fourbizz

Geez, thanks man, glad to know there are a few people out there that enjoy the read

Thanks Matt! Writing for magazines would be so cool. I have no idea how to pursue that though. I'll tell you dude, that country reminds me sooo much of my old stomping grounds in Colorado. Between the Aspens, Sage, Rabbit Brush, and weather, while I was walking around with my frame pack, in my head I kept waiting for a big bull elk to come bugling down out of the aspens. Just felt like I was back home hunting. But more to the point, we saw some deer when we overshot the parking area, but didnt see any big game while on the hike in.

WORD

I thought that was a cool post. Hard to read yeah, but I enjoyed it.

Man! I'm progressively getting more and more sore, lol. Too much fun bud! I'm ready to do it again!

I hope you fall down a flight of stairs and land on a rake.

What a good looking bait Matt! I've been dreaming of a 3pc bluegill for a long time! and in pauls hands....big uns BEWARE!!!

So, brandon and i have this little running joke. He tends to be the sucker that falls for some of my more outlandish/miserable/suicidal fishing trip ideas. He calls them "Jay's Sightseeing Adventures". Mostly because I come up with some wacky plan to go somewhere stupid and try a ridiculous technique. These usually involve many hours of driving and at least one other condition to make them miserable. Night fishing in January for example. ;D Since I have been on a lengthy break from trophy bass fishing, the only thing on my mind were big trout. After extensive research, I found a little jewell up in the high country. My plan was to get up at 3:30am, drive to Brandons parents house, pick up two mountain bikes, a bike rack, and some float tube fins. Already perfect conditions for one of Jay's Sightseeing Adventures, which he was all to ready to express. By 5:30 we were again on our way. After much nodding off by yours truly we arrived at approximately 8am and drove right past the parking area. After finding a campground host and probably waking him, we were informed that we had overshot our target by about 7 miles. . Upon re-arrival at the parking area we got the bicycles off the rack, the 30lb packs on our back and got all the aforementioned over 2 barbwire fences (legally). We rode for 100 yards... We thought we were gonna die. We are out of shape. After another 2miles and probably 10 breaks to evaluate our sanity and dry heave, we locked the bikes to an aspen to make the final 3/4 mile ascent, afoot. The lake was just over the hill. No, its just over THIS hill. NO...IT HAS TO BE JUST OVER THIS HILL! It wasnt, we were ummmmmmm disappointed. After another 100 feet the lake appeared just to our right, previously obscured by a small hill. Success! There was much rejoicing. It was 9:45. Just over 5 hours to reach our destination. Another 30 minutes of unpacking, and setting up rods, gear, tubes, waders, etc we were on the water. It was a relief to just be sitting and more or less at rest, lol but we had no fish in the first 45 minutes. It appeared this may very well be one of my infamous misadventures. It was incredibly windy, overcast, and cold. But then I see Brandon rear back with his horrible orange tipped abhoration that he calls a trout rod . After an exciting fight for all parties, he was rewarded with his first ever Lahontan Cutthroat. A nice one too! He proceeded to catch a few nice brook trout while i worked for one missed bite. We worked our way across the lake to the only real point where brandon proceeded to hook and land a very nice 21" Cutt that ripped drag for some time. After much high fiving and such, I rolled my fly out about 30 ft and as soon as it hit bottom i felt a wonderful thunk thunk. I swept the rod and was immediately informed that the fish on the other end would prefer to be in control . After a minute or so of drag ripping i caught a peek of her tail. She was big. I became scared. If I were to dump that fish, there is a real possibility of me crying. After five or six minutes, Brandon had both of our nets at the ready. Mine is smaller, but is less harmful to the fish's fins and slime coat. He tried that one first. Fail. He tried his second. Fail. Then he attempted some sort of double-net salad spoon maneuver that made me cringe. I decided to abort the net idea and luckily succeeded in cradling her up over the edge of my tube and into my lap. HOLY CRAP! My first ever Lahontan Cutt will probably be my lifetime PB. 26 inches from a small high country lake! Not a heavy fish, but BIG!! I was beside myself. This grueling suicide trip had just become completely worth it! She swam off, hopefully to be enjoyed by another. Brandon was catching tons of fish, with probably 4 brookies to every cutt. Probably 15 fish for him on the spinning rod. I worked up 2 more cutts on the fly one @ 20 and the other @ 19 inches. Couldnt get any brookies so when brandon ate lunch i used his crap rod to catch three brookies of 15, 16, and 17 inches. The brookies pictured are both of our new PB's 16" for brandon and 17" (tie) for me. These are my other two Cutts. Throughout this post you can see the awesome variation in coloring for these fish. Each variation is gorgeous but i am partial to the one that i have in the water. Pic doesnt do it justice! There was snow in the forecast and we looked up to see some pretty ominous clouds rolling over the peaks on the horizon. With such a long grueling trip ahead of us, we hustled off the water having had an awesome day. The trip out was tiring but nothing compared to the trip in. What an amazing day. Had a great time with brandon, even apart from the fishing it was just a fun experience.

Cue LBH response in 5....4....3....2....1..

What can I say man, i guess i like the extreme ends of the fishing spectrum, haha. Had an amazing fly trip with Brannus04 yesterday, we'll work up a post here at some point,

video games, pool, beer, envying my single and promiscuous friends ;D

I would like to formally retract my previous vote and 2nd this more accurate rendition of what's about to happen. I would like to 2nd this 2nd, for a 2nd time.

Sorry Scott, I might have to change my answer to match this one ;D

5bl is the man!

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Exotic dancers.

8ftish tons of backbone, softer/slower tip for casting and keeping hooks planted. For the smaller wake baits: Okuma 7'11 MH Okuma 7'6" H (little on the beefy side, will allow you to throw bigger baits down the road) Shimano Crucial Swimbait 7'11 H ( same as the Okuma 7'6") GLoomis 955C (by FAR my favorite wake jr rod)

No self respecting geek likes Stargate. Its all about Star Trek The Next Generation baby!!!!!

Or better yet, don't.

Not really, not right off the top of my head anyways. Ive gotten to where i only fish the 3:16 wakebaits, but i would be vigilant with other small wake baits like the slammer mini, rago rat and mouse, monster jack &jr, etc. I have discovered that I really dont like throwing the 6" hudd on 25 though. obviously doesnt affect the action, but 25 casts poorly, and it is harder to maintain good contact with a bait that has such low water resistance. I really want to be able to feel pushing bites and i think the 25 makes that harder.

In my experience, with both the baby wake and the wake jr. 25lb just seems to really dull the action. I only have 1 baby wake, but i've got 4 wake jrs and its the same for all of them. Also, but not nearly as important, you can cast a lot farther with 20lb. I saw you referencing steve's wake bait article on nef. he and i fish together and we decided together that 20lb works a lot better for us. If 25 works for you, more power to you, and im not saying that sarcastically. But in my experience 20 is much better and for someone trying to build confidence, they need to stack the odds in their favor whenever they can.

All i know is i caught twice as many fish after i switched to 20lb.

Try to eliminate unnecessary finger movement.

Those baits are both really good choices. The Wake Jr. will last 10X longer though. You must have a dedicated rod for these baits. I will second the Cardiff 300 recomendation. I use 20lb CXX or Elite for these baits. If you cant swing a dedicated rig financially, you could throw a bait like the 3:16 Baby Wake on a heavy flipping stick. For that bait i absolutely would NOT go heavier than 20lb line. as far as conditions go, the nastier the better. Low light/dark, good chop on the water, rain. Fishing these baits during a downward trend in barometric pressure is a big +. That being said they can work under just about any conditions. I have caught fish on these when there are solid 3ft waves, fishing off my knees with a blast off mask on , all the way to bluebird skies, glassy water, 100* temps, and 20 ft visibility. I dont think i have fished a single trip in the last two years without giving a wake bait a cast or two.

Copolymer just means that there are two polymers (in this case nylon polymers) used at the same time. I use CXX in the 20, 25, and 30lb weights for big baiting and leaders for night fishing.