by the way... Nice fish. Good idea putting her back. Keep some of the 3-5 pounders for the pan though, pond-raised large mouth bass are fine eatin'.
southern style Since this seems to have become the "fishing" thread, I'm going to throw in some catfish stew. We placed fifth in the tournament last year. These guys won. 2 of these 3 fish were returned to the river. We caught 1 last weekend that was bigger than the 2 smaller fish in this picture combined. Too bad it didn't happen during the tournament...
The lake where I caught the big bass is not known to be a bass lake. It's known for it's stocked trout, so it doesn't have much pressure on the bass fishery. I catch more keeper sized bass out of there and more consistently than local popular bass lakes in the area. These bass fisheries that are heavily fished often produce a lot of shorts or nothing but "hauling water" for me, even when I'm in my little boat and armed with sonar and trying to work the latest baits and patterns. So I really like wading the weedbeds of the trout lake in the mountains.
I few Yellowtails, a nice White SeaBass and a couple halibut. Sushi anyone? In the interest of full disclosure this is my neighbor's boat, not mine
The yellow ones are flatheads, the dark one is a blue catfish. Catching a 60lb. flathead around here isn't all that uncommon, but last weekend we caught a 59-lb. blue. I don't eat the flatheads at any size, they taste like the river to me. I eat the blues in the 8-20lb. range. Everything else gets thrown back. By the way, this is on the Black River. At one time a few years back, the Black River was ranked in the top 10 cleanest rivers in the U.S.
We have channels and blues around here. Biggest blue on record for our county is 113 pounds out of San Vicente reservoir in Lakeside. I don't often fish for cats, but have caught some nice ones on bass lures from time to time. The biggest one I have caught was a 30 pounder that struck a spinnerbait early in the morning at Southerland reservoir in Ramona. The spinnerbait was one of those titanium shaft models that is touted as being unbendable....but that guy managed to bend it pretty good. I've had some on crankbaits in that lake that were bigger than that, but I could never put enough pressure on my 12 lb line and medium weight baitcasting rod to pull them up. After a long time of constant pressure, the little hooks give way, straightening out and the crankbait pulls free from those big ol' cats hunkered down in the rock piles.
And it's not like you look happy about it or anything Nice fish, everyone! The only thing I know about fishing is the results are tasty WoodsChick
Well, I am happy, but really I'm gritting my teeth trying to keep the big dolphin hoisted up for the picture. (it was still wriggling, too) You'll notice that I am listing in the opposite direction to keep from tipping over. Also, I had just lost my camera. My friend Mark (also owner of the boat) had just gaffed the fish and told my to go get my camera. I ran to the front of the boat to the jump seat and pulled the camera out of my gear bag and started to run back to the back of the boat where Mark had taken the fish. But I slipped and fell where he had drug the dodo onto the deck. When that happened, my left hand (holding the camera) hit the railing and....well you know what the rest of the story is. Mark got his camera and took the shot.
Yeah, but Dorado get a lot bigger than that. It was a big fish and so was the spinnerbait catfish. But for me, the 28 inch long largemouth bass is my personal best so far. It's kind of like a race that you compete in and you win; and that's nice. But you had more fun or got more enjoyment out of one that you got third place in. Just something about the circumstances....
Dont you know a creek chub when you see one. Just kidding, its a alligator gar. Kind of scary and more ugly than a mud dog. Heres another pic.
From the angle it was at, it was hard to tell, as I am not familiar with either gar or sturgeon. When I was a child in Louisiana, I used to hear about people catching alligator gar, but never actually saw one. They were refered to as a "trash fish" and also went by a Cajun name of shupic (not sure of the spelling, but that's how it sounded).
I like trying new types of lures, so I ordered some made by River2Sea. They arrived this afternoon and when I opened the packing box up, they were so cute that I just about couldn't stand it. They may be too cute to use.
Those look too pretty to get a bunch of tooth marks on. When I was a fishing junkie, we would repaint our Chinook plugs with various "hot" model car paints after being trashed my fish teeth.
