Hand up, I should be blogging more. The problem is I’m down to fishing once a week and, well, I’m not very good at fishing. So I decided to wait until I had enough fishing material to make a few blogs. See below for highlights and, naturally, zero lowlights because its my blog and I only show the good stuff. But as a starting point, here’s a really pretty picture…
What? Didn’t think I was capable of taking a pretty picture? A real man always stops and takes pictures of butterflies. Anyways, fishing this fall has been pretty solid. I believe I last left my abundant and zealous readership with a blog about a larger than average perch – truly riveting stuff:
I will go to my grave saying that is one of the most impressive fish I’ve ever caught. But whatever your thoughts on perch are, I was able to land a fish I had made quite a big deal of in the past (see a series of blogs from last fall documenting my inability to catch Walleye) just a few weeks later….
Twas a brisk autumn Sunday as I strolled up to a local fishing spot where I caught my first Walleye almost exactly one year ago. Recently a fallen tree had taken root at the spot so I was hoping to catch a really nice bass hiding in all the new structure. I cast out with a decent sized spinner (type of lure that flashes and spins) and felt the slightest of bites. Result: My first Walleye of the season!
Even though this guy was a tad too small (technically, Walleye need to be >15 inches to keep), I was still really excited. Why? Walleye tend to be found in clusters, so I figured there were more – and more there were. I caught 5 or 6 similarly sized little guys but could not seem to locate a big guy.
I had decided to call it a day and started to pack up when, all of a sudden, a guy who had been fishing near me on a boat decided to leave very fast and created large swells in the water.
His significant other was tagging along in the boat looking incredibly bored– to all the single ladies reading this, I can also provide that type of lifestyle if you can handle it.
Why does this matter? Well, I had heard bigger fish that are glued to the bottom will occasionally freak out when a boat goes by and are way more liable to bite. Figuring it wouldn’t hurt to test this theory, I put a slightly bigger lure on and cast out one more time… BAM!
That’s right, caught a big boy Wallie. While they can certainly get bigger, this guy was perfect for eating. And Walleye are seriously good eating. I hadn’t prepared much so I decided to use the old standby of beer batter deep fried walleye and, unsurprisingly, it did not disappoint:
I’m telling you, there’s not much better than fresh Wallie fried up. And here is where I’d probably just finish the blog, but I would be being dishonest to my robust following.
A few weeks after that Walleye I caught this savage mother-bleeper:
Yep, a Northern Pike. Basically the most intense and vicious fish you can find. I caught this guy when trying to catch baitfish, i.e., fish 1/20th its size (I don’t know how clear it is by the picture but its substantially bigger than the Walleye). The thing is Pike also like to catch baitfish and hang out in shallow water close to the bank. The other thing is I decided I’d try to keep this guy – I have a very particular recipe that requires Pike… is that weird? Whatever. But this Pike decided to cut the line I was keeping him on the shore with (they are notorious for stuff like this) and swiftly swam off.
So, game on.
Luckily, I’ll be able to blog about another adventure whilst I try to wrangle another one of these guys. All I have to do is…
Cast and Pray,
Jon (see below for obligatory photo of Bubz)
