2011 fishing recap

On another fishing forum I frequent, the members like to put together a "my year in review" sort of threads full of pictures & misc. details about their past year of fishing.  I'll try it here and see if it catches on.

2011 threw me some crusty curve balls when it came to life in general, but the fishing was stellar.  A few weeks after christmas I usually start ice fishing with whatever toy or toys I bought from scheels with the pile of gift cards I usually get from random family members.  This year I got the clam command post and so far its been worth every penny.


plenty of room for the kids to keep themselves busy if the fishing gets slow. 



It was a good year for perch, but I couldn't find any jumbos like the year before.



The east end of lake sakakawea produced a few nice limits of walleyes, and also an unusual amount of larger than average sakakawea perch



And of course one cant get to caught up on the ice without making a feb-march run down to the wingwalls




In March I drove down to Kansas to visit my brother and chase some monster blue cats in Milford Resevoir.


Gizzard shad was the bait of choice for big blues, we had to use cast nets to catch them and they weren't schooled up this early in the year so we spent many hours throwing heavy nets getting soaking wet only to catch 1 here and there for bait.

My first blue cat was what my brother refers to as a pinky, which indeed have alot of pink on them

We caught several blue and channel cats that week, the biggest I caught was maybe 25lbs but and my brother caught a couple of hogs up into the 30s maybe even 40+.


forgot to mention we caught alot of wipers as well (hybrid stripper / white bass)











In april I started catching chubs for the start of my pike season

and they worked






Even got some stunning green male walleyes on some smaller chubs.





Lake darling in may was hot and it was evident there was plenty of food in the system.

as was the grano bridge from shore


After numerous trips to lake darling the kids and I started going to Ft. Stevenson on the weekends to fish off shore, a little luck fell on me one of those days and I caught my first shorthead redhorse on a crawler lindy.  Sounds strange to many of you but this was one of my biggest highlights of the year.



And of course, when you deadstic worms you can plan on letting the kids reel in plenty of the plain ol' white suckers.


and even more of these




Drum with their troglodyte neanderthal strenth almost made off with a few of the rods






Between the fun fish, we even caught a few of these, if I remember correctly we even took home a few limits on some good days in june and july from the shore at Ft. Stevenson.  still wish I took more pictures, never enough pictures when the kids are out.


The kids got a look at their first mirrored carp and thought it was pretty neat, then a guy came down from the parking lot and tried explaining to me & the kids that carp are "trash" fish and told us we should be fishing for walleyes and as he was offering me some tips on how to catch them, the 3 year old decides to drag the stringer full of walleyes out to pet them.  The look on the guys face was priceless, he'd been on the lake all day and we've been under the shade tree next to the boatramp.


Lots of small smallies to tend to on baited lines.


We did take one trip out to metigoshe to hang out at aunt & uncles cabin and pull monster gills out from under the docks


The tailrace finally slowed down its flow enough in August to be re-opened to fishing and it was time to scratch my itch.


Limits of pig walleyes came with ease


accidentaly stuck a hook into several of these, which were all released very quickly unharmed, a few after a quick picture and the rest released at boatside.

Even did well on the rocks dodging big waves on the greased rocks from the still high flows

crankin, jiggin, baitin, didn't matter this year


Lots of other fish species were abundant in the tailrace from the high flows too.  Ciscos were easily taken on hook & line, Really wanna try for a whopper cisco on a fly rod in the spring.

The kids had a blast fishing & playing on the beaches around the boatramp.  Plenty of pike to keep things interesting too.

and alot of these the hit a jig and fight like a 12lb walleye until you see the silver let down.


Was fortunate enough to meet up with my old fishing buddy Mike, who I think logged more hours in and on that tailrace than any one I know, well, untill we grew up got married  had kids and jobs we had to be responsible at.  been awhile since we had a 3 or 4 day bender at the tailrace passing out on the rocks or the concrete from fattigue.






again, the walleye fishing was epic.




caught one of my heaviest walleyes, not the longest (only 27") but told myself the next one I get over 30" or over 10lbs goes on the wall.  I've caught way too many nice fish of all species not to have one mounted yet.  Decided to mount this one myself (probably not the smartest idea to learn taxidermy on the biggest fish as the first)


So far she's turning out pretty good, I'm still doing some detail work on tiping scales and adding powder pearls etc etc. and need to clear coat and decide what kind of "scene" to use i.e. driftwood or a plaque.  I'll post a pic when its done, I have learned taxidermists don't get paid near enough for this stuff because I sure as heck wouldn't spend this kind of time on something for a measly 300 bucks.


My brother came up to visit and got to enjoy the tailrace for the first time in nearly 10 years...lets just say he made the most of it.  The original gruesome tailrace twosome was at it again.




went on a few solo missions from the rocks on the east and west shorelines and of course did very well.  By the way that net in this pic is to crankbaits, as sticky traps are to mice.



More ciscos, these things are thick this year.


a beautiful silver chinook.  probably the cleanest looking silver bullet I've ever caught


My buddy caught this 10lb lake trout in the tailrace.  I was more excited then when I got my first nintendo, but he didn't quite understand the signifigance or rarity of his catch and didn't care to pose with this trophy, so I stole the glory.  The only other one I have ever seen was back in 05, a 4lb laker I caught from the wingwalls.

I did however get him to say cheese for his first shovelnose sturgeon, released immediately after photo of course.


My last few trips the last week of december have been to the west shore of the tailrace for dozens of stellar colored sauger and no shortage of whitefish, ciscos, and pike.





2012 is starting out slow on the ice but I think it's going to turn out better than the last.  I've set a few goals for this season.  If I make just one of them I'll be happy.  Catch a Blue sucker from the missouri, catch a 7'+ shark from the beach, catch a 30"+ bull redfish from the beach, catch a longnose gar and an alligator gar, go to minnesota for bowfin, bass, & musky, and of course mail in some more whopper club entries.  Good luck this year, lets see some more 2011 fishing/hunting reviews