Some More Fishing Pics

Here are some more fishing pics sent in from our day of fishing at Otter Creek from last Saturday. I am still waiting for about 4 groups to send in their pics....fellas??? Anyhow, as they trickle in I will plop em online.

In the mean time I just may get out to grab some of my own fishing pictures for a few hours this Memorial Day Weekend! I will be building a big Jump dock for the new Blob on Saturday and Monday at the lake, but on Sunday morning I am going to sneak away for a few hours at the crack of dawn in search of some monster Redear Sunfish with InFisherman TV host and regular outdoor contributor Steve Ryan!

I have a whole fleet of new fishing rods and reels for this upcoming season. Most of my fishing is small lures, jigs, and live bait. Presley's Outdoors in Bartonville hooked me up with 12 Shimano Convergence spinning rods paired with Pflueger Trion reels. I got four medium action 7 foot rods spooled with low-vis green 10 lb test, four medium action 6.5 foot rods spooled with low-vis green 8 lb test, and 4 medium light action 7 foot rods spooled with low-vis green 6 lb test.

Let me just say that there is no better value for your dollar than that combination right there! The rods have a lifetime in store warranty and retail for about $60 I think. If anything breaks for any reason you take it into the store and walk out with a brand new one!

The reels retail for around $40 and are rock solid! They look and feel like $100 reels and are actually better quality than most $100 reels I have used! They are a no brainer and are heads and tails above anything even in the twice the price, price range!

The in store lifetime warranty is a necessity for a guy like me. Literally 100's of people will be using my gear over the course of a fishing season and not having to worry about damage from heavy usage and transportation is just a nice feeling! Having a fleet of these babies for the upcoming season has me even more excited to get out on the water this weekend!!

The four 6'6 foot mediums will pretty much be permanently rigged with slip bobbers. If you arent slip bobber fishing you are missing out big time on keeping baits suspended deep in the strike zone. The 7 foot mediums will be rigged with small crankbaits and swim jig type baits. The 7 foot medium lights will be rigged with various lead head jig combinations.

Man I just keep writing.....the kids are in bed and for some reason I just got on a role.....think I might just head to bed early tonight. Tomorrow will be a big day stocking a pond in bloomington, stocking another in Lexington, then shocking a pond in Downs and then finishing the evening shocking a pond in Ellsworth. Got to hit em all while I am in that zone! Stocking and Shocking!!

Friday will be meeting a guy in Oak Run about building a mega dock and his new lake house. Then looking at some land for sale out near Norris, IL at noon, then to the lake for the weekend!!! Anyone want to come out and help build a dock on Saturday just give me a holler, if we get done with some daylight left we will do some fishing!

You know whats great is this is my blog and I can just keep on writing.....If your thinking man this is alot to read, you simply don't have to keep reading. You can jump ship to something more gratifying at any moment! Don't really have anything else to say at the moment.... Except that if you are still reading this far down without any pictures for like the last ten paragraphs than you really need to get some more hobbies or get outside for awhile. This weekend looks to be the perfect opportunity with sun in the forecast for all three days! Get out there and enjoy!!

Fishing Day at Otter Creek

Saturday I was able to kill 12 birds with one stone!! Been a pretty busy spring so I have to get creative and be as efficient as humanly possible. Over the winter I lined up a few too many fishing trips mostly through donating to various charity auctions and such, but anyhow I was able to schedule 12 different groups for fishing trips all on the same day and it actually worked out very smooth!!!!

Here is just a teaser pic of one of many nice fish that were caught!

The weather was predicted to be stormy and rainy for all day Saturday, which had me going to sleep a bit unneasy hoping to be able to still pull everything off! When the alarm went off at 3:15 am to start the day I literally was jumping up and down the moment I didnt hear thunder and rain and the computer said we were good to go!

I made it down to Otter Creek Preserve at 5 am and 4 boats were already there waiting for me! I'm not the only crazy one out there who wakes up well before the sun. Anyhow Bob Quinn helped me out all day and we just got every boat in the water and lined up with bait and general fishing advice on where to go find some fish!

Looks like the bait of choice for monster bluegills was a spinnerbait?

Groups kept coming all the way till about 11 am and we kept sending em out on the different lakes. Some fished the Canadian Lake, some went to Mike's Lake and most fished the Big Lake. Hook and Hunt TV filmed some fishing shows on each lake! Look for the footage available online in the weeks ahead!

Anyhow I have a few pics, but most people I am still waiting for their pics to come over the next few days. You may not believe me when you hear the stories and see the pics, but the fish actually were not biting all that great. However the extra work to catch em paid off big time! You had to work to catch the fish, but the fish are worth the effort!

Before we get to the pics I just want to say THANKS to everyone who came out on Saturday! Also a big THANKS to Mike and Timber Creek Land Company! Pretty much everyone there has helped me out in some way or another or they have helped support many great local charities!!!

First lets start with lunch eh? Chef Todd cooked his usual feast!

Altogether we caught more than 260 walleyes between 14-23 inches, 16 tiger muskies from 3-11 lbs, 30 smallmouth bass from 9-17 inches, 150 crappies about 10 inchers (we couldnt find the big ones, they had scattered), well over 100 bluegill over 1 lb each, 20 stripers from 1-4 lbs and 50 largemouth bass over 4 lbs! Here are the pics I have, more pics to follow as they trickle in:

Just a fitting pic to end the day! More pics and videos to follow. If you dont see your pic on here, its because you havent sent it over yet!!


Here are some more pics just sent in!

There are still about half of the groups out fishing who have yet to email in their pics! Come on fellas, lets see the fish!

Electrofishing- Shocking Lakes and Ponds

Been out electrofishing lots of lakes and ponds the last week. While each body of water is unique from the next, even more unique is the owners who own them. I know a thing or two about raising fish in general, but what I really have been focussing on learning and what is the key to success is learning owners. Learning who they are, what they like, and what degree they are capable of managing is way more important than just knowing fish.

I give everyone a very customized management plan that is easy for them to not only understand, but very easy to implement based upon THEM. Here are just some pics and descriptions of places I have been in the last week:



Mark Rocke's pond above is 40 years old and has lots of duckweed and algae. Recently he had a pretty big fish kill, but not all fish were lost. He is going to experiment with a new product called clipper for this year, and start putting together a game plan for renovation that includes some muck removal and possibly raising up the overflow for extra depth.

Luke Rocke has an amazing swimming hole in his back yard. His mission is to maintain optimum water quality while growing some mega boone and crocket bluegills. His problem is too many pesky big green carps.....Most people would kill for that good bass in there pond and Luke could care less, he wants boone and crocket gills!



Mark and Luke grilled up some antelope brats and I helped em disappear. After eating we headed over to Lisa's place to design a dock for her with a rope swing similar to Luke's. That will be a challenging yet very exciting project!


Dr. Bob has a real nice place out in Knox County! Check out the cabin and soon you will be checking out some pig fish as he starts to implement his new fish management plan!

Steve Bertschi just bought a pond to build his future home near and he just wanted to find out whats in there and how to maintain the pond for good overall fishing that includes many fish frys in the future. We found some mega redears in there!

Ed Sauder has a smallmouth bass, yellow perch, hybrid striped bass pond that some really awesome lake management company stocked 2 years ago as an experiment. The fish are growing rapidly with pretty much all of em in the 10-14 inch range! Just some basic maintenance needed for the swimming beach. His other pond needs a little bit more help in order to grow some bigger bass. They max out at about one pound, but that is going to change very rapidly as he gets out all the catfish and thins out the herd of bass too.

Then Saturday I spent the day at Otter Creek taking more than 25 guys fishing from 5 am to 10 pm. More pictures of that day to come in a future post!!!!! Sunday I spent at church and then headed to the lake with the kids and family for some swimming, fishing, and burgers! Here are some pics, the walleye were on fire and we caught bunches of them! Also we caught a nice rain shower while out in the middle of the lake!

Today the guys built a big dock with a 10 foot second story to jump off of for Troy in Mapleton. I spent the day showing some properties to Peter and Cindy Maffei from South Dakota. Of course while showing properties its a must to sample some fish. Pretty nice for about 15 minutes of fishing in a couple of the lakes eh?

Also got some guys in the field planting bunches of food plots and warm season prairie grasses. Grabbed a pic of Brandon and Ryan working the ground as we drove by this afternoon:

Tuesday we are electrofishing at Lake Wildwood, Wednesday shocking a 35 acre lake in Rapatee and spraying a half a dozen ponds for algae and duckweed around Tremont. Thursday we are stocking two ponds in Bloomington and then shocking a pond in Ellsworth, and shocking a pond near Downs. Friday I am meeting a guy in Oak Run about building a big dock and the guys are installing an aeration system in Trivoli and then we are meeting up at Norris to build a mega jump dock for the new BLOB! We will work and play out at the lake all the way through Monday!!!