Fishing, 2019

Man, I almost forgot...

My local lake is ice free (that was FAST!), and opened to boating early last week. I hit the water the first 2 days, and caught some Walleye! :cool: They're nice and thick this year, with the good Shad spawn last year. Very unlike last year when the Walleye were so thin. Caught high single digits each evening, most fish in the 16"-17" range, with one keeper at 19" the second night. Here's a buddy with our first keeper of the year! :D :thumbsup:

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Even better, I'm going fishing in a couple hours on another buddy's new (to him) boat on her maiden journey here in CO. It was his FIL's boat in AZ, but he wasn't using it much and wanted to get rid of it. A 2015 Lowe. Should be a fun night!!!:D
 
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here's a pretty nice largemouth out of Lake Pleasant, north of Phoenix. 21" and about 5 lbs. I don't have a mobile scale. Phone photos after dark in front of a fire are sub-optimal. My childhood friend was visiting and we went all over the place but I guess did the best here. Prepared by my chef wife for a family gathering in soy mix, ginger, green onions... it was soon skeletonized.big bass 1.jpg dinner.jpg
 
I found a different image sharing site. Fingers crossed that it works .

First time out this year . Temps mid 70's with a light wind . Surface temp 57 in the morning mid 60's in the afternoon with 1 foot of visibility . Caught 58 bass give or take a couple , on spinnerbaits in the back of bays and coves . This is the largest at around 5 lbs .

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Well, between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon, I got the trolling motor install fabbed and completed on our club's 16' Lund. It went pretty well, a couple small hiccups along the way, and I think even with new, sharp blades, this 1/4" piece of hardened Aluminum (6061 T6) ate my jigsaw for lunch, lol. Oh well, it was a cheapy Skil from Goodwill anyway. I got others...

Had to chop the corners off of this 8" x 28" aluminum plate. Next was to drill some holes, then match drilling the rivet holes in the gunnel and mocking it up before actually attaching anything.

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I neglected to get too many in-process pics, D'oh! So here it is once I finished it. ;) The quick-release mounting plate fit perfectly, and barely hangs over the front edge, which puts the motor right where we want it. However, I'm going to need to raise that nav light, the motor blocks the starboard side too much when installed. :(

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I put the electrical leads into some wire loom to keep things neat, and made it so that I could attach the circuit breaker where the nose hook protrudes through the chine, which also provides some stress relief on the cords. Also made up the jumper for the two batteries in series, using white wire with color-coded ends, so hopefully nobody in the club can screw up hooking up the batteries, lol. :rolleyes:

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Motor attached, and doesn't hang outside of the boat. Perfect! :D

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And the maiden voyage on Tuesday evening. :D :thumbsup: Lake was pretty calm, weather wasn't bad at all. :) And I even caught some fish! (More on that later.)

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It works EXTREMELY well!!! :cool: The weight of the batteries and motor also help the boat get on plane MUCH faster too, so that's an awesome side effect that I was hoping for. Only lost about 1-2 mph at the top end, so overall, I am quite pleased with how this turned out! :D :thumbsup:

Fishing Tuesday was a little slow, but I managed to land 6 Walleye that evening while trolling, with 2 that were just over 18", so I was able to keep them for dinner! Yay! :D We ate them Wednesday. YUM!!!

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I went out again last night, and had a better night of fishing. Caught a couple jigging before sunset, and then caught another 7 while trolling after dark. Unfortunately, only one legal keeper last night, but at 24", it was a breeding female. Since this isn't a huge lake, and it is one of only a handful the state uses for Walleye eggs to stock lakes throughout the state, I let her go. I impose a 22" top-end limit on myself here. Plus, the bigger fish aren't as good eating as the others. 18"-22" is a good slot though, perfect eaters (though we catch a LOT of 17"-17.99" fish here, and I kind of wish they'd drop the limit to 17.5" instead of 18", but alas...). Thanks for reading! :)

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THE BEAST!!! :p

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Took a couple days at the end of last week and went on a quick camping/fishing trip with a couple buddies. Weather was pretty nice, and the fishing was fantastic!!! :cool: :thumbsup: We easily brought our limit of eater (17"-20") Walleye home, along with a few nice ~12" Crappie too! :D

In 11 hours total fishing time on the water over the two days, we landed 41 Walleye, 3 Crappie, and a Catfish. Only 3 Walleye were under 15", 7 Walleye were between 20"-21", one was 23" (pic of me), and one was 30"!!! :eek: What a trip!!! :cool:

Pics! :D

Waking up Friday morning:

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Sunrise!

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Fishing on Friday:

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Love having a full livewell... :eek: :cool:

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Friday evening back at camp. Not bad at all. :)

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Having a cigar (and lots of Whiskey, not pictured...) with a nice fire to end the dang near perfect day, before the fish fry: :thumbsup:

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Mark Knapp said:
Nice fish all.
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Hi Mark, you ever make it down towards Paxson? I was there for a few years and know some dynamite spots for fall lake trout fishing on Summit Lake. Seen some real big lakers in there. Really good fishing in the spring too when the smolts are migrating out into the river, the lakers hammer them.
 
FishinHank said:
Hi Mark, you ever make it down towards Paxson? I was there for a few years and know some dynamite spots for fall lake trout fishing on Summit Lake. Seen some real big lakers in there. Really good fishing in the spring too when the smolts are migrating out into the river, the lakers hammer them.
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Hey Hank, Yes, we try to get down there at least once a year. I have to say I've spent quite a little bit of time at the outlet. Would love to be able to spend more time down there.
 
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