The Ridge!!

      Hi everyone, today’s adventure starts at 6:30am one beautiful Monday morning at a nice place called The Ridge.  Monday mornings are for some reason my favorite time to fish there is something about starting the week off looking out over a beautiful lake.  Watching the fish jump, the squirrels play ducks playing in the water is such a wonderful way to start out the week.  There is a park near me that is always a great fishing spot and full of wildlife I have seen everything from fox to every other little Midwestern little furball running around. 

     That Monday morning I pull up to the parking lot and there is a retired couple exiting there vehicle as I park.  I park and unload my gear from my car.  Normally I carry to the lake 3 rods to with me already set up with the tackle I use the most.  This day I don’t plan on being out there but maybe an hour and I decided to take 2 poles and just a small tackle bag.  I start walking to the lake it’s not a long walk.  The couple starts walking the same time as I do.  Being a friendly guy I say good morning that starts a little conversation with the gentleman.  We start talking as we walk it was a great conversation.  I get to where I am going to fish and we talk for a minuet more and he continues on his walk with his dog.  

     I set my stuff down and take a drink of my water and pick up my fishing pole.  Now let me tell you growing up with a father and brother that are avid fishermen I have picked up a few tips of what work in the lakes around here.  If you were to ask them they will tell you that all you need is a buzz bait, a spinnerbait and plastic worms.  If you are in deep water maybe a crankbait.  Now they hadn’t told me what kind of buzz baits to try.  So I stop by the local store and grab a buzz bait.  I got a BooYah Clacking buzz bait not knowing that they have a piece of metal that taps the blade as it is pulled through the water.  That is what I had tied on my line. 

     I take my line and cast it out.  With buzzbaits you retrieve them very quickly.  The one I was using since it was a “Clacking” one it is really loud and that really pisses off fish.  I reel it in and no bite.  I throw out again and again no bite.  I see the couple with the dog follow the bend on the other side of the lake following the trial out of sight and sound.  I throw out again just settling in on my rhythm.  I am fishing some trees that are sticking out of the water about ten feet out from the bank.   I reel my bait past the tree and that is when it happens.  Something strikes my lure!  My medium heavy rod doubles over like I have never felt before.  I jerk back setting the hook and start reeling furiously.  Watching the water for any evidence of how big he might be.   I glace down and my reel and realize my line isn’t reeling in and that my drag is way to light for this fish I stop reeling and tighten the drag.  I start reeling finally starting to make some progress he is swimming back and forth in protest as I bring him closer.  As I get him to the bank I finally get to see this fish.  I take the pole and switch hands and grab the line with my hand and start pull him out of the water seeing this fish was such an excitement.  He was definitely the largest bass I have every caught I grab his lip and try to remove the hook from his mouth.  I was so excited I was shaking and couldn’t do anything.   I finally get it out and look at this fish that is over 26 inch long and so big around I couldn’t get my hands around his whole body.  I had just caught a 10 pound largemouth bass.  I snap a picture or two and then send him back on his way and released him back in the water. 

     This day is one I will remember for the rest of my life.  I know this fish is possibly the largest fish I will ever catch.  For that reason is why I released it.  I have got a lot of slack for releasing him.  Before anyone has a chance to tell me I'm crazy for not keeping him.  Think about this what about that one time some little boy’s grandpa takes him out fishing for the first time and that little kid catches that beautiful fish.  Think about the little girl that is out fishing with her dad that works to much and catches that fish.  You never know who might catch that fish and that fish could welcome a new man or woman to the sport of fishing. Believe me I would love to have that fish hanging on my wall right now but something about releasing him just felt right. 

I hope everyone has enjoyed.  As a friendly reminder while out fishing remember the old saying "leave no trace".  If you make a mess or have trash please take it with you.  The environment will thank you.  Maybe even reward you with a new personal best catch!!  Have a great day and FISH ON!!!!!

He's not that big! ok maybe he is!

     Tonight's little journey is one of is one of lots of luck and patience and help from good friends.  This story starts we 4 guys all going fishing after work.  If you remember from the last post I work third shift so when I get off work its prime time for fishing.  Back to my story.  This story is about my friend and fishing buddy Larry.  He is one lucky bastard and has a heart the size of Texas.

     Let me tell you about this lake a little.  It’s not a big lake 5 acre lake maybe.  It sits inside a city park.  Which means that as you guessed it is a heavily fished lake.  Luckily the fish still seem to be a plentiful.  The lake on one side of it has a big fountain on it and is on 24 hours a day.  There is plenty of rip rap and stuff to fish in and around.  I might not have pulled anything big out of this lake but I will tell you this it is one fun lake to fish you can almost guarantee you will catch something every time you go.  For this blog we are going to call this Fountain Lake. 

     The 4 of us all arrive at the lake by 7am poles in hand ready to catch our monster fish for the day.  Now when I say monster at the lake we were at that means a 2 pound bass.  The lake that we fish a lot of might not have a lot of big bass but has enough 1-2 pounders to make it a fun day of fishing.  We start fishing and we quickly realize that this wasn't going to be one of our good days in the first 30 minutes I lost two crankbaits one of the other guys lost a couple crankbaits one being a twenty dollar crankbait.  Don't get me started on expensive lures.  By 8am Larry and I each caught one little one pound bass.  The morning wasn't going as planned we are all losing more and more lures by this point instead of catching fish. The clock moves on and I pull in another little bass nothing to brag about. The clock nears 9am and we all decide to make our way back to the cars.  Two of the guys still hadn't caught anything and we were all getting tired.

     Two of us say our good byes and head to the cars a put our gear away and stand there chit chatting for a few minutes when all of a sudden yells for us.  I turn to him and reply "what” he tells me "I need the net out of my truck".  The two of us start walking back to him he tell us "I have a huge fish I need my net"  which I reply "he can’t be that big" and as the words are coming out of my mouth the tail of the fish smacks the surface of the water.  "Ok, maybe he is".  I grab his keys and run back to the truck to grab the net.  The three of us stand there watching this fight for about 20 minutes then it happened we got to see the fish in the water.  He’s not just big but he is HUGE.  Larry has sweat running down his face we are all excited.  None of us have ever seen a fish this big besides at places like bass pro, Cabela’s or wild life aquariums. Let alone actually catching one.  He is fighting and fighting the fish constantly trying to wear this fish out. The fight goes on for another 10 minutes, at this point one of the guys let’s call him Frank,  is standing on a huge rock bent over with the net in the water trying to reach him. This is when we realize that this behemoth of a fish was hooked near the base of its tail not actually hooked in his mouth as we first thought.  I’m standing behind Frank holding him from falling in the water.  Larry is at this point just holding the reel steady and walking backward to get the fish closer.  With every step Larry takes the fish thrashes and fights more but loses with its every move.  The fish is now in sight and in range the guy on the rock reaches down and puts the net around the head of fish.  As the net surrounds the head of this fish we all hear a lout SNAP.  Frank jerks his head away just in time to the line on Larry's reel whizzed past his head.  I grab Frank and start pulling him back towards the shore while he has the net in both his hands trying not to lose the fish.  The net starts ripping, Larry throws the rod down and rushes over and grabs the tail of the fish that was barely out of the water and starts helping pull the fish ashore.  The fish by this point has completely destroyed the net.  Now besides excitement and we are all feeling we all have a look of confusion on our face.  None of us know what kind of fish this is.  We knew it wasn’t a catfish and it wasn’t a bass. I quickly snap a picture on my phone and send it to one of my other friends still confused what it is.  He informs us it is a Grass Carp.  This grass carp was a 4 foot plus 42 pound grass carp.  It was caught on a little 2 inch crankbait. That crankbait has now since been retired after that day and sits atop his computer as a reminder of the biggest fish he has ever caught.

I hope everyone has enjoyed.  As a friendly reminder while out fishing remember the old saying "leave no trace".  If you make a mess or have trash please take it with you.  The environment will thank you.  Maybe even reward you with a new personal best catch!!  Have a great day and FISH ON!!!!!

 

 

Didn't Fish for 15+ years!

     Lets start our journey 35 years ago.  For me that is a great place to start since that is when I was born.  I was born in Maryland and around the age of two my family moved back to the Midwest, Missouri to be exact.  Growing up in the suburbs of St.Louis in the eighty's was a wonderful time.  The movie scenes of children playing in the streets, exploring the woods around their house, leaving your house at 8-9am and only coming home when the street lights came on or if you were hungry those were the days of my childhood.  Well almost my childhood.  Once my Dad got home I knew there was a big chance we were going fishing.  From a young age I remember many hours spent on the banks of a lake.  Sometimes we caught fish sometimes we didn't but out of all those hours I remember two things.  First thing is that it was some of my favorite times of my child hood.  I was learning so much about a sport that eventually I would fall out of love with and back in love with.  The second thing I remember is the look on my Dads face every time I caught a fish.  It was a look of so much pride and excitement.  Almost like me catching a little one pound bass was more enjoyable then catching a 5 pound bass himself.  I look back now and understand the sparkle my Dad got when I would catch a fish.

      By the time I was a teenager I had spent so much time on a lake (at least it felt that way)  I still am pretty sure that I have spent more time fishing then your average person.  Around thirteen is when I really started to resent and hate going fishing as much as I was.  By this time my dad was a tournament angler fishing all of the tournaments he could in the Midwest.  That is when I decided that I was not going fishing anymore. I was done no more fishing for me EVER.  Of course that word ever did not work out for me.  At the age of sixteen I moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia.  I thought to my self alright now I know I do not have to go fishing anymore for sure. Dad doesn't salt water fish.   Then my Dad walks in one day and says "Son, Want to go fishing?"  I protested of course and he tells me that you can fish from those piers we see that the beach.  Remember I was 16 at this time I heard the word beach and I was in.  Think about it what 16 year old boy does not want to go to the beach!! I had visions of hundreds of bikini clad girls running through my head.  For me the pier was going to be a great place to "admire the scenery" (if you know what I mean).  Well let me tell you that the view from the pier stinks.  Especially when your at the very end of a very long pier.  I still think my Dad did that on purpose.  Let me tell you that going from using plastic worms, jigs, crankbaits and other other artificial lures to using calamari and blood worms and other live bait is a big change.  I will say this I was a very "Preppy" teenager,  still kind of am just not a teenager anymore.  So the thought of using a slimy piece of calamari or crazy blood worms absolutely solidified the fact that I was done fishing this time for good. Now lets fast forward many years lets say about 15+ years.

     By this time, lets call it march 2015,  I'm 34 years old living back in Missouri and married to a sweet beautiful women and have a wonderful 13 year old daughter.  Now don't  get me wrong there were times in the 15 years that I did go fishing but hated every single second I was out there.  In those 15 years I can count the times I went on one hand.  I then met a buddy that told me there is no way that he was going to let me live my life hating fishing and that I was going to give him a chance making fishing fun.  He would spend nights at work (I work third shift)  him telling me that he just knew that I would love fishing if I just gave it another chance.  One night I finally agreed to go fishing in the morning when we got off.  He decided we were going that Friday morning and on break I went to Walmart and got the hooks and swivels I was going to need according to him.  I had already borrowed a rod and reel from my Dad to use.  Needless to say he was beyond shocked.  My buddy told me we were going to go catfishing.  I remember what catfishing was when I was a kid.  Boring is exactly what came to mind.  My friend swore up and down we were going to catch our daily limit of catfish.  Of course I didn't believe him.  No one can guarantee  you are going to catch fish.  I told him I would go and I am a man of my word so off to the lake I go.

     I'm going to set the scene for you.  I pull up to the lake around 7am the sun is coming up but behind clouds so thick its practically still dark.  There is a mist in the air that's turning in to a light drizzle I'm praying it doesn't get worse.   Two of my coworkers are already at the lake and as I pull up I see one of them reeling frantically.  I hop out and run over to see what he caught he yells for me to grab the other rod its getting a bite.  I grab it and start reeling what felt like a whale (remember longtime since I had fished).  It wasn't a whale it was a 3 pound catfish though it was good enough to keep.  This is just the beginning  but I felt so alive!  My buddy that convinced me to go fishing to start with already had poles rigged up and we started playing a passing game we would pull one in and hand him the pole fish still on the hook and he would hand us another pole ready to throw out. I pulled in 5 that morning each one fighting hard it was such a great feeling. We did this for about an hour and 20 minuets and in that time we cause between 4 people caught more then 24 catfish that were good enough to keep.  State law says we could only keep 4 each. In one morning in less then an hour and a half we all caught our limit and brought home 16 total catfish.  That is where my life as a fisherman started!

     I will be telling you of all of the fish I have caught or been present for someone catching in the next few of these.  Then it will be anytime I go fishing I will be telling you of the trip to the lake that I had that day. Please feel free to pass this on to others that might enjoy my stories and leave any comments or questions you have.

 I hope everyone has enjoyed.  As a friendly reminder while out fishing remember the old saying "leave no trace".  If you make a mess or have trash please take it with you.  The enviroment will thank you.  Maybe even reward you with a new personal best catch!!  Have a great day and FISH ON!!!!!