Seven Eleven Pandemonium

July 11th 2010-
Since the honey hole is getting opened up to the public soon, I put out an all points bulletin to everyone that's been asking for me to take them to the secret spot. I assembled a pretty motley crew of some good friends I haven't seen in a long time. We met at my house at 6AM and headed out in search of MONSTER LargeMouth Bass.

The bite was pretty quick off the bat. Everyone got involved early in the action. Hoss was the first on the board with this nice fish, his first of the 2010 season.

We were getting bites and it seemed promising. We were all catching a few but the bite was slow. I fully expected it to be wild, especially if you're getting up that early in the morning. Ray caught a really nice one in the corner, in fact he said it was the biggest one he'd ever caught. I didn't get a picture because i was waste deep in water trying to find a 7+lber. I had a big ol bass on at one point and broke my damn rod! Just snapped it right in half! Luckily Ray had an extra rod that hooked my reel on. I ended up with 4 smaller ones.

Then it stopped.

Completely shut off. Not even a nibble for about an hour.

Hoss and I started throwing night crawlers and the bluegill weren't even biting. Hoss caught a pretty big snapping turtle that was not too happy to be on the end of his line.

We tried everything. Every type of lure, presentation, color...i fished every level of the water column. Couldn't even get a bite. The most fun and yet the most frustrating part about fishing is trying to put the puzzle together. What's it going to take to get the fish to bite...we just couldn't figure it out.

We decided to walk down to the Darby and fish for Smallmouth. I was pretty pissed off to say the least. I just drug 4 of my buddies out to the honeyhole at 6 in the morning promising to put them on fish and it was closed for business.

I put on a white jig with a white twister tail. We found a slack pool right by some current and started casting. Hoss caught this smallmouth on his first cast

And then it happened.

All hell broke loose

On my second cast I connected with a smalley. Next cast I caught my first ever Sauger!!!

pretty fly for a white guy

My very next cast my bait got CLOBBERED!!! I knew I had a good smalley on...man do those fish fight. Largemouth pretty much roll over and let you muscle them in, but smallmouth fight you to the death. I had to strip off drag, open the bale and let him swim...basically wear the dude down to the point i could land him. and boy did it ever pay off!!!

Personal Best Smallmouth!

2.5lb 18 inches

ON THE VERY NEXT CAST I hooked up AGAIN with another Giant!! We thought it was a smalley, but it ended up being a 19 inch Sauger! Look at this huge Marble eye!!

I love catching fish with teeth!

It was quite a scene. All 5 of us casting into this same small slack pool with the same bait. After my 3rd consecutive fish everyone was scrambling through my tackle box to put on the jig rig. It's a damn good feeling as an angler to establish a pattern and have everyone else you're with trying to duplicate the magic that's happening. It might be the best 5 minute span of my fishing career.

I ended up catching quite a few more smalleys on the Darby. All in all, I had 4 LargeMouths, 7 Smalley's, 2 Sauger's and 1 Rock Bass. I turned a terrible day on the water into one of the most memorable times I've ever had in my short fishing career.

Let's do it again tomorrow!

Redneck Golfing 101

July 10th 2010-


I went fishing with Dad today at Liberty Hills in Bellefontaine. After shooting 40 on the front I stopped at my car and grabbed my pole that was pre-rigged with a Senko. There's an awesome pond off 11 and I wanted to make a couple of casts to see if there's Bass living in there. I hooked one on the first cast that wasn't very big, but he spit it out right at the shore. I made one more cast and saw a biggun swim up and inhale the senko. I reeled down and set it so hard I MADE HIM CROSS EYED!!! Nice 2.5 lber
















My round quickly went to hell. I 3 putted on the par 3 for bogey and carded an 8 on the next par 5. scrambled to shoot 44 on the back. So that aint too bad...84 on 18 and a 2.5 lber on the second cast.

If you carry a fishing pole in your golf bag, you might be a redneck...

Independance Day Giant!

July 5th 2010-

A few of the boys and I braved the 90+ degree heat for an Independance Day excursion to the Honeyhole. Unfortunately, it looks like our worst fears are going to come true...it's getting opened to the public. They've laid gravel lot with parking blocks and they've put up one of those bulletin board things like you see at parks. Our secret honey hole is about to get ravaged by the local yokels. We've gotta take every chance we get to catch the big ones before they're in some white trash guy's freezer.

Boy it's been a looong time since I've been there, the whole place is completely overgrown which made casting from the shore extremely difficult. That's a good and a bad thing...

It's a good thing because I'm pretty much as ghetto as it comes for a white boy. I wore my swim trunks and and basically waded out in the pond about 10 feet from the shore so i could cast to the shore like you're fishing from a boat. The water protected me from the scorching sun and was quite pleasant. With the brush overgrown and the sun blazing sky high, i was certain there had to be bass hanging out in the cool shadows of the brush waiting for an easy meal to swim by.

I kept switching from the green Senko to the ol standby motoroil ribbon tail senko that caught me hundreds of bass last year. I realized I hadn't thrown it yet this year at all, which was a good sign. I've really diversified my baits and presentations this season. I caught 7 small bass but nothing over 2lbs. I saw a few giants swim right by my legs...I knew they were there, I just had to be patient

I was reeling in the motoroil senko and about 10 feet from me it felt like a cinderblock fell on it. After catching several smaller bass you know when you have a hog on. I set the hook so hard I MADE HER CROSS EYED!

I quickly realized I never thought out how I would land a biggin if I actually hooked one. It's hard enough to land one from the shore, let alone in the water with them. So I'm standing in waste deep water with a monster bass that doesn't want anything to do with me. I did what any good redneck would do in that situation...

I grabbed the line and wrapped it around my arm a couple times and dropped my pole into the water. i pretty much dove on top of the fish and bear hugged it until i could lip her. Noodling Bass...that's a new one. Once i secured the death grip on her mouth I went completely bonkers

Giant Kentucky Spotted Bass!

My tackle box is 18 inches, and as you can see the fish is hanging off both sides. I'm sure it's Fish Ohio size, but of course the one time I needed my tape measurer I didn't have it in my bag.

The fish was at least 4lbs, pushing 5 I'm sure. It's definately the biggest Largemouth I've caught this year, and there's bigger one's to be caught at the honeyhole. we just have to find them before the white trash does!