Been a while since my last post

Sorry to everyone that follows this blog.  It has been a very long time since my last post.  The demands of a job and toddler have kept me from spending much time messing with fishing photography and online posting.  I have been fishing, but haven't taken the time to post about it.  That will change in the near future as I will dedicate more time to this blog and get my son out on the rivers and streams of my new home in central Indiana.









Also.  SCREW photobucket.  They have really put the screws to anyone with an account who has stored pictures there.  I will be working to replace all of the broken picture links that they are holding hostage.  If you would like my input on how to remove your photos from the deathgrip of photobuket please feel free to ask.

Floating in Florida in search of Shoal Bass

My wife and I decided to get out of the dragging Midwestern winter and head south for a little beach time with our new baby and break from the endless cold and snow.  We had our sights set on Destin Florida, which fit the pocketbook and the weather for the trip looked great.

Most fisherman heading to Destin have dreams of the countless saltwater fish available from offshore boats and the inshore harbor, but I had have always been drawn to rivers and a unique bass species would only be a short drive from our resort.  I brought along my mohawk solo 14 for the trip, which can handle any river florida has to offer and it even did nicely surfing a few small breakers! 


Normally crystal clear, rain the night before the trip had the river up and off color, and the water color was tannic and an almost blackish brown color; something that is rarely seen in well drained farmland of the Midwest. Spanish moss hung from the trees, and cypress, tupelo, palm, sweetgum, and pine trees climbed from the river banks. The river was so different that what I am used to, and much different than other Florida streams.  It is fed by over 60 springs with a year round temperature of 68 degrees and has several rocky limestone shoals.  The Chipola river arises in Alabama and is a tributary of the Apalachicola, and contains a species of bass that I have not had the chance to fish for, the shoal bass.  Shoal bass inhabit the rocky limestone shoals in fast moving water throughout Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.  The Chipola contains a good population of shoal bass but they are only relegated to the areas of fast water around limestone shoals, but due to limited habitat all anglers are encouraged to release shoal bass.










The high water had washed out the shoals, so I had to focus my efforts on any moving water I could find.  After about a mile and a half  I hooked into my first shoal bass.  It was  a fighter, and reminded me of the smallies I catch back home.  It took a crankbait fished in fast water and tried to take the rod away from me with about 15 feet of line out. It pulled drag and jumped at least twice.  A great way to start the trip out.




I caught several more shoal bass, always in the fast water around the fast dropping shoals.  Most were small, but I caught a few above 15".







Farther downstream in a long skinny slow water pool, I threw a cast against cypress trunk and my bait ricocheted off the trunk and behind a stump that was invisible to my line of site.  The lure landed in a pocket of 2-3 feet deep water surrounded by cypress roots.  As I began my retrieve it was engulfed by a huge bass.  I set the hook, and I did not expect the fish on the end of my line.  It was HUGE!  Another bass species to check off of the life list, a Florida strain largemouth bass...from Florida no less.

It's been awhile

Well, it's been quite a long time since my last post.  My family size has increased by one and I welcomed my first child this past summer.  While my fishing time has declined, my happiness has increased tenfold.  I can't come to explain what an amazing feeling it is to have a child, it has made me a better person and I can't wait to show him what I have learned about this amazing world we live in.

 

I have still found time to fish, but I haven't had the opportunity to travel as much as I have in the past.  That has given me the time to focus on some local water more than I would in a normal year.  Most of my time has been spent chasing bass and hybrid stripers out of my small bass boat but I have found some time to chase some trout and smallies.  I did get to spend a week straight chasing trout and smallies with my oldest brother for a week in May, and the fishing was fantastic but the weather was miserable.  40's and rain nearly every day, but I was not complaining!



Get out there and fish whenever you can; be it rain, snow, wind, cold, hot, humid, frozen or fast.  Enjoy every moment on the water and make every single cast count, as there could be the fish of a lifetime waiting to pounce.










 

 

An ireland fishing adventure

My wife and I spent the past 8 days in Europe for our fifth anniversary.  We spent the first 4 days in Paris doing the tourist thing, then flew into Ireland for some pub crawling and sightseeing.  I was able to slip away for about 5 hours one morning to do a little fly fishing for trout in one of the local trout Irish streams.







 This has been a dream of mine for a very long time, so this was a rather rewarding fishing trip.  I packed my 4wt with a double taper and a box of buggy nymphs with a couple of small streamers, along with some basic nymphs and dries.




 

 

 


 

The stream was small and brushy and casting was going to be tough but it looked like it opened into some good pools in the section I could see from the bridge access.  As I waded into the pool below the bridge I saw 3 wakes move out of the head of the riffle into an undercut bank.  I heard that the fish over there could be tough to catch but that didn't seem to be true on this morning. I caught a lot of trout, mostly around 5-10 inches long and they were all over the place.

 




This little creek was beautiful (much like the rest of Ireland), so I was driven to cover ground and quickly took off the prince nymph and tied on a wooly bugger and did my best to roll cast it to every good looking cut, riffle drop, and stripped it in the deepest parts of the pools.  I also stripped a streamer in some of the better pools.   This worked just as good as the smaller nymphs and I hooked two better fish that were in the 12-14 inch range.  It was a hell of a good time, can't wait to do it again someday.



 

First road trip of the year

Man what a trip this turned out to be.  Great water levels made for some great fishing and paddling. Everyone caught great numbers and fish over 16" were common. These streams tend to have more ledges and quick drops than others that I have paddled in the ozarks, and it made for some great quick water runs. It felt great to get outside and enjoy some of the incredible places I have found in the ozarks. Pictures turned out pretty good too!





 

 

Giving back

Every year I make a trip over to southeast Missouri with my wife to meet a group of friends for our annual stream team cleanup.  Some friends from the Missouri smallmouth alliance meet for some floating and fishing, and and we cleanup a good chunk of river and have some great times around a campfire.  This year was one of the best so far in terms of turnout, and we picked up around 1000lbs of trash along 25 tires. The company was great and it is always nice to get a group of good friends together. It can be somewhat depressing to see what people are willing to chuck in the river.  The amount of oil and grease buckets, aerosol cans, paint, and stryfoam that we find makes me sick.   If these people could only realize the resources they have surrounding them. 

Anyways, the weather was crazy.  It was snowing when I left on Thursday afternoon. It would be nearly 75 degrees by the following afternoon.  Caught fish in the snow, but went fishless on a 75 degree afternoon on a much better stream.  Still great to be out in the weather, and giving back to mother nature will surely benefit me in the long run.  Here are some of the better pictures.

Creekin

Throughout my life I have found some incredible places while looking for good fishing holes. This creek is one of those places.  It is a hard place to plan a at trip because it can be incredibly flashy and is dangerous at high levels, but within a couple of days it will be back to base flows.  Giant bluffs rise more than a hundred feet at bends in the river and wildlife is abundant.  In the summer time it can be great fishing, but most of the fish move out of the creek in the wintertime.  Anyways...the pictures turned out to be pretty good, and looking back on them makes me wish it was April.   Several bald eagles were grouped up during this trip, and at one point I floated directly underneath one in a tree about 30 feet over my head. 




Enjoy.