Breakfast Time Bassin' 2010

[Maliboo]

Went to Heidecke for the 3rd weekend in a row for some multi-species action. Started off methodically working the north side of the dyke with a Berkley Flicker Shad in the Bass Pro exclusive "Hollywood" color. When I say "methodically" I'm serious. I started at one train car and fan cast one train car to my right to one train car to my left then moved down 2 train cars and repeated. This way I covered every inch.

Caught a dink largemouth doing this:



Then after 2 hours I changed it up by moving to the south side of the dyke and put on a Storm WildEye Swim Shad since I don't think a lot of people use paddle tail swimbaits there.

Very first cast I caught a dink hybrid striper:



About 5 minutes later got a dink walleye:



And that was it.

On the way home hit Bass Pro for some blade baits to use at Heidecke next weekend. I think these will work pretty good since you can cast them a country mile:

[Maliboo]

Went bassin' at a pond for a brief time this morning. I was working a 5" cinnamon Senko with a fire tip. The panfish seem to love nibbling on the firetip causing many false-alarm "tap-taps."

Did manage to hook one big green sunfish though:



And a decent 16" largemouth:

[Maliboo]

After a rain I like to hit ponds that have big culverts that let in a lot of rain water causing a current. I often find bass around the area where the current is. This morning I hit a park pond with a huge culvert that had flowing water. Landed 5 dinks in about half an hour and had countless "tap-taps" from fish too small to get the 4" Senko in their mouth or only bit the tips. Maybe I should've upsized to a 5"...

[Maliboo]

This morning I hit another park pond for a short while. This time I was using a #5 Shallow Shad Rap so I would hook more of the little fellas. Still got a lot of slaps that didn't get hooked though. Only caught one dink largemouth and a pretty decent crappie that must've been illegally stocked:

[Maliboo]

Sunday morning I hit Heidecke for the 4th time in a row (every weekend in June.) This time I only used blade baits. Started on the south side of the dyke with a 1/4 oz Cicada and caught this super-dinky yellow/white/hybrid/striped bass:



Switched to a 1/2 oz Heddon Rattling Sonar Flash which has a pretty cool brass rattle chamber in its eyes, and caught this dink walleye:



Meanwhile, hookthis was on the north side of the dyke and got a dink yellow/white/hybrid/striped bass along with this 21" drum on a rattle trap:



All of a sudden a hard rain came and chased us back to our cars. By the time I put on a change of clothes the rain had stopped, so I put on my cheapass rain gear to insure it wouldn't rain again and went back out. Second cast back from the east shore got a 12" walleye:



And that was it. Now I will turn my weekend attention to Shabbona...

[Maliboo]

This morning I met up with hookthis at Shabbona and rented a bass boat. My plan was to fish BIG lures for musky. Most of them were just the biggest bass lures I have in my boxes, but two were musky size: a Super Shad Rap and a Rapala Original Floater #18.

Started off at location #8 (Campground Cribs) with a big ol' Deps Buzzjet wakebait and within the first 10 minutes I caught about a 15" bass. It got a quick release at boatside, so no photo (I was fishing for muskie.)

Next we hit the No Motor Zone with no action. Then the Northeast Cove with no action. Then the East Bay with no action. Then the Earthen Dam with no action.

I suspect that had I been fishing for bass there would have been action, but I paid to muskie fish...

hookthis was using regular bass lures, and eventually at location #28 (Standing Trees) he got a nice 19" largemouth on a WildEye Swim Shad fished very deep:





We fished that area a a little more then trolled up and down the dam to get a little rest, then moved on to location #23 (Drop-Off With Standing Trees) where hookthis used the most effective lure there is to catch one more largemouth about 13" before we had to get off the water.

No muskie, but at least I tried. Its funny cos at the end of the day hookthis and I were using the same lure, only different sizes. His was a #7 Shallow Shad Rap and mine was a Super Shad Rap:



The prospects for shore fishing Shabbona look pretty dim, and its pretty expensive to rent a boat, so unless one of my boat-owning co-workers wants to go there (are you reading this?) I'm not sure if I'll hit it again this year.

[bblaze]

Good work on the bass, shabbona can be hard sometimes. You can fish almost the entire side of the lake that the boat rental is on, on foot. I caught my only muskie within a cast of the shore right by the southernmost fishing appendage. The best deal they have there is the "larrys special" or whatever, like 110 or something for the day I think. I usually just get the plain motorboat, except when its windy I get the one with the trolling motor.

[hookthis]

LOLz I posted in the other forum. I'll put in on another rental, and if we can get another angler or two, we can go with one of those sweet pontoons.

[Maliboo]

Hey bblaze, ever catch any stripers or hybrids there? I'm wondering if they're pretty rare.

The bass boat came with a fish finder which showed numbers of suspended fish and we had it set to only show big fish I think. I like the bass boat cos you can stand on a flat surface unlike the motorboat which is a V right? And the trolling motor is good for the No Motor Zone, although we didn't get any action there anyway. $135 on weekdays M-Th

There might be too much slop on most of the shoreline to be able to fish much of it cleanly. The earthen dam looks like the best place to shore fish right now. hookthis went there Wed. and got a 14"-15" smallmouth from the dam shore.

Hi-res photo of hookthis' 19 incher:

[bblaze]

No stripers, but never really targeted them. I go after bass and crappie, but I hear theres perch? Got my muskie on a silver&black xr50. I would be down for a day out there, weekend of the 10th looks good for me.

[hookthis]

The finder in the boat we were in was retarded, it read temp at 99 degrees after the first hour or two; and it showed fish suspended 100' down, in 20 FOW. If we can make a field trip of it, maybe someone has a portable that works as intended.

IDK how we could pull it all together, but if we can get it all nailed down we could have a fish-killin party for roughly $60-70 a person for the pontoon boat all day. That's for 4 ppl, more than enough for a full day on a 20' boat. Maliboo is alright, but I'm an antisocial a-hole who doesn't like people.

[Maliboo]

I never fished off a pontoon, here's a photo from the Shabbona Lakeside Photobucket http://s468.photobucket.com/albums/rr46/shabbonalake/ that looks like the "6 passenger" that goes for $170.



$190 for "8 passenger" and $210 for "9 passenger," but realistically I wonder how many people can comfortably fish off those. We'd have to look at those things in person beforehand. I have fished 3 people on a bass boat before and that wasn't too bad.

I certainly wouldn't mind hitting Shabbona again now that I know better what to expect (that Northeast Bay sure is weedy.) I'd only be able to do it on Sunday though.

Instead of shore fishing Shabbona on the weekends I think I'll be turning my attention to the DesPlaines River down by Heideke to try for some pike, gar, and bowfin. Until the salmonids come in to the lakefront...

[Maliboo]

After going muskie hunting and coming up empty I felt like I needed to get back to doing what I do best to build my confidence back: Bassin'

I haven't hit the Fox River in a coon's age and with the water flow dropping dramatically yesterday and rain coming all this week, yesterday was the best time to do it.

I've also had an expensive new Japanese lure I got specifically for the Fox a while ago that I've been dying to try out. Its a Megabass SR-X Griffon, a tiny little crankbait with a ton of rattle. Only 45cm long (1 3/4 inches) its got a wide wobble and lots of steel and brass rattles. I think this will outperform the Rebel Wee Crawfish because its smaller and louder. We'll see...

Hit my first spot and got a decent smallie right away:



Then I walked upriver and hit the spots I usually catch fish at, but got nothing. So, I went back to my first spot and got another decent smallie pretty quick:



Four minutes later I got a SLOBOSAURUS REX!

<a href="http://s156.photobucket.com/albums/t26/ColdHandsOfTerror/?action=view¤t=DSC00104c.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t26/ColdHandsOfTerror/DSC00104c.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Ten minutes after that I picked up a typical Fox sized smallie then called it a day:



So, four bass in about an hour with one lunker... now I feel like I know what I'm doing.

[walksnthwoods]

BEEutiful smallmouth!

[walleyenut]

I never fished off a pontoon, here's a photo from the Shabbona Lakeside Photobucket http://s468.photobucket.com/albums/rr46/shabbonalake/ that looks like the "6 passenger" that goes for $170.



$190 for "8 passenger" and $210 for "9 passenger," but realistically I wonder how many people can comfortably fish off those. We'd have to look at those things in person beforehand. I have fished 3 people on a bass boat before and that wasn't too bad.

I certainly wouldn't mind hitting Shabbona again now that I know better what to expect (that Northeast Bay sure is weedy.) I'd only be able to do it on Sunday though.

Instead of shore fishing Shabbona on the weekends I think I'll be turning my attention to the DesPlaines River down by Heideke to try for some pike, gar, and bowfin. Until the salmonids come in to the lakefront...

On one trip to northern Minnesota, we got a pontoon--for one day. They're great as far as space. Plenty of room. But, it's hard for boat control, if there's any wind, when you're vertical fishing walleyes.