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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
