Father/Son Fishing Trip

Friday morning at 6:08 am I get woken up by a text message on my phone saying we are here..... I glance at the time and all at once get that sick feeling that something isnt right, OH SHOOT! I jump out of bed, grab some shorts and shirt on my way out and literally not 45 seconds after waking up am in my truck speeding along rt 116 to Farmington....

You see, my whole life I have been able to tell myself what time I need to wake up in the morning and by golly 110% of the time I wake up about 5 minutes before that time... Every morning is different, some mornings 4 am, some 5 am, and some 6 am.... Anyhow I had been looking forward to this day for about 3 months and for whatever reason, I completely forgot to set my internal alarm at 4:30 am!

Anyhow I was meeting up with Chris and his dad and uncle Larry and George from Rock Island area... we were goin fishin! This wasnt just any fishing trip, this trip was destined to be special. Larry and Chris have been on countless father/son fishing trips over the last 30 years, but this was one was planned to be their last together.

I can tell you all straight up that God gave Larry the strength to fish on Friday and with a major cold front and bluebird skies HE also opened the mouths of some groggy fish for us as well! Also me being 45 minutes late somehow plays into the memory, but man can I still not get over that.... Larry started out putting jumbo bluegills on ice... (these were the first bluegills harvested from my lake all year). Everytime he hooked up he was amazed at how strong these fish were for just bluegill fishing.


 

Then we moved on and found some smallmouth bass here and there. We caught 7 or 8 smallies from 1 to 3 lbs...



From there we set up shop on some Hybrid Striped Bass....


That was alot of fun on light tackle... Then the last fish of the day Larry filled the cooler with a bruiser channel catfish from 30' of water vertical fishing with chicken liver...


Last weekend I took Rachel and Tim Braker and their kids out for a couple hour fishing trip. They said catching stripers was more fun than deep sea fishing!!


Mae is finally starting to enjoy holding fish!!!


Saturday evening dad and I did some fishing in the mancave while we watched some college football! I can't wait for ice fishing season, we will be fishing alot (in comfort) from the mancave!




The seasons are changing and we are finally starting to get some rain!! Our food plots are very happy now and growing like weeds. At the farm, we have 9 different food plots totalling about 23 acres. One thing that sticks out in my mind is how impressed I am with all of our plot screens. Its a blend of various types of sorghum and wheat that grows thick, tall and is very cheap! Its only $25 per acre for the seed and you can just broadcast it onto a prepared seedbed anytime from May to July 15th!



If you can look past the young buck you can see the strategic opening in the plot screen. You can make these special openings with a mower....


Not only does plot screen block your view into your plots, but we use it for access to and from stands, we also use it for channeling deer through strategic openings, and it is also a late season food source as well for deer, turkey, and upland game!! There is alot of grain here for them to eat! This stand is only 6' thick cause we didnt have much room here to begin with, I just wanted to show you some seeds on the top of this stuff...


We finally finished up our last stand on Saturday. We have 22 awesome sets in place for this season. For each stand set we literally spend several hrs on each trimming and creating shooting lanes, brushing in for concealment, and just overal setting the stage for the absolute perfect ambush. Here is the last tower being moved into position:


I will finish with this thought.... Just like with Fish, we enjoy prepping, setting and planning for the hunt year round. We dream about the big buck, but the enjoyment comes from the journey of working on our land all year long! Our dream has always been to have our very own piece of land to set up for deer hunting... Now the work is done and its almost time to be up in a tree meditating and reflecting on this crazy thing we live called life...

Bass Fishing Lake X in Illinois

Illinois has a new secret Lake X fishing lake! Back in 2007 I was hired to create the best Multi-Species fishing lake in the state of Illinois. Here we are 6 years later and we are sitting on the cusp of some seriously unbelievable fish.... Here is a sneak peak of some pics from my fishing trip to Lake X over the weekend:


The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has been doing some genetic studies and experiments on Largemouth Bass down on Lake X in Texas. Some of you may have heard a bit about this, they are taking babies from BIG bass and radio tagging them and stocking them into Lake X.

Anyhow, I dont quite have the resources of the Texas boys, but I have been doing quite a few Largemouth Bass genetics studies and stocking experiments of my own...  I have been stocking various genetics and experimenting with different stocking rates and forage bases and have been tracking data from hundreds of lakes across Illinois and the midwest.

Usually I visit these lakes annually or biannually and sample the fishery by electrofishing. That allows me to track progress and tweek mgmt plans as needed. Here are a couple pics from electrofishing Lake X two years ago:

 

So anyhow over the weekend I sampled Illinois' version of Texas' Lake X via angling. I was joined by InFisherman Field Editor Steve Ryan and his wife Josephine... We caught alot of very big fish, here are the pics from this epic morning of fishing. First I'll start with some of the big Largemouth Bass:










So using the same fishing technique, we also caught a ton of monster hybrid striped bass... we were fishing in water 25-40' deep and focussing our baits down 18-25'. The stripers would smash the baits and take off running. We found the stripers schooled up in 3 different areas and since they were down 25' we could keep catching them without spooking off the school....






A few walleye came out to play as well:




So anyhow we fished from 8 am to 1 pm and then we headed back to my place for some lunch and just a touch more fishin for some additional species....







Then Monday we spent all day setting Redneck Blinds.... time to switch gears from fishes to deers....


120 yards across the bean food plot.....
I have two additional redneck 5x6 combo archery blinds with 15' towers left over and looking for a good home....