December Trout

 It was a strange fall fishing season this year.  It went from too warm to catch trout in the numbers I would like, to WAAAYYYY too cold.  I did make it out two Saturdays in a row though and had a great time.

I started suspending spawn sacs 6ft down in 30 ft of water, and this was a killer for the rainbows.

The jigs and gulp continued to produce nice browns and the steelhead pictured below (my personal best to date).

Pictured with me is my friend Bob (top right) and his son Hunter (left) with their personal best brown trout.

I am hoping to make it out for another trip on xmas eve or on the 23rd...not sure what the ice situation is like in Milwaukee though, so I might have to head down to Oak Creek.

This fish hit really close to the boat on a jig and white gulp.  It went airborne more times than any fish I have ever caught.  It was an exciting fight and a great looking fish.

I don't usually keep any fish from the harbor...but Bob wanted to try grilling a couple.  He was very happy with the taste and texture of this small brown.  

Perch Fun!

Carly and I had a great time battling the wind and the waves to catch some true jumbo perch.  A bunch of them we caught were over 12"...It has been decades since I have seen average sized perch this large...and I have never caught them in Wisconsin before.  

PERCH!

To start, it has NOT been a good year for perch fishing.  That said, dad and his good friend Jerry hammered the perch out on Beaver Dam Lake yesterday.  These were some of the biggest perch I have seen caught in Wisconsin in a LONG time...measuring up to 12.5".  I would love to say that these were caught completely due to their fishing skill, but any fish we have ever caught from Beaver Dam Lake are credited to a pretty random encounter....

Last year, I was fishing out on Beaver Dam Lake with dad and not catching anything.  We had fished for about 4 hours and caught only a tiny crappie.  I began having stomach issues and needed to find a bathroom in the worst way.  I ended up at a porta-john located at one of the boat launches.  As I was leaving, and feeling very relieved, I ran into an older guy who was just launching his boat.  He asked if I was catching anything and when I said no, he said "That is ridiculous, we have been catching limits of perch.  Follow me an anchor close."  We followed him and watched him put on a perch catching clinic.  He even gave me his phone number and told me to call him to find out where the fish were biting.

Fast forward to a year later (yesterday) and dad called him up to see about buying some bait that he raises at his home.  He said they weren't biting on his bugs, but that dad should get small minnows and dead stick them 2" off of the bottom.  He even told him exactly where to fish.  I have never met anyone who gave out fishing info so freely...but I am very thankful he did.  

A few important "firsts" in Anderson family fishing.

This is my first ever lake trout.  Great fighter, even while trolling.  This guy came from about 120' of water.  Dad definitely showed off his great photography technique by skillfully including his thumb in the upper right corner.

Norah has been fishing many times...but this August she went out in the boat with Grandpa Anderson for the first time.  We went to Ashippun Lake to catch bluegills and while I thought she would only last 45 minutes, she fished (and played with the worms and minnows) for over two hours and didn't want to go home.

This picture is more than just a little girl with a bluegill...it is Norah's first fish ever caught completely independent of me.  I was helping Carly with a pretty substantial tangle and Norah decided to drop her bait in the water without telling us.  All of a sudden I heard her say "I think I have a bite" and she set the hook and reeled in this nice 8" gill.  She proceeded to catch about 5 more fish all by herself...even selecting what spots along the pier she wanted to fish.  

We have hooked into many sturgeon before, but this is the first one that has ever been small enough to actually get in the boat with our walleye tackle.  While this fish was caught by dad, it is the first sturgeon I have ever held.  Beautiful dinosaur feeling fish.  He was boated on the Wisconsin River in the Dells.  

This is John's first ever bass caught on a topwater frog.  He caught it fishing the shallows on a Texas lake.  Good to see him so excited about fishing.

Okauchee and Nagawicka Weedline Fishing

 It has been pretty hot out lately so the fish seem to have gone fairly deep.  This week I made it out fishing twice, once on Okauchee Lake and once on Nagawicka.  Both times I rigged one rod with an egg sinker, large hook, and medium sucker or large golden shiner and dropped it to the bottom along weed lines.

While the minnow was being dragged I used another rod to cast crawlers, leeches, or twister tails.

The bass were caught on Okauchee in my usual spots.  The gills and pike were from Nagawicka which I had only fished once in the summer.  The pike was kept not only because it will be tasty, but because it was hooked deeply and had a previously torn gill.

I really enjoyed Nagawicka.  We caught both largemouth and smallmouth bass, pike, bluegills, and even a nice 16" walleye.

Texas Fishing

My brother John has lived in Texas for quite some time now, but has relied on coming to Wisconsin for most of his fishing adventures.  A few years ago, we started taking guided trips out on Lake Fork, and now John has bought his own boat and started learning to fish Texas.

My niece Ella has been enjoying her time on the water with John and has recently been able to catch some nice fish.

I look forward to being able to fish with her next time we see each other!

Family and Friend Vacation in Minocqua

 We had a great time staying in Minocqua for a few days.  We were able to get a place at The Beacons of Minocqua and it was a great place.  They had excellent shorefront property with convenient boat docking, sandy lake bottom for swimming, fire pits, grills, playgrounds, and an indoor swimming pool (which was handy the day it was 60 and raining out).

We ended each evening doing a little fishing on the Minocqua chain of lakes and had great success on panfish.  A jig and twister tail under a bobber caught crappies on almost every cast and a piece of worm kept the kids busy with bluegills for as long as they wanted to catch them.

Although he is too young to reel anything in, I consider this Carter's first fishing trip.

We rented a pontoon from Lakeside in Minocqua and we were really happy with their boat.

One day Travis and I snuck out on a less populated lake to try for bass and walleye.  We ended up catching some nice 12-17" smallies and two walleye.

It was difficult for me to not just fish all day, but Minocqua proved to have plenty to do with the whole family.

Lake Winnebago Update

It turns out that just when you feel like you have figured out a lake, the lake changes.  This year, we have yet to catch a perch on Lake Winnebago and the DNR perch estimates are not good.

We have spent most of our time jigging and casting small reefs on the west side of Lake Winnebago for walleyes.  The most effective strategy has just been to use a jig and a third of a crawler suspended under a bobber.

Unfortunately, sheephead also very much enjoy this technique, so bring plenty of crawlers.

To fish the reefs, you really need a fishfinder with a Lakemaster chip or some other type of topographic map.  I use the Lakemaster chip, but I have found the Navionics App on my phone (for only $10) to be almost as good.

I have not noticed many people trolling lately so the best I can figure is that most people are struggling like we are.

St. Germain...Trip #4

Ok, until I learn how to do HTML coding or something like that, this is the best I am going to be able to organize the pictures.

To start, this was our 4th trip to St. Germain in the last three years.  I guess it would by my 5th trip if you include a short day trip with Carly over Memorial Day weekend last year.  That said, the trip to St. Germain is one of the highlights of my fishing year...probably actually my year in general.

We started going to St. Germain after watching John Gillespie fish there so regularly on his show.  It is only 4.5 hours from my house, so I figured why not give it a chance.  My dad, brothers and I started fishing there with literally no knowledge of the area, but we now feel pretty good about catching fish on no fewer than six lakes.  We have found lakes we like to fish in the morning, some we like in the afternoon, and some we prefer in the evening.  This means we are able to fish from sun up to sun down for the entire trip.

While we have successfully found some fish on our own, I credit Rob Manthei with teaching us how to fish up here.  He has not only taught us through the guided trips we have booked with him, but he is incredibly generous with information to the people who choose to stay at his resort (LINKED HERE).  Rob is pretty much responsible for saving our trips with tips and suggestions.  There are so many lakes in the St. Germain area that without someone's help, it would be nearly impossible to figure out where and when to fish the various bodies of water.  This is why I strongly suggest staying at St. Germain Lodge and Resort and booking a couple trips with Rob Manthei.

We caught fish from as shallow as 4 ft of water to as deep as 25 ft of water.  We caught them on rocks and in weeds.  We caught them casting and we caught them drifting.  While most of our walleyes came on a jig and crawler combination, I had a great time catching bass and pike by casting a jerk bait over weeds in 7-9 ft of water.

After a four day trip, we ended up catching almost 50 walleyes, 30 of which would have been keeper size and 8 of them being too big to keep.

We caught countless bass both smallmouth and largemouth.

We caught a dozen or so northern pike, the biggest of which was 32".

And we caught dozens of keeper sized bluegills and perch.

While I do not judge the success of a fishing trip by the amount of meat that ends up in my freezer, it sure was exciting to catch so many quality fish.

I FINALLY CAUGHT A MUSKIE

Is it the prettiest muskie in the world?  No.  It was still pretty beaten up from spawning.  That does not take away from the fact that I finally hooked, fought, and landed a muskie.  I have boated muskies before that hit another fish I was already reeling in, but this is actually the first muskie that I caught while actually fishing for the toothy critters.

Last fall, I was river fishing, and I caught a rod and reel combo with a jerk bait attached.  It must have been lost by someone fairly recently before I caught it as everything was in great shape.  I figure it must have been destiny because it had a left handed baitcasting reel (just like I like them), and it had the lure that caught me this fish.

Fishing with Norah

Now that Norah is three she is able to do more on the fishing front.  She is able to cast her bait (sometimes) and reel in her own fish.  We have worked her fishing stamina up to the point where she can fish for about 45 minutes before wanting to quit.  She has a great time just playing with the worms, and she loves touching the fish.  It is my goal to never keep her out longer than she wants to be there, so that she does not lose the desire to keep coming out.  In the video, Norah's bluegill spot ended up containing a surprise.  I held the rod while she reeled.  

Raising a New Fisherman

Perhaps my posts were less last year because it wasn't the greatest summer of fishing...perhaps I was just busy.  Who knows.  Either way, I will try to update more in 2016 as I work on raising this little fisherman to go with Norah, Carly and me.

Finally Posting Again...Update 3

Grace brings excellent luck ice fishing!  Big shout out to Nuy Iwanski for hooking us up with a spot to try.

Finally Posting Again...Update 2

 Finally starting to get a hang of this brown trout thing...Even got John in on the action.

Finally Posting Again...Update 1

I had a great time trying to teach Norah how to fish.  She still is in the phase of wanting to catch "little fish" but she did manage to catch some nice bluegills and a walleye with me.

The coolest thing we had happen, was I hooked an 8" bluegill then let it swim around while I waited for Norah to come and reel it in.  When we had it just about all the way to the pier, a large musky came and inhaled it.  Unfortunately, we lost the musky.