Full Karmic Hand Release

A large number of eels, frogs and turtles where released into the waters of the Passaic River in New Jersey by a group of well meaning but seriously mis-informed Buddhists, North Jersey Herald News reports.

"Chin, the Amitabha devotee who participated in Sunday's ritual, said the group's members believed in letting the earth's creatures complete their natural life cycle. Rescuing them from fish markets before they were prematurely killed meant giving them a chance to fulfill their true karmic purpose. "When I pass by the fish market, I cry," Chin said. "I tell people: 'Stop killing them.' Then: 'Don't eat them.' Then your heart goes to mercy."

Oops. In this attempt to help "creatures complete their natural life cycle" they probably ruined the natural life cycle of hundreds of other living things. Asian carp. Zebra Mussels. Kudzo Vine. White People. Asian Long-Horned Beetle. The list of species released from their habitat to wreak havoc is long and growing longer.

TOO HOT (Even in Canada)

Calgary Herald reports, Fish stocks perish in heat

"A stubborn heat wave and low water levels are combining to kill thousands of fish in southern Alberta.
Lifeless trout and mountain whitefish are piling up on the shores of some reservoirs and streams as water temperatures rise as high as 26 C."

Roughly translated, 26 C is about 431 F. (Actually, ON THE NOSE, it is 78.8 F)
The picture is actually of a salmon.

Fishing Derby Part END

I could have used an elderly man with a gentle touch and a 1/2 century of fishing knowledge to help me through the last week of the FISHING DERBY. As of my last post I had fished with mixed results for 4 days. I did manage to push those mix results another 3 days. And on the 7th day I rested. But, back up, let me tell you about the 6th day....

It started at 5:30am and ended at 9:30pm. TB was there. We drove 171 miles. We fished 3 places. We took 30 fish. The biggest was a nice largemouth, 3.2 pounds on a chartruese spinnerbait in Plainefield. Where in Plainefield? None of your business. I had hoped this private super-secret spot would have yielded at least a 4 pounder that day, but alas, no deal. We, or should I say TB, managed to pattern the bass at another Plainefield spot with as much accuracy as could be hoped. First cast to a new spot with a bigger profiled, noisey bait would net one fish. Then, nothing. So, the next cast was a smaller slow sinking soft plastic. Bam, one more fish. That was it, a 2 fish pattern. And only 2 fish. Each spot, big lure, little lure.

We went up to Lake County after an unproductive stop in Naperville. This is moment i realized that the FISHING DERBY was heading toward its demise. I smelled doom in the air after the first 20 casts got us nothing. It became clear to both of us that bass fish had change patterns and none of the usual stuff was going to work. That's right, no scumfrogs, no poppers, no slow sinking whatevers. Spinnerbaits didn't hit. Cranks, no go. Things looked bleak and stayed that way.

I did fish a bunch of days between then and now, but I can honestly say, nothing of note happened. Oh, except for a stint at Skokie Lagoon. No fish were caught, but MJ and I are pretty sure we saw a couple island made of diahrea in the water. They were brown, covered in flies and dense enough to support a coke bottle. Also, they stunk like you might imagine an island of diahrea would. Let me estimate the islands to be 2 feet wide by 4 feet long. 2 of them. Who or what could produce such a large amount of diahrea? MJ speculates that someone caught a carp and ate it direclty, raw, from the water. He could be correct.

I have slowed my pace a bit nowadays. I am discouraged. I have to read up on mid-summer bass patterns and, god help us all, consider tying on dropshot rig to catch the deep water suspenders.

The clock is ticking down on the end of summer and still no 5 pound bass fish. If it doesn't happen soon, I'll hire a guide on a Wisconsin lake and just make this happen with MONEY. Like any good capitalist American, if you don't know how to do it, hire someone to do it for you.

Weathered

Day Four: Lake County, 6:30pm - 7:30pm, 2 fish, nothing over a pound.

Racing to the ponds after work to beat the rain put me right into the middle of traffic. I sat and sat. It took 25 minutes to go 6 miles. I don't do math but I think that puts my average speed around zero miles and hour. Finally, I got to the water and tied on a frog to fish out the edges of the lake as the weeds are reducing in size and density. Most of the water I am fishing now is certainly on the decline as far as weeds growth goes (meaning soon the mentions of scumfrogs will drop to zero and you'll start hearing words like "popper" and "buzzbait"). All the usual spots produced nothing. NADA. Then, on a pretty quick retrieve of the frog through open water after the slop, I paused and picked up a pretty small bass. Moments later the rain came. This first rain didn't last too long. I fished through it. Because the rain was ruining the prospects of top water fishing I started to throw the small plastic crawdad hooked up on my other pole. Took one more fish, the last of the day.

Just after this last fish TB looked up at the sky and said, "This next wave is gonna be bad". I raced to the car, dumped my poles in the back, took a pee in the bushes and sat in TB's car as the rain and thunder happened. It got so bad we ended up in the parking lot of a near by grocery store watching the parking lot fill with water. There must have been a foot of water in the slow sloping parts of the lot. I ate an apple. The lightening was practically a crack a second for a full hour. It was amazing. The fishing was ruined. Rain-fishing is fine, lightening-fishing is not smart.

Speaking of which, fishing in the rain is a good time. You feel a little bit tough and thoroughly committed to the act. Once you do something that normal people would not do, like standing in the pouring rain for a long time, you realize that you are not an idle hobbyist.

Later I drove home.

Accidental Frog

When fishing with a scumfrog this is a problem you are going to encounter. FROGS LOVE SCUMFROGS. This poor little guy got caught on the very far end of a cast I put right on the shoreline. I twitched it and he pounced on it. Usually you can get them out of the way before they actually bite it, not this time.

Yesterday, while fishing at Lake Glenview, I hooked a frog in the inside of the mouth. Just as I was taking him out of the water a group of kids with nannies were walking by the shoreline. The kids shouted, "Look a frog!" and started to move toward me. The nannies stopped them, thankfully. As I took the hooks out of that poor frog I had to move my body to shield the kids from the grisly sight of soft frog mouth flesh and blood. Luckily they didn't see or I think there would have been some screaming.

Just so you know, the frogs turn out fine. In fact, some frogs will hit the lure AGAIN moments after being put back in the water. I don't know if they are cannibals or want to make love to the lure or if they are just territorial, any way, it happens and it is just plain awful.

What it is

The updates here at FISHERDAH have slowed. This is mostly do to the fact that I took a week off from fishing to prepare for the departure of my beloved wife, H. H is in Denver for a while on a work related outing. But, I have a plan....

In her absence I have planned a personal fishing derby. I am going to get as many days on the water as possible in the weeks H will be gone. So far I've had 3 days in a row and there is no stopping me. The weather has been a factor, but fishing in the rain is not a problem, its the pressure you have to worry about. When I say "pressure" I mean ATMOSPHERIC pressure. You know, the kind of pressure the air puts on the earth and on the water. Fish don't like those changes in pressure. Some will argue this point with me, but let us get in to that later. For now, let me get you up to date on the past 3 days...

Day One: Lake Country ponds, 4pm - 8:30pm. 12 fish, with biggest being just over 2.5 pounds.
Day Two: Skokie Lagoon, 6pm - 8pm. Zero fish, zero interest from fish, biggest fish, zero pounds.
Day Three Part One: Lake Glenview, 12:15pm - 12:30pm, zero fish, one frog zero pounds.
Day Three Part Two: Lake Glenview, 5pm - 8:30 pm. Zero fish, 4 blow ups on the scumfrog.

Lets say, so far, the DERBY is shitting the bed. I'll go out again tonight and hope for the best.

REVIEW: Scumfrog's Scumfrog

You'll see in the previous entries I mention these. They are scumfrogs. The basic design of a scumfrog works like this: it is a weedless lure with 2 hooks curved up the outside ass of the frog, the points of the hooks touching the back of the fake frog.

What happens is the bass will approach these lures from underneath and suck it in their mouths either just under the water or by attacking it side ways. You can get amazing results from this lure but you have to understand a few things about bass to really make it work.

In summer bass like to hang around under the cover of weeds or mats of algae in medium or shallow water. As the lure is pulled across these weeds the motion from the top of the water is translated to the fish in vibrations across its lateral line (which is a 5th sensory organ, of sorts). If the fish is inclined it translates these vibrations into food and kills the lure. The issue with this lure though is its low hookup ratio, as the hooks are designed to not take up slop from the water. You have to wait a full 2 or 3 seconds to set the hooks which in fishing terms is a lifetime. The rule I go with regarding hooking a fish on a scumfrog is, if you feel the weight of the fish, set it, otherwise, wait for the fish to take up the slack in the line and either set itself or go with the 2 second rule. Off hand, a regular scumfrog will land a fish 1/2 the time or less. At the end of the day you'll have a tally of fish caught, fish lost and fish that just blew up on the lure but missed it completely. The amazing thing though, if you miss a fish on this lure you can quickly cast to the same spot and it'll hit it again. I have missed fish and recast 3 or 4 times and connected.

There are some other issues with frog lures that need to be addressed. My product testing has proven that if you live North of the Mason Dixon Line, don't use any fancy 10 dollar frogs. They are heavy enough to get long casts but they impact the water like a cluster bomb. If you are trying to place a lure gently on the shoreline in order to target the fish tucked in the weeds a huge splash is the last thing you want. Also, these lures are too long and wide in their "standard" size. There aren't going to be many northern bass that will want to strike this big heavy noisy lure. I suppose you could use a junior, but the junior will suffer from the fancy frog lures other downfall, it is STIFF. The scumfrog is soft plastic, very soft. When fish bite it, it collapses and exposes the hooks. The fancy frog lures feel like heavier plastic, in my opinion a very hungry, very aggressive fish might be able to expose the hooks, otherwise, you are going to miss hook sets on even more fish. If you are targeting very active, very big bass, give it a try. But if you are seriously doing that this far north you are very well versed in frustration already, so have at it.

There is so much more to mention about the scumfrog: you can stuff it with soft plastic worm pieces to increase casting distance and improve the profile from below, you can use it open water between pads and slop, you can cast it directly into a tree and just pop it out without damaging the tree or the lure, you can even throw it direct at your friend's face without issue...

The most important thing is this, seek out and use scumfrog's on those slop bays and scummy corners of the ponds in hot humid days. You'll throw this great 3 dollar lure, twitch, wait, twitch, wait and listen for that slapping noise of a bass busting out of the slop and taking it under.

Soon enough scumfrog days will end this summer as the weeds die off and I'll be on to raving about some other top water lures.

Buy Scumfrogs @ Bass Pro Shop $2.99 + shipping