Johnsfolly

Tonight was a great night and Livie and I just fished around the dock. Again just bouncing the 1/64 oz jigs near the bottom. As the sun went down the crappie moved in. The water is about 7 to 8 feet deep. So when you got a fish you just lift it up and let the fish off the hook. Then drop the jig down to the same depth. No need to reel. We ended the night one fish shy of 40 crappie and two small largemouth bass. Better than watching fishing shows on TV☺.

BH and Krazo Thanks for the compliments. Here is what was up for grabs. The coveted "Golden Catfish"!

Coosa Body shape and the horizontal lines are the best indicator when you have one in hand. If you are cleaning them then you can look at the tooth patches on the tongue. Here is a striper - the body is more slender and the horizontal lines are complete or nearly so and many extend through to the tail. This one is from a tidal bay. Seems like the landlocked stripers are not as streamlined as this guy. If you cut open the mouth or catch one big enough to look inside, the striper has two patches of small teeth on its tongue. Here is a hybrid from the Truman dam tailwater. It's body size is stockier and the lines are broken with several extending to the tail. They should also have two patches of teeth. The white bass are shorter in body length versus the height between the pelvic fins and the dorsal fins. Almost more like the shape of a crappie than the hybrid. Only one of the lines extends to the tail. They would only have a single patch of teeth. Usually these guys are too small to look at the tooth patches on live fish. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries also has a great chart laying out the differences between these fish. Yours look like stripers and are nice looking fish!

Great photo essay! some of the best that OAF offers are posts like yours. Great photos tell the best stories! Thanks for posting this trip and I'm impressed that you kept the total file size under 9.77 MB.

After being in Maryland for nearly two weeks, I had a homecoming fishing trip with my daughter Livie on Little Dixie Lake. Livie wanted to try for catfish. We had both caught channel catfish this year and I snagged a blue catfish while going for paddlefish. So I haven't counted that one on my species list for the year. We picked up a small container of chicken livers and a dozen nightcrawlers before we got to the lake. I had hoped for a flat bottom john boat, but ended up with a v bottom one instead. Also the oars were mismatched thus making the rowing a challenge. When we got out to the main lake another issue came up that would affect our fishing, the WIND. My plan was to row uplake and drift towards the dam, repeat as necessary to catch fish. This strategy had worked on past trips. We drifted chicken livers with 1/8 and 1/4 oz of weight on the two rods. I was able to adjust my rowing to compensate for the mismatched oars and overcame the wind to position the boat perpendicular to the wind for the first drift. We got a few hits on our baits as we drifted, but the wind would pick up and we drifted too fast. So no opportunity for a second bite after the first. Once we got close to the dam, I started rowing back uplake to start another drift. Again would get some hits, fight the variable winds, no hook sets, get to the dam, replenish baits and do it again. Livie started baiting her hook first with some liver and then put the worm on the hook tips, which held the liver on the hook. Livie had made a fishing trophy for us to try for on our trips. The trophy is a BPS catfish fridge magnet that she painted gold. So on this trip the prize went to the largest catfish. Shortly into our third drift, my rod tip started to bend. I lifted the rod and set the hook, nothing moved. I said "crap I am snagged" then it moved. I got ready for a fight and told Livie that this was a big fish. It was a great fight. Livie recorded a bit of the fight and landing and we took lots of photos of my largest blue catfish on rod and reel. We measured it and it was 30+" since we did not completely straighten out the tail before taping the length of the fish. I estimated that it was 12 to 15 lbs. We made a couple more drifts and again got some bites, had baits stripped, and no fish. We switched to the black green microjigs under a float to catch some sunfish. boated a couple of bluegill and then banked the boat and headed to the dock. We fished the jigs without a float and just twitched and swam the baits right off the bottom. We also cast out a liver/worm bait. The surprise was that we ended up catching white crappie instead of just bluegill. Even had a couple of doubles on little whites. Livie caught a couple of yellow bullheads on the liver/worm bait. she thinks that it may have been the same fish and she may have been right. This was her first bullhead. Of course the wind died down as the evening progressed. Livie caught one bluegill, 11 crappie, and the two bullheads. I caught 14 crappie, three bluegill, the one blue catfish, and a 15" channel catfish. We spoke with a dad and son that were fishing out of kayaks (dad's was outfitted with a fish finder) and they were catching larger crappie up to 11 inches in 8 feet of water with fish suspended between 3 and 5 foot depth at sunset. It was a great evening.

I would love to catch thst brown. Largest on the Current was 5 lbs 4 oz. Rainbow trout rapala countdowns do pretty well. I would think that one of Billethead's shuttlecock flies in a rainbow trout pattern would work pretty well down there.

Great report! Congrats on a great trip! Flicker shad is a productive bait. I caught a baker's dozen white perch and schoolie stripers Friday night fishing a tidal river on a purple flicker shad. Hope you can get after them again!

Phil Just remember in bear country be careful and be able to outrun your fishing partner☺. Have a good trip!

Krazo I do not use a Tenkara rod. Just haven't bought one. I typically use my 6'6" UL rod when I am fishing spots that I do not really know what might be in the water. If I know that I am fishing a location that may have some spooky fish like topminnows, I have put my spinning reel on a 9' fly rod. I have a spinning reel with #2 P-Line that I use for this fishing. Most of the time I am fishing a tiny piece of red worm on those hook sizes. I have seen where some guys will glue a tiny piece of yarn on the hooks to create a simple fly. The #26 tanago hooks that I use have been snelled with 0.3 lb line. I will use one or multiple split shot depending upon the flow conditions of the creek/river. When I am not fishing for a specific fish. I will cast upstream or into a school of minnows/chubs and watch the reaction of the fish around the bait. I often can only see the weight so will watch the fish turning on the bait and then anticipate getting a hook set. If I leave the bait too long the fish can swallow the small hooks and I don't like injuring the fish if I can help it. Since I fish like this to target specific species like darters. On those types of trips I will fish individual fish and I will often add more weight to be able to position the bait within an inch of the fishes face. That can be a real challenge in fast moving or deeper water. There is nothing worse than going for a specific male in a fast stream, taking 4 to 5 minutes just to position the bait within the sight line of the fish, get bit and then miss the hook set spooking the fish and having to do it all again with a different fish. Even for topminnows I will use a weight just to keep the bait suspended straight below the rod tip. I will skate the bait along the surface and not let the weight in the water. Last night I found a great opportunity to catch a new minnow in a tidal area. I could clearly see the brightly colored males defending areas of the bottom. So this was more a dip and pull fishing situation where I was going for a specific male. Here is my male sheepshead minnow, the 10th new species and the 39th different species that I have caught since March 1 of this year.

Back in May I found out that there was a relatively local access (within 25 min of the hotel) or two on the Little Blackwater river where guys routinely catch snakeheads. Back in May I had three strong strikes on a couple of different baits, but could not get a good hook set. So after a vigorous 20 to 40 seconds of hard pulling then nothing. So on this trip to Maryland I brought gear that was more suited to catching a large predatory fish. The access points are not real deep water with submergent vegetation. I brought weedless plastics and a variety of topwater baits. I fished three different fingers of the Little Blackwater River, tried several baits and did not get a single strike. Had carp milling in the shallows and boiling away when I got my baits up into the pockets within the phragmites or the emergent brush. I talked with another fisherman and he thought that the high tides affected the fishing, since he hadn't caught any fish in a week of fishing. He tends to fish frog baits. So I went and picked up a frog bait for the next time. Tonight with my frog in hand (actually tied to my line) tried it again. At the first access, still had a bunch of carp, but no strikes or follows on the frog. Went to the next access and more of the same. Another couple of guys came in and they didn't have any luck as well. I ended up at the third access and fished the spot that I had the strikes back in May. I made lots of casts and then I got one single strike and I went to set the hook on the sight of the strike and not after I felt the tug and missed the fish. Then nothing else on the frog. I switched to a unweighted T-rigged 7 inch black/chartreuse ribbon tail worm. I made lots of casts and felt like I had two taps in the same location that I got the strike with the frog. Then again nothing while fan casting the wate I could reach. I put on .one of my hand painted floating rapalas. I made a couple of casts where I had strikes back in May and nothing. Then I cast along the weed edge that I had the two hits and BOOM hit and hooked up. This is a great fighting fish. I kept hoping that the hooks wouldn't pull. I finally landed my first snakehead. Even though it was a 14 to 15" fish, I was very excited. So a third time was the charm. The only issue is that due to its invasive and voracious nature you are obligated by the fishing regulations to kill them. I tried to give it away to a couple that came by, but no takers. Wished I had a way to cook it in my hotel. Not hard to see how they got their name.

Took a while to get the time to report the rest of my father's day weekend. After getting off of the Ocean City Princess, I had lunch and headed to another dock to get on board the Tortuga to fish for flounder. Since we were going to be fishing the bay there was no long boat ride to get to the first fishing spot. I had high hopes of catching at least one flounder. On the boat in the morning we watched a guy in a duck boat drifting with the tide and fishing what looked like 1/4 oz jigs with white grub bodies. as he drifted he would catch a flounder or two. Then he would head back up current and make the drift again. we probably saw him catch 7 to 8 flounder before we left the dock. Now he fished the falling tide. so the current was pulling from the bay out to the ocean. When we fished the bay the tide was coming in. Not the same conditions, but still convinced that there were plenty of flounder in the bay. We fished fish finder rigs with 3 oz weights and hooks with a silverside minnow and a strip of squid. We dropped the baits and drifted along dragging the baits below the boat. We fished in water that was between 6 and 20 feet deep. The hardest part of this was trying to determine a bite versus the sinker bouncing along the sandy bottom. On this trip there were lots of boats doing the same type of fishing that we were doing. Seemed like there wasn't big areas of structure to target, but areas along the channel of shoals that held fish on a daily basis, With the number of baits drifting along, fish were being caught on our boat and on the boats around us. My first fish just pounded the bait. Not doubt that this was a bite. Landed my first summer flounder, aka fluke, on a hook and line. I have gigged many in the past, but not caught one with a rod and reel. Took a fish face photo for BH. If you have caught this type of flounder you know that they have teeth. So I suffered just to get the shot. You can see that this is a "left sided" flounder where the right eye migrated to the left side of the fish. The fishing was slow but consistent with someone on the boat getting bit with each drift. I caught and landed one more. On the last drift over the deep channel I got a big hit and this fish pulled drag, Unfortunately the hook pulled and I did not land that fish. It fought like a flounder and may have been the biggest on the boat. So I missed wining the pool again. By 7:15 pm we were pulling into the dock. I had a 90 minute drive back to the hotel, but had a great father's day. Just wished that my family could have been on either or both of these trips. In fact Livie says that her mother is now her favorite since I fished without her.

Wrench I use 12, 14, 20, and 26 size hooks. The #20 are long shank fly hooks that I get from BPS. The #26 are a half moon style that have a slight curve to them. I buy them from Tenkarabum.

I have not, but am now intrigued. I will have to look it up and find access points. To micro fish for darters effectively I need clear water. Hopefully I can get in a good spot and catch a new fish or two.

I got into microfishing a couple of years ago just because I found a spot close to my home that has darters. So I figured out how to catch them. It was a blast and since I like to "collect" I got into trying to catch a variety of species every time I go out fishing. To help with this addiction is the Fishes of Missouri guide book. I have read that book back and forth. During those reading I would look for species that are distinctly colored or have obvious features to make identification easier. Based upon that I work out a wish list and begin researching areas that I can target certain species. The Sunday before Father's day was one of those days that I wanted to really go and try for a new species, but because I was getting ready to travel for business wanted to stay close to home (typically means within 90 minutes of the house).. So I was reading about the Plains killifish. This is a species that tolerates high alkalinity (very hard water) and even saline water and one of the spots that they are located in MO is Boone's Lick salt spring and Salt creek. Figuring that this would be a relatively easy trip, packed my gear and headed to the historic site. I was somewhat disappointed that there was no water flowing from the spring, but with the dry conditions before then it was too surprising. The salt creek is a really small creek and the fish were really skittish. Lots of the small fish (<1" in length) looked like killifish, but would be too small for even my #26 hooks. I found some larger and even more skittish minnows in the pools that held some deeper water. I caught several nondescript minnows like these. Any thoughts on what they might be would be appreciated. I did hook one deeply and it's in alcohol waiting for me to id it. It was fun catching these guys, but I just never saw a larger plains killifish in any of the short section of the creek on public land. I did see a few little fish that were reminiscent of a small sunfish. I have wanted to catch an orange spotted sunfish and these might be them. I cast towards a couple and got a great shock when I reeled in (yes sometimes you do reel in minnows). this red shiner. This has been a species that I have chased after in my local streams and now I have a male in his breeding colors. Except for the possible turtle bite on his tail, he was a great looking fish! It's catches like this one that keep me wading sloughs, drainage ditches and creeks all over the state (and now in other states as well). So have you ever seen a shiner like this one? If not go look in your local creeks!

Great job getting the boys out fishing! Looks like you guys are having a great time every time you go out. Hopefully they'll be fishing buddies for life! I'm not sure that I want mom to know about half the places that I take my youngest daughter . She likes going and doesn't rat me out when we are in less than safe situations.

You guys just tear them up! Congrats on a good trip! Definitely have put in the work to get your consistent results. Great job figuring out those 'Eyes.

I'm still in Maryland and will be until the 23rd of June. So as a Father's day gift my family agreed to pay for an offshore fishing trip on a party boat leaving out of Ocean City Sat morning. Had to meet at the dock at 7 to 7:30 am. With a 90 minute drive I left at 5 am to get to the dock. There was a medium fog over the bay as I headed into Ocean City. I'm glad that I was wearing jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. That was good for the sun protection as well as helping with the chill in the air. Only expected to get to 73 deg and on the ocean probably wouldn't get that high. We only went about 17 to 20 miles offshore before we started fishing. This wasn't going to be a sophisticated fishing tackle situation. Cut squid, clams and frozen minnows on double hook rigs. Even so, I was looking forward to catching some marine species. First drift had some folks catch a few sea bass in the bow, but none in the stern of the boat where I was fishing. We pulled up the lines and headed for a rock pile. After anchoring, we dropped our lines and we were getting bit pretty regularly. I was hooking sea bass and had a couple of nice ones. I even had a double with two 9 to 10" bass on at one time. The seas bass were in spawn mode and this male was pretty vividly colored. Pretty much sea bass were the takers throughout the day. One guy caught a flounder. My self and couple of others in the stern caught sea robins. Now this is the face only a mother or a Folly fisherman could love . The mates were somewhat dumbfounded that I was that excited about a sea robin. It represented my 36th different species caught since March 1 and was the first time I could get a picture to good with my life lists. We headed back to port by one. All in all I enjoyed the trip. Caught some new species for the year, saw a couple of new sea birds and bottlenose dolphins as well. I also boated the largest sea bass of the trip. The pool money paid for this trip and the one I will post about next.

Dan Sounds like you two had a great time. Congrats on your fish! Hope you had a great father's day!

I mentioned to my betterhalf that if there was rain tbat the chanterelles might pop early this year. So hopefully she and the kids can find them while I am still in Maryland. Would love to come home to some fresh ones.

The White is a great fishery! Love catching browns. Great video as always!

Great video! Enjoyed seeing those Wisconsin beauties!

Here you go! I started this evening throwing a Johnson spoon. I was getting hits but no hook-ups. So I put on this thinfisher blade bait. Started catching instead of just getting bumped. I caught six stripers from 9 to 13 inches in length. I also caught three white perch with this bait. I did snag a cow nose ray that was maybe 20 to 24 inches between each of its wing tips. I fought that fish for up to five minutes. I wasn't sure If I would get it landed. It finally pulled the hooks. There were four other rays swimming with that one. Jig bite was not good at all. I just caught another white perch and a striper. Pretty exciting evening. I may have been more excited about seeing a bunch of minnows that I have not caught before. Tomorrow heading back with some bloodworms and microhooks. Hopefully I will have something new to post about tomorrow night.

I thought that Wyoming had stocked tiger trout as well. Love to catch one like that photo. Would be a awesome catch. Also would love to catch some splake as well.

I could make a brooch or a pterodactyl. And Leon is getting Larger! Alright boys let's grab some pictures.

Assume your crash positions!