Yesterday's Weapons Forums

From last fall- early Sept, and it was still hot.



Me and my Grandson Bryan, with a good stringer of eaters. One jack got onto that string. I don't mind jack (pike) as long as it's fresh, and quickly cooked.
I'll try again this summer to get Bryan going with a rod of his own. He turned 7 this past Feb, so maybe he'll be a little more serious about it...

Opener's around May 15th here. It can't get here soon enough!

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

nice looking string of fish , my mouth is watering ,

i think i can relate to that 7 year old attention span , but it seem they 'turn' at a single moment and suddenly they have the concentration of an old smelly fisherman .........so do stay with it and have patience , he will make a great fishing buddy

walleye (dore) in quebec IMHO is the best eating fresh water fish out there.your grandson looks pumped and ready for more fishing.

pete

+1 on that, I love me a good walleye.

He caught his first fish today

A nice 2 lb pike that I didn't mange to get a picture of. I spent most of the outing fending off a huge snapping turtle that wanted his stringered fish. That turtle latched onto that pike on 3 seperate occasions.
If I would have been armed, we'd have turtle soup to boot. We were in a city park, so much for gunplay...

Here he is about ten minutes before the excitement started:



Regards,

Doc Sharptail

I've heard snapping turtles are good to eat but have never had one.

I always look out the window as I bring a train into the yard over Horse Creek. In one pond is often a snapper as big as a washtub.

The mental image of that turtle and some redneck "noodling"... SW

...I wouldnt even wanna go wading in there ....you might lose a 'noodle'...

I had forgotten what ill-tempered predators they are.
Long time ago, when people used to send their kids to Bible camp, that's what they did with me. Some of the adults had cornered a similarly sized snapper on an island in Lake of The Woods, with the intention of turning it into "Camp Mascot". On dry land, one of the instigators had his arm ripped open from elbow to wrist- a dangerous situation to get into, 40 water miles away from the nearest medical help.

In their home element (water), those snapping turtles can be downright aggressively mean, with little provocation, other than motion....

Saturday's snapper was about the size of an industrial Maytag front-loader. I beaned him across the shell twice, with a good fist sized rock- just to get him to let go of the fish...

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

Nother outing today to the same place- this time on my lonesome. Low 50's with intermittent t-storms...



Smaller snapper caught by me on hook and line. This one's much smaller than yesterday's- about the size of a table talk pie dish. Insanely aggresive- must be rage mating season for them, or something...

Small walleye- too small to keep:


This one's a for sure keeper, and has already made my season. Season's only 3 days old :



Second picture- Geez, I certainly look like my dad here:


He woulda loved this day, had he been around to see it. 1980 is one frack of a long time ago...

That Walleye is in the 12-14 lb class. I haven't seen one that big in person for a lotta years...

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

.... WOW ...!!!...I LOVE walleye... .....I'm ready to eat...

Nice fish!!

Look like your Dad? Ah, the miracles of genetics! SW

Mario-

We're about 1500 miles N.W. of Ohioooo, and cooking the fish for supper tomorrow night. If you can make it....

Hogger-

At one time I figgered that genetic thing to be a bit of a curse. Now that I'm facing just slightly more "experienced" times, I actually find it sorta cool

The amazing thing is that this fish threw the lure before I had him completely out of the drink. I went in after him ,so to speak, and got a good handful of dorsal spines, and his tail. I had to lay down on the grass for a bit after I got him tied onto the stringer. Excitement like that can be pretty heady stuff. I'm not usually quick enough to grab fish in water that way....

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

very nice fish

agreed!

Another day at the local fishin hole produced these keepers. The little one's 4 lbs, and the larger is a bit over 8 lbs.

We've been getting a lot of the monsoon stuff here- more out west. It's been feeding the river that the creek empties into. Creek shorelines are under water still- backed up from the river. A lot of farmers have already had it for the year- done and finished.

Water conditions are very favorable for the walleye bite- minnow populations have exploded in the creek. There's a major feed that occurs just past sundown. Minnows can be seen breaking the surface of the water by the thousands- it's the walleye that are after them. I have to be quick at this time- the feed lasts about a half hour, and the action is fast and furious on artificials.

Fish pictured was taken on relatively light tackle- a tiny walmart spinning reel and very light rod with 10 lb line. I was not expecting fish that size I almost lost that big one the same way as the first- he threw the hook before I had him completely ashore. One of these days I'll learn to start carrying an angler's net...

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

A net or the butt end of a busted pool que! **smack**

It has to be a good feeling to thumb your nose at the fish counter when you're into the local gro store. SW

i caught one of those nice canadian northern pike - 43 3/4" up on little sawbill lake in ontario , it was big fish for that trip amoung 8 of us ,

but my buddy almost ..i said almost had the 'big one' , till he finaly brought his along side the boat - it was a washtub sized snapper like you described , he cut the line while i was radioing to see if anyone knew the cleaning techniques , think we missed out on some good eatin .......

the money winner on that trip was an eleven pound walley out of the english river , big fish just got the backslaps , walleyes got the bucks

I bought 4 lbs of frozen pacific salmon last week. The taste is basically sawdust compared to fresh/fat/heavy walleye.

Wife cooked it all up today- all the walleye. Eldest grand-daughter crawled out of the wood-work, and a few other relations showed up as well. There was a nice piece of it left for me- about a pound and a half. I'm getting very sleepy typing this.

Can't quite figure out that grand-daughter- she shows whenever there's fresh walleye-almost like radar. Good for her sez me

Not too long now for the fall walleye run up on the Whitemouth river. That starts about 3 rd week in Aug.

I guess the English/Wabigoon system has had quite a turn around in the last couple of decades. Beautiful country up there as well. I've never fished it, and I've never done the tournament thing. Just like hunting, it's all for food and fun and relaxation. Doing those sort of things really charges up my batteries, so to speak...

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

[quote="NebrHogger"]I've heard snapping turtles are good to eat but have never had one.
taste like chicken livers to me....ok i guess, but i would rather have KFC

i think that might have been incentive for a bunch of carp fishing ....just to feed them of coarse