Fishing

Well, it is official, Open water fishing season has ended for me and my son today. I have turned my boat upside down on the trailer and brought the motor into the basement. Hopefully in 4 or 5 weeks I will be able to head out onto the frozen lakes and hunt down some fish. Fish always seem to taste better in January than they do in July. Anyone else out there that likes to go ice fishing?

You bet!!! Are you a member of IceShanty.com? Great resource, just like this site except all about icefishing. I am IceBob over there. I fish the NE Pa lakes. Promised Land, Minsi, Mauch Chunk, ...

I have been a member of iceshanty for about 7-8 years now. I don't post there much but read it every day when we have hard water. I go by Gambler over in the ice shanty. I mainly fish Lake Arthur and a couple of small lakes in the area (Kahle lake and Harbor Acres). I usually make it up to Erie once a season to do some perch fishing with my buddy who lives up there. Good to see a fellow hard water nut !!

Still fishing here but in Salt water.

Can be a bit chilly but I love fishing so I am not done yet, unless the weather doesn't cooperate.

Small craft warnings today and high winds, so I stayed at home, doing chores.

I haven't ice fished since I lived in Maine as a lad. I did enjoy it though.

Here is a nice Striped Bass I caught and released.

Mike, Nice striper!! We don't have those in western Pa but we do have the striped bass/white bass hybrids (we call them stripers). And boy are they fun to catch. They hit like a ton of bricks. I took my young son fishing for the hybrids this summer at night and he said how do I know if I get a hit? I said you will know. About a half an how later he had his pole just about yanked from his hands. He never did get it to the boat because it broke his line but he said he now knows what it feels like when they hit. Left an impression on him. Nothing like the sound of a singing drag when fishing for stripers in the dark.

I have stripers in the pond. 8 to 15 lbs. That fish doesn't never quit fighting. In the summer you have to keep and eat them , if you release them they will just die. They use some much energy fighting and the warm water. Spring and fall is OK. I also put in yellow perch for ice fishing. Their in the 10" to 12" range.

Nice striper Ken.
Sounds like you have a really nice pond. I wish I had my own pond. I would really like to have about a 250 acre lake, but it is just a dream.

Ice fishing story: I was installing carpet in a house during thw winter some years back. They had a man made pond. I kid you not, this pond was 20 feet round. Maybe 6 giant steps across it. An old fellow, I'll guess 85 or 90, was sitting on a stool in the near zero weather, holding a line that went down through a hole in the ice. I was there about 4 hours. During that time he moved his stool to a new hole every 20 minutes or so. He had 7 or 8 holes in that tiny pond. Each time he moved he'd break out the fresh ice and scoop it away. It took him 5 of those twenty minutes in just the move. LOL I never did see him find where the fish where biting.

I LOVE fishing. I frequent Lake Wallenpaupack, and have caught land-locked stripers, and the hybirds.

Here's a pic of my bro with his only fish last year...



If anyone is ever looking for people to go to the pack with, shoot me a PM! Sometimes we get two or three boats together, and try our luck...

Good Times!

Tim

Hunlock,
I used to fish the pack regularly. Now I'm to far away. Got alot of nice smallies out of there near the dock.

cArNaGe ,

3-5 years ago, the smallies outnumbered the largemouths 9 to one...Now, the populations are pretty equal. Their has been a vegetation boom, which has really promoted the largemouth fishing....

I live 4 minutes from Sylvan Lake, near Sweet Valley, Pa, but still prefer to travel to the pack for fishing......Love that lake!

Tim

I used a technique I learned for landlocked stripers in Georgia. I would launch at about 11 pm. Spend several hours overnight catching Alewives and then free line them at first light. That Ray from Rays Bait Shop would get so mad at me. He would have some clients 50 yards from me fishing with minnows? I was doubling my catch 2-3 to 1 of his. Of course this was only over a 3 week period. Now I'm to far away and don't have much time. I thought about selling my sled and four wheeler to get a river boat, but never have. I sure would like a 16-17 Flat Bottom boat with a 30-40 hp jet for the river though.

Here's one of the real bad boys of the pond. Theres some even bigger. There is about 5 or 6 rods last count in the pond. Kids set'em down and either do something or don't watch their pole and it's gone. The best thing about the pond is you never know what you might catch , a little bluegill or a 15# channel cat. lol

cArNaGe wrote:I used a technique I learned for landlocked stripers in Georgia. I would launch at about 11 pm. Spend several hours overnight catching Alewives and then free line them at first light. That Ray from Rays Bait Shop would get so mad at me. He would have some clients 50 yards from me fishing with minnows? I was doubling my catch 2-3 to 1 of his. Of course this was only over a 3 week period. Now I'm to far away and don't have much time. I thought about selling my sled and four wheeler to get a river boat, but never have. I sure would like a 16-17 Flat Bottom boat with a 30-40 hp jet for the river though.

I deploy this same technique when I fish for striper hybrids at my local lake. It is kind of strange that you do this at first light. On my lake they usually feed for a few hours starting anywhere from 11:00 pm to around 3:00 am. And they shut off just like a light switch. When the lake becomes quiet you might as well go home because they are done.

Sorry my post was misleading.

I tried fishing for stripers lots of times at night. I only got a few walleyes. I was catching smallmouths on the alewives at first light. I also got a 9 and 12 pound brown trout out of the pack also. That was trolling with spoons.