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Recent entries
- Weekend Bronzeback Report May 22
- Big River Walleye May 16
- A Weekend Dedicated to the Fly Rod May 14
- When the Rain Gods Kick Ya! May 08
- Blockhead Season on the Horizon May 01
- Time to think about the fly rod Apr 27
- River Smallmouth Report Apr 25
- First Guide Trip of 2012 Apr 17
- A Day I Will Never Forget! Apr 09
- Another Bruiser for Eric Apr 05
- Release stream smallmouth bass Apr 04
- Spring Break Summary Apr 03
- Trout Fishing Results Mar 20
- Hooked on Fishing Park Trout Day Mar 15
- Top smallie baits of 2011 Mar 14
- My Bass Report Mar 13
- A Big Day for the Swim Jig Mar 08
- Top Smallie Baits of 2011 Mar 06
- Top Smallie Baits of 2011 Mar 02
- Gearing Up for Elmwood Mar 01
JONN
GRAHAM
Stream Stalker
In Pursuit of January Pike and Smallies
Tue, January 10, 2012
What a great weekend! You just gotta love all this warm, January weather. This is like spending the winter in Tennessee (which, someday I would like to do). Of course, there was no way I was going to stay home this past weekend. Warm, January weekends just don’t come around very often.
Saturday i hooked up with friend and loyal blog reader, Jake Bresson. Jake was kind enough to invite me out in search of January Pike. You may remember a couple of years ago I put up a blog post showing off a bunch of big, Illinois, stream Pike. We fished the same stream. Jake and I have no experience in targeting Pike during this time period….........but we just had to try. A bonus for me was the fact that I would be able to get my new, 2012 Coosa on the water for the first time (pictured below).
The stream was in great shape with crystal clear water. While we did not connect with any Pike (Jake and I did spy one around 30 inches laying along the bank), we still had a great day floating a stream in January. Here a few pics of some of the scenery and such:
Here are a couple of shots of my new 2012 Coosa kayak. The color is new for 2012 and it is called Lowland Camo:
Thanks again Jake for giving me the opportunity to do a January float on such a neat stream.
The rest of the weekend was spent chasing January Bronze. I really enjoy these mild winters where the rivers stay open throughout the winter. It gives me a chance to quench my bronzeback addiction. I rarely ever catch a bunch in the winter, but I can always scrape out a few. This past weekend, the Mackinaw was giving. I landed three and missed about 3-5 more. Suprisingly, the float n fly was not effective. Neither were suspending jerkbaits. Jigs and plastics fished slowly on the bottom rang the dinner bell around 1:30 in the PM. Mutant Flea jig with a Zoom Skinny Chunk caught the first one. The other two were caught on a tube and an Erie Darter Jr. Caught all the fish and missed all my strikes within about a 45 minute window. Below are links for two short videos I made while fishing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJK5Zhvkgvg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HmhC33Onjc
AS ALWAYS…...................HAIL TO THE SMALLIE
Comments
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Are you downsizing your plastics your fishing Jonn? I guess what i mean is, should you go smaller in colder water fishing plastics?
Frank
Posted by coinman66 on January 10
Frank:
There is no doubt that day in and day out during the winter months, downsizing your plastics will get you more bites. On this particular day, I was catching fish on a 3.25 inch tube and a 3 inch Erie Darter Jr. These two baits are the same sizes I use during the summer months. I have had very good luck in past winters using tubes that measure 2.75 inches. A few companies make a good bass tube in this length. Strike King, Bass Pro, and Mizmo make a tube in that size (matter of fact, in all actuality, Mizmo makes the tube for BPS.) Only problem with the 2.75 inch model is finding a hook that will fit and allow for texas rigging, which is essential if you are going to fish the bait slowly on the bottom.
Posted by stream stalker on January 10
Glad you were able to make it up Jonn. Hopefully we can get these winter pike figured out like we have the summer variety! I still wonder if I had been more patient with that one we saw, would we have had a chance to photograph a fish Saturday…
Posted by esox_lucius on January 10
Caught a couple of nice spotted bass on the jig and bobber method recently on the Embarras. Good rig.
Posted by johnthefisherman on January 11
nice boat!
Posted by DaBronzeBomber on January 11