CybrSlydr

We've been going out about once/week, typically Fridays as I don't have class then. We've just gone to the same places we've already been, the AEP lakes, and haven't caught anything so I didn't really see any reason to post something about us going to the same place catching nothing. When we go somewhere new, I'll certainly post a report then. For now, I believe I'm going to save up to get one of these guys - Cheaper than a boat, easier to store/transport than a boat, etc. Though, of course, this means I'll have to get a trolling motor, a battery, a fish finder... lol It's never simple with fishing, is it?

Today was the big day - the first time my brother and I ever got on the water to go fishing. They offered canoes, boats and other watercraft for rental and the best part - anything that you could paddle or pedal was only $10/hr! Vastly cheaper than most places we've been. So, we jumped at the chance. We rented an aluminum canoe. At this point, I figured the fish would practically be jumping into our canoe since we could actually GO where the d**n things were since we wouldn't be tied down to the shore. That's not exactly how it went though... Being 100% honest, two people in a canoe terrified me. Every single little motion of either of us sent the thing rocking. I felt there was no way in the world we could both fish from the thing and not get dumped. So after about 10 minutes of this, I told him to take us back to the slipway and one of us would get out and the other would continue on. My brother got to continue in the canoe. That's why we don't have any pictures of both of us on the water - I didn't feel nearly stable enough to even try to get into my backpack and get the camera out, let alone try and fish. I think next time it would work much better if we each got our own kayak. So I went and fished around a point near the north side of the beach and sort-of followed my brother and his floating with the current. Eventually I ended up on a dock on the south side of the beach while he continued to float south. He got quite a bit away from me - far enough I couldn't get a decent picture with my camera! He says he wasn't that far off but we could barely yell at each other and hear. We both fished rattle traps, senkos, swimbaits, cranks... Not a single bite again - for me or him. I even bought a net thinking for SURE, THIS TIME we'd finally catch something. Nope. That said, I can't fault the lake - it's gorgeous! And we picked two gorgeous days to visit (we also went yesterday as we thought the boat house would be open on a Friday, but it wasn't - so we came back today since the sign said it'd be open on weekends in the fall). The next 3 pictures are from Friday, the ones above are from today. We are certain to return in the near future, when we have a little more money to spend on separate kayaks or, once I get a boating license, something with an engine (Pontoon Boats are $40/hr). Fingers crossed that... someday, sometime... We catch a dang fish!!!

So, my brother and I found a lake nearby that rents boats for $10/hr! We were going to go today and utilize it, but the boat house was closed but will be open tomorrow. So, we're going back tomorrow and FINALLY get on the water!!! Granted, it will be on a self-powered watercraft (kayak, paddle boat, etc) so we won't go too far as we have to power ourselves back. lol What I'd like to ask of you folks is where you think we might want to focus our efforts? Here is a link to the ODNR pdf of the lake. http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/Portals/wildlife/Maps/Lake Maps/PDFs/dowlake2.pdf Today, we did shore fishing by the point near the fish attractors and didn't get anything though we did see more than a few fish breaking the surface further out. It was quite windy today, the wind blows SE->NW. Any suggestions you can offer would be greatly appreciated!

Since wearing a PFD is an important part of fishing on the water, has anyone used one of these or seen it? It's called the UFloat and is Coast Guard approved. Looks like it'd be great for fishing as there's no restriction of arm motion since it's essentially upside-down. Obviously, you look a bit of a goober since it looks like a giant diaper, but... Seems like a good idea! https://theufloat.com/products/ufloat-uscg-type-v-pfd?variant=16952248069

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/03/bass-pro-shops-to-buy-cabelas-for-6550-a-share-in-cash.html Fishing and hunting equipment chain Cabela's said it agreed to be bought by Bass Pro Shops in a deal valued at $5.5 billion that will help the privately held company nearly double its store count in North America. The offer of $65.50 per share is a 19.2 percent premium to Cabela's close on Friday. Shares of Cabela's jumped nearly 15 percent to $63.00 in early trading, their highest in more than a year. Up to Friday close, they had risen 17 percent since the company said in December it was exploring strategic alternatives. Cabela's has struggled with declining sales of apparel and footwear and has reported same-store sales growth in only one quarter in more than three years. The retailer had been under pressure from activist hedge fund Elliott Associates L.P, which disclosed an 11.1 percent stake in October last year, to pursue strategic alternatives. Reuters reported on Sunday that a consortium of Bass Pro Shops, Goldman Sachs Group's private equity arm and Capital One Financial was in the lead to buy the company. The combined company will own 184 stores in the United States and Canada. Cabela's also agreed to sell its credit card business called "World's Foremost Bank" to Capital One Financial Corp, which will forge a 10-year partnership with Bass Pro Shops to issue credit cards to Cabela's customers. Capital One spokeswoman Pam Girardo said terms of the transaction would not be disclosed. Bass Pro Shops founder and CEO Johnny Morris will continue as CEO and majority shareholder of the combined company, which will remain private. Bass Pro Shops will finance the deal through preferred equity financing commitments of $1.8 billion from Goldman Sachs and $600 milllion Pamplona Capital Management. Springfield, Missouri-based Bass Pro Shops has long been in the running to acquire Cabela's. J.P. Morgan Chase advised Bass Pro Shops and Guggenheim Securities advised Cabela's.

Unfortunately, the shop didn't have any of the hooks with the spinners. So I picked up a 3-pack of the Trokar weighted swimbait hooks. WOW - those are some seriously beefy hooks! REALLY like them - if I could combine the Owner center pin and screw with the Trokar hooks, I think you'd have the perfect swimbait hook. Weren't cheap though - 3-pack was $7.49.

I think it is absolutely ridiculous how protective people are of locations. Ending a friendship over it? Come on, you cannot be serious. The way some people talk in this thread you'd think fish were extinct and they found the last one on earth to fish and it was made of some kind of gold. Fish in public waters are a publicly available natural resource available to everyone and staking some kind of personal claim to a location so only you can fish it is incredibly selfish. So what if they bring someone along and "your" spot is no longer "secret". There are a lot of fish in the world, isn't part of fishing the challenge of finding them rather than repeatedly hitting the same spot over and over? Isn't that like... Fish in a barrel? I just wholly disagree with most of the attitudes shown on here. That's why in my fishing report threads I supply pictures of the locations so if others head out to where I am, they might share in whatever luck I had.

Bingo! Owner has the "Flashy Swimmer with CPS" and is exactly what I'm looking for! Thank you!

I'm going again this Friday as we should have a couple showers with cold rain move through - and I've read on here that cold rains lower the water temps faster than cold air does, so I'm hoping that we'll start having better luck from then on. Fingers crossed!

I'm honestly amazed by some of the responses in this thread. You'd think the fish were made of gold or something. Utterly ridiculous.

My brother and I have had similar results, though we don't have a boat at our disposal. Nothing but bank fishing for us. We've also only been fishing since late July, but if you check my threads in the Fishing Reports forum you'll see we've had little to no luck as well. We've been fishing about once/week but I haven't bothered to post any threads because neither of us have managed to catch anything. This summer, between the two of us, we've caught 3 fish - and I caught all 3. 1 catfish and 2 1-2lb LMB. It's been very disappointing for us - we're really hoping that once the weather starts to cool off we'll have better luck.

My local shop had the Owner #4/0 hooks, unweighted. So I bought a pack and really, REALLY like the pin/screw setup! I fished both a 5" Senko and a Zoom Super Fluke and they didn't budge. However, I did lose half a Senko - tore off during cast right where the hook comes through the bait. The top stayed on great. lol Hot Rod sent me some Senko rigging info on PM too, appreciate the help folks!

Bit disappointed in Walmart - closest thing I could find to a swimbait hook was a football head jig. Also tried my local outdoors store and they didn't have any either. Going to check a store in the next town over tomorrow before we go out and see if they've got 'em.

Color me jelly - my fist bass (my profile pic) is a lot smaller than yours. lol Congrats man!!!

Remind me to not go fishing with you. lol

I've Texas rigged my Senkos and the Zoom Super Flukes and was not happy with how well they stayed on the hook. So I'm wondering if a swimbait hook with the screw would be a good idea for both and increase the number of baits I retain rather than lose. If so, which would you suggest? I've seen some that have a blade that goes along underneath but don't recall what kind it was. Thanks!

I've tried them Wacky and Texas. I've only ever caught one fish with one and it was wacky rigged.

What do you do about footwear? Do they require boots or some other form of shoe?

Oooo boy, breathables are expensive! Regardless, thank you all for the input, I appreciate it. Man, figure fishing isn't too bad to get into - $40 rod, $50 reel, $10 line and a few lures and you figure you're good. Then you realize... Oh, I need waders, more lures, different line, a float tube that turns into a kayak/boat, top rack for the car for said kayak... lol Things spiral out of control quickly!

Seems like a silly question, but as my brother and I mull over the idea of getting a pair (most likely chest-high), the thought occurred to me - what do you wear under them? I assume that with neoprene you have to go bare as it needs the heat from your skin to warm up the water insulation in the neoprene to make it work. What about regular rubber ones? Jeans? Shorts? Whatever will fit? Thanks for the help folks.

We might hit that up as well someday. Right now we're planning on hitting up Knox Lake in October and rent a boat as we've read it's a GREAT lake for bass.

Well, lost my Rattle Trap yesterday. Got it wedged under something at Veto lake and couldn't get it back. Kinda ticked - never caught anything with it and only got to take it fishing 3 times.

Are there any links to threads from previous years meetups that I could peruse? Can you give a ballpark estimate on costs (lodging, licensing fees, etc) for the time frame? I assume lodging will be the most expensive part. Also, I see Pickwick is part of 3 different states - which state will this be in? Thanks!

Today I met up with a long-time friend and former roomie of mine to go fishing at the Alum Creek Reservoir near Delaware, OH. It was about half-way for each of us as he lives up near Toledo. His wife along with my brother also joined us. We left our house just before 6:00am and arrived at the Marina, our designated meeting spot, around 8:15. My friend, Corey, and his wife, Jill, arrived about 15 minutes after we did. We obtained a map of the reservoir from the guy at the counter in the marina which noted all the various places and things you can do at the reservoir. We started out at Cheshire near a causeway as our first place of fishing. There was a very gradual drop off on this location where we were 15ish feet out and up to our knees in water. I started with a Zoom Super Fluke Smoked Shad swimbait on a #3/0 Gamakatsu OWG hook and had it Texas rigged, unweighted. The technique I used was twisting at the waist to drag the fluke through the water and as I rotated back I would reel in so the fluke would fall. You can see my brother in this picture. Didn't get any bites at first but about 20min in, I got a bite and hauled in another 1-2lb LMB. I was standing on the rocks you see in the previous image. Corey and myself. All business. lol Unfortunately, nobody else was getting any bites so we decided to hit up some more places - unfortunately for us, being shore bound, we didn't have a whole lot of options at many of the other locations. Especially since there were four of us. Most of the places we tried after Cheshire had one or two spots for maybe one person - but the big problem was all the weeds and vegetation that the boats in the reservoir were kicking up along with the waves. We then went to the Alum Creek Reservoir Dam Spillway as I've seen many videos of people fishing this and landing some very nice fish. We also learned that it was a good place to fish for Muskies - Corey REALLY wanted to land a Muskie and brought some steel leaders with his baitcaster. Unfortunately... The spillway was quite shallow and not much breadth of water. There were also about 15 other people along the way tossing lures and bobbers in. So, we cast a few times and shortly called it enough as it was kind of pointless. We also saw THIS when we arrived - I nearly exploded in excitement and had to take a picture. We then went to where it all began that day and followed the shoreline off to the right to try some other spots and test our luck. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to get here other than vegetation. After this, we decided to call it a day. I had my brother take a photo of Jill, Corey and myself. Jill then took a picture of Ryan, Corey and myself. You can see the bottoms of our shorts are wet from standing about knee-deep in the water trying to cast past the vegetation... and failing. lol All-in-all, it was fun. We wish we'd caught more fish, but it was Labor Day, it was warm (though the water was nice and cool on our legs) and the water was quite active with all the boaters. Corey and I are already thinking of hitting up Hoover Reservoir next-door in October.

About the same size as the only two I've caught.