Gone Fishin'

[|iR|Focalor]

I was looking through my old pics and I think it's entirely possible that I have caught this guy before. This one is from 2 years ago on April 29, 2008. I sat him beside the tackle box to get a better idea of how long he was. My box is 12 inches long.



Since I'm posting old ones, what the hell, here's some more. Caught this fat ass bitch of a channel cat at sundown on the same day, April 29, 2008.



Caught this one on August 9th, 2008. Fuckin' Moby Dick.

[|iR|Focalor]

Are bluegill alright eating?

I guess. I've never eaten any. I tried one time a few years back, but the ones I caught probably weren't big enough. It was a pain in the ass to try cutting the meat off without having bones in it. I ended up butchering the "filet" I was trying to cut off and my woman just tossed it in a pan and called it fish chunks. Was more of a snack. I guess you'd need to get a fat ass granddaddy one to make it worth the effort... or maybe just make sure you know what the fuck you're doing with a fillet knife, unlike me.

There's a pond that's stocked with grass carp around here too(has huge bass as well!)

In my opinion. carp is just a trash fish that tastes like shit. I've only caught one in my life, and I was using a frog gigging fork on the end of a stick underneath a bridge near where my ex lives. Luckily I speared him without killing him. I ended up sticking him in a Home Depot bucket and taking him over to the public park so that maybe someones kid could hook him again and have a memorable day of fishing. In hindsight, maybe that was a horrible idea though seeing as how it was so big and could possibly have eaten all the food other more desirable fish would eat. I used to take the little horny heads that I'd catch at the river and toss them in that same pond too. So if there's nothing but shit fish in that pond anymore, it's all my fault, hehe.

I've traded one to a guy at the local chinese restaurant for some chinese food.

That is so 


And speaking of the condition of the water and the appearance of the fish...

The guy that moved into the house next door, when the house was being built, he actually drained the pond and got rid of any shitty mud cats and made sure there was nothing out there but bass, channel cat, bluegill and brim. He stocked it himself with even more fish. He used to have a big 55 gallon garbage can full of fish pellets that he'd throw out there every night. No one feeds them anymore though. He ended up fucking around on his wife and she kicked him out and divorced him. She's got the house up for sale now. I just hope that whoever ends up buying it is as cool as her and doesn't mind me coming over to fish whenever I want. It'd be my luck that some retards would move in and start fishing the shit out of the pond and never throw anything back... like I ALWAYS do.

[Krlll Mule]

I'll give you 7-8 lbs. on the big bass Focalor. That's a big fish.

Bream are delicious and I suggest you cook them whole vs. fillet. A spoon for de-scaling and a sharp knife for the dirty work plus rinse water = good eating. You can pan fry in olive oil, deep fry in peanut oil or grill. Never tried smoking fish, but it sounds tasty.

[Whirlingdervish]

With bluegill you need quite a few of them to make a good meal, but they're definitely of my favorites when I'm out camping and not catching anything sizeable.

I scale em, scoop the guts, de-fin them and hack off their head, then coat the whole deal in a light batter of bisquick and salt and pepper.

Pan fry like 5 of em at a time or you'll be there all day.

I usually just take a fork and stab it in next to where the dorsal fin used to be, them strip the meat carefully off by sliding the tines between their big ol ribs and towards the belly. If you're extra delicate you might be able to use the fillet knife to slit them down the middle of the back and expedite the meat removal process.

If you're lucky, you'll get 2 small boneless fillets per fish. If not, you get a plate of fish chunks. 

mmm tasty fish chunks...

[Th0m@s29]

Now I really want to go do some fishing lol.

[|iR|Focalor]

Caught a 14 or 15 pound 3 foot long channel cat tonight on a piece of hotdog. Used my Zebco 33 with 12lb test. Took some real finesse to wear her down without letting her snap my line. The first time I hooked into her, she snapped my line so hard that the pole slapped me in the face. Pretty sure it was a she... after I managed to drag it up the bank and get the hook out of it, I held it up to see how long it was and it started shitting a bazillion little slimey yellow eggs out onto my pants leg. Didn't get a picture of it unfortunately. Maybe tomorrow night if she's hanging around in the same spot.

[|iR|Focalor]

Sadly, no catfish again tonight. Just a bunch of bluegills. The last one I hooked in the gills, thus the bloody mess. Shortly after the picture was taken, I O.J. Simpsoned his ass with pocket knife, cut him into a bunch of pieces and chummed the water around the dock with him in hopes of attracting some catfish. No dice.

[Krlll Mule]

Sadly, no catfish again tonight. Just a bunch of bluegills. The last one I hooked in the gills, thus the bloody mess. Shortly after the picture was taken, I O.J. Simpsoned his ass with pocket knife, cut him into a bunch of pieces and chummed the water around the dock with him in hopes of attracting some catfish. No dice.

Try cutting the bluegill in half and using it for big catfish. It works, although there is some debate about which is best - the head side or the gut side.

[|iR|Focalor]

I tried that actually. Not half, just a big chunk. I've seen the larger bass eat halves of bluegill. It's really just hit or miss when fishing for cats out here at my pond, mostly miss. They never seem to hunt/feed at regular predictable intervals or in the same spots. And when you do manage to catch them when they're hunting, it doesn't matter what you use as bait. I've even hooked into one on one of those Powerbait worms with the flipper tail that I usually use for bass. These catfish are weird, usually catfish are known to be bottom feeders, but sometimes I'll see them doing all their hunting topwater out in the middle just like the bass tend to do.

[Krlll Mule]

Yea, if they aren't biting it doesn't seem to matter what or how you fish.  Some folks swear by the full moon for bedding bream this time of year (i guess right now should be a good time).  Sometimes fish seem to feed right before a front comes through.  But I've been skunked then too.  Then there are those days when for no apparent reason everything seems hungry and willing to hit anything.  I guess if you had good luck every time, it wouldn't be as much fun. 

[|iR|Focalor]

I fish out here constantly, if not every evening, then every other evening. I get to know their habits pretty well that way. I usually have the best luck from late April to mid May. Since the middle of May, I've rarely brought in any bass anymore. I hooked into one tonight, the only bite I got the whole hour I was out there fishing with a flipper worm. I either didn't set the hook hard enough, or he flipped out of the water just right and slung the hook out. I usually have much better luck getting bass on live shad minnows, but it's rare that I get any. The bait shop is over in the next county, so when I get some, I usually get 4 or 5 dozen in one pail, then bring them home and stick them in a 15 gallon aquarium. I can't keep them alive worth a damn in the aquarium though. I feed them, I have a filter/aerator, I never turn the lid light on because it freaks them out and they slam into the glass. Inevitably, every morning when I wake up, I find 5 or 6 dead. I change out the water every 2 or 3 days to keep it from clouding up so bad. They still die. And they really don't attract bass when they're dead.

[|iR|Focalor]

I don't know why people say that the fish won't bite when it's raining. I usually have just as good of luck, if not better, when it's raining. Starting fishing at about 7:30, it starts raining at probably 7:55. I was using a softbait Texas worm on a regular jig hook with another smaller hook on a short line from the eyelet a little further down the body to hook any bluegill or brim that might take a swipe at it. From 7:30 to 7:55 I had one small bass (probably a 7 to 10oz) on the hook but didn't lean back on the rod hard enough when I set the hook so he flipped it out the first time he came to the top. About 2 casts later, I got 2 pretty decent bites within 10 feet of reeling it, I couldn't tell if it was the same bass taking a 2nd pass at it or what. Both times my reel wasn't cooperating so I fucked it up. When it started raining, I got 2 largemouth bass, both probably 2 to 3 pounds. Even hooked a medium sized bluegill. I almost had another bluegill right as I brought the worm out of the water at the end of a reel in. Then it went from raining to pouring like hell, so I called it a night.

I've never understood why people don't continue fishing when it starts raining. Unless it's lightning really bad, I always break out my poncho and keep on truckin'. Everywhere I've ever fished during rain, I've almost always caught something unless it was just already too cold to begin with.

[|iR|Focalor]

I caught Jaws little sister tonight on my old Zebco 808 w/ 20lb test. Wasn't too hard holding on to her, the line held out like it should've and I didn't really have to mess with the drag setting that much. It was a hell of a lot easier than hooking it on my normal Zebco 33 w/ 12lb test. It's doable if you know how to babysit the drag with one thumb while fighting getting her tired enough to start reeling her in to you. Not technically a HUGE channel cat, but from the size of the pond she lives in, I'd classify her as a monster. I set her next to my tacklebox in the 2nd pic so you can get a decent idea of the size. My box is exactly 1 foot long. So she's probably 2 feet and perhaps an inch or two in change, weighed in at 12lbs 3oz. I threw her back. Any fish THAT big in a pond THAT small deserves to live to be caught another day.

[Krlll Mule]

Nice catch.  Bait?

[|iR|Focalor]

Oscar Meyer hotdogs.  Just pinch off a chunk and thread it through the hook. That's usually what I've been using for bobber fishing here recently against the bluegills and brim. The bass won't touch it. Sometimes the bass will hover right around it and wait for a bluegill to attack it hard, then they go after the bluegill and chase them off. It's weird, they only chase the bluegill if they swim up to it fast enough. If they slowly creep up to it and nibble, they don't really pursue them, they just sit there watching until they start attacking it harder.

Haven't bought any live bait this year. My neighbors black lab drug up some cattails by the roots last time she was playing fetch with him and tossing the ball into the pond. I dug through the root balls of those and found some worms. I don't like to use worms that much though, they pick them off the hook within seconds of dropping them in the water. Haven't been able to collect the huge amounts of grasshoppers from my backyard anymore like I used to. I think since I put out a wild bird feeder near the birdbath, more and more birds have been coming and eating them all. I used to be able to walk along as I was mowing grass and pick them up one by one until I had a cricket tube chock full of the bastards once a week, but I rarely see any anymore.