night fish

vince and i went and did some night fishing on thursday. we caught several fish but this one was the best. all but one were caught on crankbait. one on a texas rigged worm.

big hig

vince took hig fishing while i was out of town. heres what happened

"the fish jerked the pole out of his hands on the hookset. hig hesitated for a moment, and took the plunge. he handed the pole up to me and i held it till we got him back in the boat, so he could get him in." -vince

nice fish hig! next time try and stay in the boat.

hiwassee on fly

i wanted to learn a bit about the tennessee fly fishing scene so a friend and local pro, bill stiles, was kind enough to take me over to the hiwassee river to show me a few honey holes. didnt catch anything huge but we had good numbers. mostly rainbows with a few small browns mixed in. the scenery was absolutely beautiful. very different from the nantahala which is beautiful in a whole different way. we drifted dry flies over thick submerged grass that grows when the generators are off and the river is low. something that ive never done before and adds a bright green to the water that is wonderful for pictures. i broke my fly rod (thankfully bill had a spare) and got stung by a yellow jacket but beside those mishaps i had an awesome time. big thanks to bill for letting me tag along and sharing his local knowledge. cant wait till december when we will be back up.

1st at rons

tonight we took 1st place and big bass honors at ron's night tournament. it was held at lake alfred. we weighed in five fish at 15.5 lbs. big bass was a 5 pounder. we are kinda on a rons roll.

2nd at rons

vince and i fished a "ron’s tackle box" tournament last night (6pm to 9:30pm) and finished in 2nd place. there is something i really love about the ron’s touneys. it is run by the owner (ron) of a small local bait a tackle store here in polk county. its where bass tournament fishing all started for me. its simple. no fancy digital scales here. just an old laundry basket, a 5 gallon bucket and a produce scale. no big entry fees. no big egos. no big pressure. but when you catch a big one it feels just as good as in any tournament.

sad in philly

well, on wednesday we got a phone call that my mother-in-law had been hospitalized and had been put on life support. she is only 55 and this came as a big shock. we booked a flight for the next day to philadelphia and made arrangements for our girls to stay with my folks. this morning i got a phone call from a friend who was checking in our dog that our house had been burglarized. they took 14 baitcasters, 2 spinning reels, 16 rods, 3 fly rods reels and cases, a few thousand dollars in hard and soft baits and terminal tackle, 4 shotguns, 4 rifles, 2 hand guns, hundreds of dollars in ammo, three professional cameras, 4 nikkor lenses and flash, all my wifes jewelry (including her wedding and engagement rings), and other stuff. not even close to as important as the situation here in philly but it does add to the stress. we are resting in the fact that God is good and that all things work for his eternal purpose. we could use everyones prayers. fishing and hunting could be put on hold for sometime now so dont expect many new post for awhile.

saturdays tourney

we caught some pretty good fish but not enough to cash a check

small kids/small fish

leah and the kids spent the past week at my folks place at the beach. i went over for the weekend. on saturday i decided to take the kids out to catch a few fish. nothing special. just a few small mangroves and pin fish but we had a good time.

money

carolina rigged sinko + lucky hat = 1st place finish. vince and i fished a night tournament tonight and finished 1st out of 40 boats. all our bass were caught carolina rigging in about 10 ft of water.

inshore slam

dr. bill roberts was kind enough to take me out on a guided fishing trip this morning. it was amazing. i had never been on a guided trip before. it took me a little while to get use to someone wanting to bait my hook and everything but once the action kicked in that was the least of my worries. between the two of us we caught about 60 redfish, all of which were between 24"-30". we caught so many reds in such a short time that our arms all but gave out. we also caught several nice snook and a few trout. capt. todd romine was a class act and really knows what hes doing. cant recommend him enough. thanks again bill!

trout fishing north carolina

The first couple of days I stuck around with the family and fished out of the creek that ran behind the cabin we stayed in.





I used some flies that I had tied before the trip. Olive woolly boogers, pheasant tail nymphs and blood worms. The worms worked very well and after the ones I had tore up I had to improvise. I went to walmart purchased some red yarn and tied some extras.


I caught mostly brookies and rainbows.


josh, jen and kids joined us on the week long vacation.







after a few days in the small creek we were ready for some new scenery and different trout so I headed down to the nantahala river in search of new areas








the next morning we found an area a friend told me about. I didn’t catch any monsters but I did catch a brook and a rainbow that were pushing 2 lbs. not bad for the area.














these two went home to the frying pan. All the other fish were released.


while we were there I had my 31st birthday. The morning of my birthday I decided I wanted trout with my breakfast. So I walked down to the creek and caught this nice “birthday trout.” Josh was kind enough to take a picture for me. I think that was my favorite part of the whole trip. My “redfish” fillet knife kinda dwarfs the trout.



my birthday breakfast


the beswicks cabin is beautiful and we had a wonderful time. the fishing was awesome and believe it or not i didnt take a picture of every trout i caught.