Quillback

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!

I talk to a retired gentleman that fishes the area regularly and he gets a few in the 8-10 lb. range every winter. They are there for sure.

Alright! I bet you get a bunch today.

A cloudy day with a little breeze. Motored over to a little cove to see if a steep bank in the back held any Ned fish. Did not get any Ned bites, but saw some top water activity so I tossed a small pencil popper at them, caught maybe half dozen short fish on the popper before they got tired of it. Kind of neat to catch some top water fish this late in the year. Started moving around trying steep banks and points, caught some fish here and there, varying depth ranges, 5-20 FOW, mostly on the Ned with one meanie coming on a jerkbait. Finished with 16 bass, one keeper largemouth. After backing the trailer into the water, saw a bass chasing top water in the Big M cove, untied the boat, dropped the trolling motor, and inched over to where the action was. Threw the popper at him, and got the classic v-shaped bulge in the water as the bass approached from 10 feet away. It slurped the popper, I brought him to the net, short spot, but I bet it weighed two pounds, very fat fish. Neat way to end the day. WT 50. I did get a "slam".

Nice spot! Don't know if you know this, but TW has a sale on InvisX as part of their 25 days of Christmas sale. It's about as cheap as you'll ever find it.

Sometimes I will wear fingerless wool gloves and stick one of those chem packs in between the glove and the top of my hand. Warms those blood vessels, circulates to the fingers and keeps them warm. I saw Ducky's Milwaukee jacket in action, really looks nice and has heated pockets which would be great for cold hands.

Good stuff Griz - My granddad on my mother's side was a coon hunter. He was a farmer in SE MO and hunted during the winter. He passed when I was 12, but I did get to go on one hunt with them, it wasn't season yet so it was a training run, but as a kid I thought that was one of my most fun adventures ever. One of the dogs got lost, it wasn't one of my grandpa's but one of the other guys dog. He left his shirt there where we were parked, went back the next day and the dog was there.

I forgot about the fish Muddy made for us - the Cobia was excellent! If I ever go saltwater fishing and catch one of those dudes, it is going home with me.

Talked to board member Stein whose company employees machinists. I want to say they start, right out of school, at $15/hour plus full benefits. He was complaining that other companies will hire them away, give them a raise and a $5,000 signing bonus. His company is in Nebraska. I may have the details wrong, but that was the gist of my conversation with him. Sounded like plenty of overtime is available also.