Quillback

Good to see you got into some fish, kind of kicking myself that I did not go yesterday.

"That contraption", LOL.

Champ, I can't believe you posted a pic with the secret color Ned-Head.

Has to be above freezing for me.

Here is the ultimate in hats for fishermen. If it lands in the lake or river, the corks keep it floating. At least I think that is the reason for the corks on a string, maybe someone has an Aussie friend that can explain it.

Good thing they cancelled, going to be really cold. After a few boats launched the ramp would turn into a sheet of ice.

Those fins on the sculpin could stick you on the way down too.

What is the fit like on those shoes? They don't have any width options, I need at least an EE.

For sure, and a nice one!

Bi-polar forecast with the emphasis on polar. They have switched back to the extreme cold forecast - low of one degree New Years eve, with only a high of 14 on New Year's day. With a 10-15 MPH north wind thrown in.

Too dang cold for me (yes I am a wimp), but I am glad to hear you are out there keeping those bass on their toes, or on their fins in their case.

Merry Christmas!

And a Happy Holidays to you and yours Daryk!

Well they have backed off that 2 degree forecast, now in the upper teens to start the day.

Did anyone mention blue cats? Specifically blues from Grand Lake. Very tasty.

I never have cured sucker eggs, but used to cure salmon eggs for steelhead fishing. Pro-cure makes egg cures that will not only cure eggs but also dye them various colors. Here's the old Borax cure that works well if you want to make a home made cure. Borax Cure for Skeins The Borax Cure produces skein eggs that can be stored for long periods of time when frozen. Cut the salmon or trout skein into bait sized pieces (quarter to 50 cent size). In a large plastic bowl mix equal parts of Canning or Kosher Salt, Borax, and Sugar. For the sugar some angler use Brown sugar instead of the commercial white sugar for added scent. Roll the pieces of skein in the cure mixture to coat the entire piece of skein. Then place the pieces in plastic bags. The cured skein will last in the refrigerator for a month or can be frozen for a year or more.

Brought it into the gallery, can you see it here?

Happy Holidays all! Woke up to a bit of snow this morning.

I see it and that is one sweet looking boat, congrats!

I now have perch envy. 17" is a beast.

Pretty typical of northeast yeller perch. You can catch those things by the bucket load in many Massachusetts ponds and lakes, but it is very tough to find them over 12".

Nah, I never lose lures to stripers.

Put the boat in at about 9 AM, brought my buddy Mike with me. We were hoping to find some smallmouth action. Cloudy day with an on and off breeze. We dragged jigs around for a while, not getting any action, but saw top water activity and started walking the dog. We caught spotted bass and had a few striper encounters. You always hear the phrase "The wind is your friend", well for the top water bite it was not our friend. When the water went calm, the activity picked up, when the water got riffled you'd hardly see any activity. We also learned that the fish, both spots and stripers would feed in a few locations, so we established a milk run, fish an area until the bites stopped, go somewhere else and give them a chance to forget about us, return and get a few bites. The spots would hang near the edges of the timber, the stripers would come through periodically moving fast. Saw a few stripers swim right under the front of the boat chasing shad, they were flat out moving! I hooked 4 stripers on top water, first three got off, finally boated one at the end. I wasn't planning on keeping any so not too upset and them getting off, none of them were wall hangers. To me the most fun is getting them to blow up on the top water and getting that initial hard pulling surge. Spotted bass were really fat, they are a fat fish to begin with, but these boys were flat out obese. They are gorging on shad of which there are plenty back in Indian. No smallmouth brought to the boat, had one jump right over my TW, that was the only one I saw. Probably had a few others blow up on it. Fish were having a hard time zeroing in on the TW, had more misses than connections. I wish we had a few more days of the kind of weather we had yesterday. WT - 53 This post has been promoted to an article

Accuweather is predicting 2 degrees New Years eve. Of course forecasts have known to be wrong, but if not, that is going to be freaking COLD!