Broke Skunk Streak & Got 1st Open Water Crappie

15.5" Storm WildEye Swim Shad

6:15-8:10PM Rock Dock
8:20-8:40PM Bulldog
8:50-9:50PM GOMH
10:05-10:35 Bulldog

Conditions:  Warm 76-67 degrees, Windy out of the SSE, Mostly sunny, but hazy

I accidentally put the 6'3" Avid Spinning Rod in the car instead of the Muse Gold.  I wanted to get a picture of me fishing with the Muse.  .  Both rods had a 2" Storm Swim Shad on them, but the Muse doesn't have a Rod Glove yet, Duh.  I caught two bass (15.5",14.75") at the Rock Dock on consecutive casts on the Swim Shad.  I switched up to T.H.E Jig with a minnow and caught 15.75" about 15 minutes later.  Then it was about an hour before I got one last 13" bass on the Swim Shad.

I headed to Bulldog to see if anything was there and I pulled up a 9" Crappie on THE Jig.  The Cannon wouldn't work for me to take a pic and I forgot I had the Polaroid on the tackle bag, so no pic.   It was getting pretty dark and I wasn't getting anymore bites I headed to the GOMH.  No body was there.  No fish  there either.  I headed back to Bulldog and tried with minnows with a Cubby.  Pete called about the battery in the pole barn.  I might have missed one bite.  I left at 10:35 when my minnow was gone

Skunked All Over This Morning, Redeemed at Rock Tonight

Mille Lacs This Morning Around 8AM

I headed to Mille Lacs this morning in the fog around 5:30AM.  I was fishing by 6.  The fact that I didn't see any little walleye's swimming around was a bad sign.  When i t got light out I saw one baitfish jump, compared to dozens I saw on Monday morning.  I did some exploring, saw some ducks and seagulls and left around 9AM.  I tried Erskine, Bulldog, Rock, and the GOMH with not even a single bite for the morning.

I spent the afternoon getting my tackle organized.  The last couple of years I neglected to do this after my last tournament of the year leaving organizing until Spring.  It's a good thing. I needed to do some work on the Tackle Warehouse that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

I ended up not getting to Rock about 6:20 or so.  It was dead calm.  I decided to throw the Stanley Phantom Topwater.  Sure enough what I'm pretty sure was a nice bass nailed it but didn't hook up.  I tried throwing the craw tube as a follow up bait, but she gone.  On pretty much my next cast with the Phantom I had a fish hit me beyond the weed clumps to the South.  I stuck this one.

21" Rail of a fish with weird light and dark coloring

That was all I got.

I then headed to the GOMH.  I grabbed two rods and headed to the NE side.  Somebody spoke to me and it was then that I noticed somebody was fishing off the bridge on the South side.  Turns out it was Peter.  After throwing a few casts on the NE side I joined him up on the bridge.  I told him what I've been getting lately.  He didn't get anything, not even a bullhead.  We talked about going ice fishing this winter.  Looks like I am going to have to get my ice fishing gear figured out.

Big Bass & Breaking In My New 7' Avid Heavy

20" Mad Maxx Frog

All it takes is one bite to turn an extremely mediocre morning into a great one.  Today I got that bite.  She hit the "Big Sexy" and fortunately didn't take me into the pads like it could have.  She was barely hooked.

To that point in the morning, a good hour and a half into fishing, I missed a jumper and a toothy on the Stanley Phantom and got one 14.5" jumper on a watermelon/red Tonka Tackle Craw Tube.

In the picture you can see my new and vastly improved St. Croix Avid 7' Heavy.  It's lighter than the previous rod and actually loads a little bit when I cast, which the previous rod that was a total broomstick did not really do.  Casting distance is improved and I can now  use it for pitching, which the previous rod didn't do well at all.  It's not quite as powerful as the previous rod, but I'll take that trade off as it still has plenty of power.  I also think it's gonna be quite a bit more sensitive, but I really didn't get enough bites to gauge that very well.  Overall I'm very impressed.

Note- My previous Avid 7' Heavy was a pre-IPC technology rod.

That was all I got at the Grumpy Old Man Hole this morning.  I got a couple of nice fish (16",15") on the Horny Toad at the Culvert and got a total dink at the Inlet on Sullivan on a black/blue Tonka Tackle Craw Tube.  That was it.  I fished from 5:45 to 9AM.  Quite a change from the past two morning where I caught a bunch of small fish.

Broke The Heavy Rod

Well looks like I'm replacing all 3 rods.  I broke the 7' Heavy St. Croix rod fighting a little northern that got down in the weeds.  The rod cracked and broke in two.

Here is the window the cat tried to climb out on resulting on the widow shutting on the 3 rods.

Unfortunately I caught the cat instead of the window. I was really hoping the Heavy St. Croix would make it.  I'm glad I found out now, so I can have the rod back by my next tournament.

Fishing sucked. I didn't get anything at the culvert, and the "new new juice" had two guys fishing it.  They were keeping some jumpin bullheads and letting some go. They were also getting some orange bullheads.  I got 2 jumpers on the SW side and that toothy that I broke the rod on.  I fished from 10AM to 11:45AM.