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March
2008
- Saturday, March 1 - I was in Ohio learning about
cylindrospermopsis and planktothrix, and Justin had to
stay home and take Jeff and Kathy from Metamora trout
fishing. Nothing against Jeff and his bride Kathy, but
listening to highly educated professors talking about
things I can't even pronounce is quite entertaining! Just
kidding, sounds like the weather was perfect and the big
trout were biting! I was told they caught 25+ trout with
several over 4 lbs and took home 10 rainbows 2.25 lbs
each! Safe to say that the conferences and seminars are
over for the winter and now we can start focusing on
FISH!!! Spring is just around the corner and our Saturdays
are pretty much booked for the 2008 fishing season!
- Wednesday, March 12 - It finally warmed up enough
to take Mae fishing this year. Daddy has been going
fishing all winter long, but Mae has been cooped up inside
and chomping at the bit to get her old faithful Scooby Doo
rod back out on the water! Her first cast turned out to be
quite a drag screaming battle. We fought that 2 lb rainbow
for so long, that she started losing interest until we
finally got him close enough to see him and get splashed!
We missed our next few strikes, before we hooked into a
much more manageable 1 lb trout that she pretty much
landed by herself! After 15 minutes of fishing, we spent
the rest of the afternoon walking around the lake throwing
rocks into the water. Sounds kind of strange, but
throwing rocks into the lake is still a lot of fun?
- Friday, March 14 - Went fishing with the area's
best fishing guides for a short meeting before heading
down to watch Washington Basketball at the state
tournament. Duane, Larry, and Luke combined know more
about teaching folks how to catch fish than probably any
other 3-some in the state.
- Wednesday, March 19 - Went fishing with Meagan,
Heather and Carol from Peoria
. They did not need any help whatsoever battling 2-4 lb
rainbow trout. They obviously have been fishing a time or
two before. Carol fought and landed a 6 lb carp like a
pro, the only part of the battle that needed some work was
the netting job by Justin. For some reason that big guy
did not want to swim directly head first into the small
trout-sized net?? Heather had the biggest trout of the
day, 5lb+, jump straight into the air, look her directly
in the eyes and tauntingly spit the hook right out. Today
was also the inaugural day of our first fish holding
stick! Look for the stick in 100's of amazing photos
throughout the next few months!
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Saturday, March 22 - Duane took Jeff Gillis, the former fishing
manager at the Peoria Gander Mountain
store, out for a trip to catch some trout. They caught
trout on spoons, spinners, float-n-fly and also some on a
3wt flyrod. Those fish were a blast on a light flyrod!
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Tuesday, March 25 - We had the privilege of fishing with Jonn
Graham and his dad Jon Sr. again. Also along on the trip
were Larry Dozard, the central Illinois
fishing hotline guy, and Pat West, one of the most dedicated
largemouth bass anglers in the area. This particular
adventure we were after rainbow trout with the usual
smallmouth bass twist associated with Jonn. He started
casting his famous float-n-fly that he ties and uses for
river smallmouths, when he hooked into a lunker on the third
cast. Turned out to be a 4 lb carp......hmmm he might be on
to something??? No pattern developed, the carp didn't touch
the rig for the rest of the day. Anyhow, Pat ended up
hooking into a few nice carp, and Jon Sr. put some serious
hurting on quite a few 2-4 lb rainbows. Supposedly the
biggest trout of the day jumped out of his hands, snapped
the line on the way down and swam away just before Jr.
took the picture....yeah sure, I was across the lake
and no one else was around.
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Wednesday, March 26 - I fished with Jay Brenner, a P.E. teacher on
spring break from his school in Marrianette, Wisconsin
. We caught a handful of trout and 3 carp 3-5 lbs. We were
targeting big carp with corn, but were more interested in
just enjoying one of the few warm, sunny, calm days this
March. This has to be one of the coldest March's on record.
I don't think very many people will be attending the Global
Warming seminar downtown this year....
-
Thursday, March 27 - Justin and I took some OLD guys
from our church out fishing today. John H, Bill W, Howard H,
and Ron H from Peoria
. We started off the trip with a slight rain delay, so
we feasted on some homemade smoked sausages on deluxe buns
with some mustard, no ketchup was allowed for these links.
John sat in his chair pretty much the whole time, and
started off catching a 4 lb carp with his first cast. Ron
and Bill have been fishing competitors like those two guys
on grumpy old men since well before I was even a twinkle and
a wink from my father's left eye. Ron is aged well past his
years, and mentally is not quite all there, but he does
still have some vivid memories and tons of stories about
fishing. Most all of his fish went into the Lunker Lodge, he
definitely won the competition with Bill today. Howard had
just plain rotten line on his fishing pole. He could hook
the big trout, but they kept breaking his line@#$%! John
ended up catching the biggest fish of the day, a 12 lb carp,
our biggest fish of the year so far. He fought that fish the
whole time from his chair with a zebco 33. I think the old
guys had a pretty good time. They told some jokes and
stories from the good ole days and all would laugh. I
laughed along too, but really didn't know why? Must of had
to been there...
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Friday, March 28 - We did some serious fishing today!
Weather was beautiful, 42 degrees and very sunny. We fished
with Mike Steffa and his family from Lexington
, Chip from ???, Pastor Bill from Lexington Community Church
and his buddy Zach. The fishing started off very slow for
group (major cold front last night), but especially slow for
Chip. The man can actually fish, but Zach and the girls were
working on fish numbers 3 and 4 by the time Chip finally
brought one all the way in. As the weather warmed up, the
bite started picking up pretty quick. The cold front shut
the carp off completely, but we still had fun catching
rainbows up to 4 lbs (Chip let the big one get away!)
Someday we are going to land a 5 lb trout! Those big boys
find a way to get off about 90% of the time.
After the first fishing clan left for home, we then gave
Chef Todd a tour of the place. He vividly remembered fishing
here with his dad a looooong time ago. We finally convinced
him to hold onto the fishing pole and he took 3 casts with
the ultra light. Nothing on his first cast. Then he switched
to a weightless waxworm and hooked a huge trout. We thought
the big guy (the trout, not Chef) was tired out when he took
off running and snapped the line as Justin tried reaching
for him. Chef hooked into a much more manageable 1.75 lb
rainbow on his third cast.
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