Alaska Full of Firsts

I have to proclaim Alaska a state of firsts even though it is the next to last state admitted to the Union.
While on a Cabela’s writer’s trip last week to Alaska, I experienced the following firsts in my lifetime: sightings of moose, black bear, seals and humpback whales in the wild; seeing an active volcano; catching my first halibut and then a limit of halibut; flossing for a limit of sockeye salmon; backtrolling to catch a king salmon; battling a case of seasickness on the halibut boat; and losing my lunch to a sandwich-snatching dog.
After flying from St. Louis to Chicago to Anchorage, I spent the night in Anchorage with fellow outdoor writers Chuck Smock, Jeff Samsel and Colin Kearns. The next day we took the four hour drive to Homer AK where we were going onboard for a two-day halibut trip to the ocean with Ninilchick Charters (www.ninilchik.com), but rough seas were predicted so we diverted to a smaller boat for two days of fishing in Cook Bay. With the boat rocking-and-rolling in 8-foot waves the first day I got hit with a case of seasickness that had my head spinning and my legs wobbling, so I was unable to contribute to the catch of halibut that my partners accumulated. Medicated with Dramamine the next day I was able to catch my two-fish limit of halibut.
After a half-day of halibut fishing and an afternoon side trip of trout fishing, we got back to our cabin and decided to eat half a sandwich for dinner and save the other half for the next day’s lunch. While sitting at a picnic table, I had to go into the cabin for a minute, so I left my sandwich on the table but when I returned, the half of sandwich I was saving was in the mouth of the neighborhood dog.
Our next adventure was an excursion on the Kenai River in quest of big king salmon. It seemed like everyone in the state was on the river that day as the boat traffic resembled a city highway during rush hour. On some of the stretches we fished I counted as many as 50 boats lined up side-by-side backtrolling. Despite the fishing pressure, we still managed to catch one legal king salmon and three sockeye.
The last morning of our trip was spent flossing for sockeye on the Kenai with Mike Flores, owner of Ninilchik Charters. You floss for sockeye by flipping out a fly with four split-shots on the line and letting it drift down in the current. When the line drifts by a sockeye it flows into the fish’s mouth and as you pull up on the line (floss) the hook of the fly catches the sockeye in the mouth and the fight is on. It took about a half-hour or so of flipping my line in the current before I finally flossed a sockeye. But once I got the hang of it, I quickly landed a three-fish limit and missed three or four more fish.
For anyone wanting to plan an Alaskan halibut/salmon trip, Flores suggests the following dates as prime times: middle to late June for giant halibut; last two weeks of July for trophy king salmon; and July 14 to the end of July for the sockeye run.
Although we never landed a trophy fish, we each brought home a 50-pound box of halibut and salmon filets. That definitely made up for my lost sandwich.

New York Fishing

Thanks to a writers’ trip put on by Cabela’s, I got a chance to experience the smallmouth, walleye and steelhead fishing on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and the Niagara River.
Fishing the big waters can be challenging, especially when the wind blows as it did the first day of our trip on Lake Ontario. Despite the rough waters, our guide Terry Jones set up the right drift as we caught several quality smallmouth including caught by Chuck Smock of Cabela’s that weighed 6 pounds, 7 ounces according to Terry’s handheld scale. We caught a few fish dragging tubes but our most productive tactic was to drift a drop shot rig with a Yum Houdini worm and constantly shake the rig as it bounced along the bottom.
The next day I fished with guide Frank Campbell and since I needed some walleye photos for my file, we started out trolling nightcrawlers on spinner rigs which produced a couple of walleyes for photos. Frank caught the best photo fish, a 5-pounder. After getting the walleye shots we tried fro some smallmouth in the shallows with spinnerbaits and jerkbaits and managed to catch a few 2-pounders and missed a few. Moving on to deeper water we added a 4-pounder and a few 3-pounders while drifting tubes and drop shot Houdini worms.
Our second adventure for the day was a charter boat excursion for king salmon and steelhead. Although we never hooked up with any salmon, we got plenty of action from the steelhead with our largest catch weighing around 12 pounds.
If you plan on visiting the Buffalo area and want to experience the great fishing at Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Niagara River, call either Jones (who specializes in bass) at First Class Bass Charters, 716-875-4946; or Campbell for smallmouth, walleye and trout, salmon and muskie, 716-284-8546.

I'm back

It's been too long since my last post and it's not because the fishing stinks. Quite the contrary, it’s been pretty good and that's one of the reasons I haven't posted anything lately. I’ve been too busy fishing and working on assignments.
I finally caught several fish on a writers' trip last month. Uncle Josh/ Kalin's sponsored a writers' trip on Lake Erie out of Presque Isle Bay and the fishing was good for both smallmouth and largemouth. My first full day of fishing there I caught nine smallmouth with my best five probably weighing 15 pounds. I also caught 13 largemouth in the bay's lagoon with the largest probably weighing more than 3 pounds. The largemouth were busting baitfish in the morning and we caught most of these schooling fish buzzing a dirty avocado Kalin's 4 inch grub along the surface. Dragging the same grub along the bottom in the bay and jerking a purple/pearl Spro McStick produced all of my smallmouth.
This was the second time I've fished Presque Isle Bay and both times the fishing has been great. I would highly recommend visiting this great fishery if you ever get a chance. For more information on the area, go to www.visitErie.com .

High school fishing

I was talking to a bass club president the other night about our high school fishing proposal and he told me about a school official he knows in Kansas that thought it would be a great idea but it would be a tough sell to the schools because of budgetary considerations.
I told him it should be the opposite. This program should be appealing to schools because it will be budget friendly to schools. In Illinois' program, most of the mentors for the schools were from the school district staff or unpaid volunteers from bass clubs. The Missouri State High School Activities Association has told us we could have the same volunteer mentor and boat captain setup as Illinois had in the first year of its fishing program.
As for other expenses, the kids will be required to have their own fishing gear (I'm sure we will be able to collected donated gear for the kids who don't have any) and boats will be provided by volunteers.
So in these tough economic times, this is one school activity that will be very affordable for the schools.

Blade bait bass

Yesterday was a rare treat for me. Since I live around the clearest section of Lake of the Ozarks, I rarely get a chance to fish a spinnerbait unless it's cloudy and windy. However the water down by the dam has been murky this fall and we decided to try some blade baits.
I threw a Hole Shot Tackle Company spinnerbait 3/8-ounce chartreuse with a gold willowleaf and Colorado tandem and my partner threw a chartreuse double wilowleaf War Eagle spinnerbait (www.wareaglelures.com). Keying on the front of docks inside of points and also along the black rocks just inside the points, we caught nine keepers. Too bad we weren't in a buddy tournament because our best five fish would have weighed around 21 pounds. My partner caught two fish that we hooked on a Berkley hand-held scale and they each weighed exactly 5 pounds.

There's No Place Like Home

After a week of cold, clouds and spitting snow in Pennsylvania during a writers' trip, it was great to come back home to a week of sunshine and 70-degree weather and some good old down-home Lake of the Ozarks fishing. My Dad and I caught several crappie for a couple of days and when the crappie action was a little slow yesterday, we switched to bass fishing. I started out with a crankbait but had little luck so I decided to try a buzz bait and the bass just blasted a white Cavitron buzzer in the backs of pockets where gizzard shad were hugging the rocks.
Looking forward to trying that again real soon.

Pennsylvania bass fishing

After my second straight soggy writers’ trip, I am contemplating starting a new business entitled Rainmaker, Inc.
Any lake or river area that needs rain or even just a couple of cloudy, windy days can hire me to set up a writers’ trip and when my group of writers arrive, so will the inclement weather.
The latest trip I took to Pennsylvania featured just about every form of foul weather imaginable, including rain, ice pellets, snow, gusting northerly winds and air temperatures ranging from the high 30s to middle 40s. Yet despite these miserable conditions we still managed to catch some quality Conneaut Lake largemouth and smallmouth bass for photos. The weather probably prevented us from seeing Conneaut at its best since this natural lake is noted for its trophy smallmouth. The lake contained several off-shore humps for smallmouth and lots of shallow weeds for largemouth. For more information about Conneaut and the other fishing opportunities in this area, call the Crawford County Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-332-2338) or visit the web site www.visitcrawford.org .
Three of our most productive lures on this trip included the Gene Larew Biffle Bug (www.genelarewlures.com) and the Sebile Lures Magic Swimmer Soft and Flatt Shad.
The Magic Swimmer Soft is a swim bait with a unique weight system that slides up and down the hook to alter the action of the lure. Positioning the weights near the hook tie makes the lure dive nose first and zigzags when twitched while placing the weights near the rear of the hook makes the lure flutter horizontally. I spent most of the first morning running the lure steadily with the weights near the head of the bait but had only one tap, so I switched the weights to the back of the hook and decided to twitch the bait a couple of times and then let it fall. My first cast with this retrieve produced a 13-inch largemouth and I had another fish boil at the lure while I twitched it through lily pads. That was the last action I had on the bait for that day, but others in our group also caught quality largemouth and smallmouth employing the same retrieve with their Magic Swimmer Soft.
This lure will definitely be making an appearance to Lake of the Ozarks bass the next time I get the chance to throw it.
For more tips of fall fishing, visit my website at www.jnoutdoors.com .