I will display them at my house provided my wife is ok with it and at my office and they will second as paper weights. Good conversation pieces as well.
Awwww! Those look great. I like the simple Euro-style skull mounts. Still got a few weeks before I can fish for bass, pike, and walleye, but this is simple fun and I'm easy to please.
Caught this guy yesterday at about 10:30 am. Threw a spinner with a Berkley minnow attached. I kept him in the water, but when I was unhooking he seemed to be about the length of my forearm (15"). Couldn't believe I caught a walleye. What's awesome about this is that it was literally my first cast of the year. Of course I was skunked the rest of the day, but I did have a couple lures bit in half. Apologies for the poor angle
Caught this bad boy on a similar set up as the walleye, a spinnerbait with a Berkley Alive leech attached, at the same forest preserve. Caught in about 5-7 feet of water an hour before sunset. My shoe size is 11.5 for reference
First big 4-day fishing trip of the season is three weeks away... can't wait. Tied new flies, new tippets/leaders, new line, cleaned all the rods and reels... now it's just a matter of waiting for it to show up. That three weeks is going to feel like an eternity.
Well this past weekend was a bust. Fishing on Saturday mainly consisted of trying to keep the canoe under control in windy conditions rather than actually fish and some asshole decided to trespass onto the private land I was hunting and shoot a bird over the weekend. Spoiler: Story time We got set up a little late on Saturday morning and after a couple hours of calling over decoys in a pasture on the South end of an 80 acre without anything in response I decided to circle around to the North end of the property. I wanted to A. survey and scout the land a bit and B. hopefully run into a bird to push towards my buddy, as I had him set up on a travel route to the South that I know the birds went to. Once I reached the other end of the property, I came across a pop-up blind that was in the exact same spot a trespasser had put up a stand ladder last fall (which I took and left a note tacked to the tree telling them to respect the property line). I was headed uphill and just spotted the top of the blind, which made my blood run cold since that scenario would've been a great way to get shot in the face if they were the "shoot at anything that moves" type. Should have called the DNR on the spot (hindsight is 20/20) but I backed out and got out of sight since it just didn't feel safe. I went back to the area yesterday and saw the blind was gone in addition to the note I left tacked up the tree last fall. Plus there were chunks of neck feathers and tail feathers nearby, so they shot a bird. I am still infuriated over this. I still need to discuss what action to take with the landowners, but it's about time to post signs around the property and have the DNR hotline in my phone since this asshole will be back and they can be caught. Not sure what investigating the DNR can do but I want to alert them of this trespassing piece of garbage too.
Morel mushrooms are in season here and I found my first for the year yesterday. Not bad for a small area less than 10 minutes from my office.
Fun day, prolly 15 miles or so offshore bottom fishing. Light tackle, so this sea donkey fought for a good 20-25 minutes.
Nice gaff shot, that looks like some kind of jack, but I don't recognize the stripe through the eye, what kind of fish is it.
Amberjack. He was a fun fight, but the heartbreaker was when we had two cobia swim by, got one of them hooked up, and it broke off. My stomach was angry, cobia is my favorite.
I am headed back up to the Boundary Waters in just over two weeks to visit a lake that has historically been hot for smallmouth bass (fuck yeah!). What are your favorite smallie rigs? I like flicking Mepps spinners and topwaters into shallow water along the shore but am curious about some other techniques if that isn't working. Also, this was my setup for turkeys a couple of weeks ago. Had the blind positioned under that big pine tree along a pasture that the birds travel through and hang out in often with a pair of hen decoys about 25 yards from us. Not sure if I'd do it differently next time, but I've got to shoot one this fall now. Spoiler: Photo
I am taking a new guy to fish the sea of cortez with me this year, yesterday he had a casting lesson and a backlash picking lesson.
Yeah that was me last year in the Ozarks. Good times. Yesterday a co-worker who fishes bass tournaments took a couple of us out to a lake where he'll be competing tonight for some practice and we had fun hooking a few. Surprisingly none of us caught a single pike, which I was hoping to snag for the sake of bringing something home. Oh well. Only two weeks from now and I'll have plenty to catch in the Boundary Waters.
Just got back from the 5 day fishing trip, with all of us landing 3+ lbs trout, with one guy landing a 4.25lbs on 4 pound test... it was fun watching him fight that thing for a solid 30 minutes. Weather bounced between massive thunder and lightning downpours and 30°C sun. Never seen so many bugs, and the fish were going nuts with all the hatches that were happening. Chironimids ruled the weekend... nothing else was working, not even worms. If you went 4 casts without action it was time to move spots. Time to unload the pics.
Some pics from this last trip: Spoiler: PICS Weather was nice, mostly, during the day, but then got really thunderstormy at night. Lots of fish around this size... probably about 20 a day. Best fishing we've ever seen in this lake in the 15 or so years we've been going. Lots of wildlife, including eagles. 95% of the fish taken were on chironomids, and a few on leeches, and mostly in 8-12' of water. The hatch was on HUGE due to the early heat of the year, so much so that the water looked like it was raining. 4 days on the water at high elevation was awesome.