had on my life angling and otherwise.  The site gets anglers together in a friendly place to talk about fishing, get to know other fishermen and learn from them.

Last night I got off the Metra, drove home in the rain knowing that it would clear.  I hooked my boat up to my hitch and headed out to launch the boat solo for the evening bite.  The hour closest to dark can be a magical time on the water.

I had backed in and was just beaching my 15' jonboat when I heard a familiar voice say hi.  It was Ted (SoonerBass) from the DuPage Angler forums.  I've fished with Ted before for blue catfish and for bass in several ponds.

The first words out of my mouth were, "Want a ride"?

Ted thought that would be a good idea and loaded his gear into my boat and we headed off to fish around the islands. 

There are two islands on the north half of the lake.  Weeds are getting thick around them but the water is clear and the weed edges drop off to 12-15 foot water in most areas.  Water temperatures were 77-78 degrees.  I was throwing a Bass Pro Egg crankbait running very shallow just under the surface.  Ted was using a walk-the-dog style topwater bait.  We cast around weedy spots surrounding the island when off one point my egg gets hit.  

It's a pounder, maybe pound and a halfer.  I took the picture because I've yet to crack the code to catching the bigger bass at Whalon.  Not to worry, I'll learn.

It was about the time we rounded the second island when Ted spotted surface boils.  We motored over near the disturbance and saw largemouth bass busting on tiny hatchlings of some sort.  Inch long bait fish balls chased by bucket-mouth fish.

Ted and I worked our cranks in and out of the busting bass.  It paid off for Ted with a nice two pounder.

We both looked like our necks were on swivels, pivoting around to see what made the splash behind me?  Crud, a duck.  What was that to the right?  Bass!!!  Cast!!!!

This was a better fish.  2.5 pounds by both of our educated guesses.  The fact that the water was so clear meant we could see what the fish were eating.  When bass fight they sometimes regurgitate what they've been eating recently.  We saw the tiny bait fish and probably should have downsized our tackle to take advantage of the hatch.  

The night encroached upon the day more and more as I secured the boat to the trailer and unloaded my gear to the car.  We'd had a decent evening.  Three fish were caught and released and we got to see nature at it's finest in the form of big fish chasing and eating little fish; circle of life stuff.

I'll be back at Whalon around dusk.  I want to experiment with different lures and see what will let me land more bass.  Maybe I'll bump into Ted again.  Maybe I'll see another DuPage Angler member fishing.  If you know me from the site and you see me launching solo come say hi.  I may just ask if you want a ride. 

An early outing with Dave

Fishing with my friends often involves working with their schedules to find a time we can go out and wet a line.  Most Sunday mornings I can be found around a pond somewhere with Dave.  This Sunday morning was no exception except he had developed a get-out-early motivation so at 6:00 this Sunday I was helping load Dave's equipment into my car to drive to today's body of water.  

We were fishing for Largemouth Bass as we generally do.  They're a lot of fun to catch in a variety of ways.  Figuring out what they want-to/will eat is part of the challenge of fishing.  Today was another one of those days.

We started fishing the pond around 6:30.  It was early and we were both working on a Five Hour Energy buzz combined with the excitement of fishing this particular pond.  I knew there to be good sized bass in this pond but I had only caught one here.  Dave was going on faith that this place would live up to my hype.  

We threw a few different baits trying to figure out what the bass wanted to eat today.  I had a black and yellow spinner bait tied on my casting rod and Dave was throwing a chartreuse spinner.  Both spinners yielded no fish at that hour.  To add insult to injury Dave's spinner ended up in the middle of the pond forcing him to rethink his lure choice.

I started channeling Marty aka Wacky Bass' advice about fishing a Rat-l-Trap in front of pond weed growth.  I also remembered how my attempts at fishing that same lure turned out.  What could I do differently.  The strike zone was generally in the top 1-3 feet of the water column and weeds were 2-4  feet from the bank in places.  Time to break this down.  A Rat-l-Trap is a rattling crank bait and I had to get the lure between 1-3 feet in depth in front of the weeds.  What do I have in my tackle bag that is a rattling crank bait that operates in 1-3 feet of depth....I know!  My trusty Bass Pro Eggs!  I tied on my large Chrome-Black XPS Lazer Eye Egg and let it fly. 

Several casts in the same directions I had already been working yielded no bites so I rotated clockwise around the shore line past Dave's position and started casting the crank in this direction.  Rod tip up yielded a surface-hugging, wide wake.  I had just started thinking that I loved the action of this bait when Dave sarcastically said, "I wonder if there are any fish in here."

I don't know what force of nature caused the next chain of events to happen but no sooner were those words out of Dave's mouth then my egg gets clobbered!

She weighed in at about 3 pounds on my Boga-Grip and a great way to start off the day's catching.

We rotated around the pond in a clockwise motion; one angler passing the other.  The other passing the one.  This goes on until someone finds fish.  I got the next.

3.5 lbs on the Boga, not bad.  They're getting bigger.  Dave's turn for a NICE chunk of 4.25-4.5 lb fun on what you can see in his other hand (the one without the lovely bass in it) is the half-dollar sized Z-Man Chatterbait he caught that beauty on.  

We walked the rest of the perimeter and I got a bigger fish.  A 4lb largemouth.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the grand finale.......my first FIVE POUND LARGEMOUTH BASS!!!

When it hit the Egg I knew this fish was different.  My spinning reel felt like it was loose in the reel-seat; it wasn't.  I checked after I released the big girl.  Each wind of my reel felt like I was trying to pull in a cast iron skillet.  She was big, and beautiful, and released healthy and only slightly annoyed that she ate my crank bait.

I had a great morning fishing.  Dave picked up another good sized bass but it was deep hooked and bleeding. Dave is the kind of guy that thinks about the fish's health first and once we got the trebles out of the gullet of the bass Dave carefully released it back to the pond to fight another day.  I highly recommend practicing catch and release in small ponds.  Ponds can't recover as fast as fish could be taken from them in this suburban area.

If you want to have fish you can catch and eat please visit DuPage County Forest Preserve Lakes, other county/state run lakes, or a variety of pay-to-fish/catch lakes available in the surrounding areas.  They all have posted creel limits as to what sizes of what species can be taken.  If we all take care of our waters we can insure there are plenty of fish to catch and release and catch and eat.

I know I want to catch another like this one again, and I want you to be able to too!!!