FishDr

Tank smallies and solid largies!

Well done! The kids are fortunate to have you as a role model and fishing partner.

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Heck yeah!

I’ve got to make a trip to Newark, Delaware, next week and it looks like I might have a few free hours on hand. I’ll be shore-based but I’d love to cross paths with an east coast fish or two - a pickerel would be awesome since I’ve never caught one. If you’ve fished in that area and wouldn’t mind sharing a bit of general info on bodies of water I might try, please PM me. Thanks!

I would say it’s non-negotiable. If they won’t wear a life jacket while the big motor is running, they don’t get to ride in the boat, both for their safety and for yours (and your potential liability). When I fished tournaments about 20 yrs ago as a non-boater the expectation was that everyone had their own life jacket but every boater I fished with also had additional ones onboard. The rules fir the clubs I fished with were simple - life jackets were required if the big motor was on. If another competitor saw your boat not following that rule both anglers on the offending boat would be DQ’d.

That is a sweet fish. Pickerel are definitely on the bucket list.

I mostly fish the Baby Possum and the MS Mini-Slammer and have success at night and by day. A lot of the time I’m trying to fish them close to any type of cover that sticks out of the water (riprap, trees, docks) where there’s a hard edge that a rodent might try to climb on, but I’ll also fish them along shallow shorelines. The Mini-Slammer is lethal fished tight along the edge of shoreline cattails/tules/grass. The second most common location is in deeper water over weedbeds or along weed lines, as described by @Dsouth in some of his posts a couple of years back. That can be really effective with a cranking Baby Possum.

That's the kind of excitement you really don't want! I've had bald eagles and osprey make a pass at wake baits and Hudds before, and have twice had great horned owls pick up (and luckily drop) Slammers waking along the shoreline at night. Like you, I'm thankful I've not hooked one yet - really don't want to try to unhook something angry with serious sets of talons.

Nice January Hudd bass!

Nice way to christen the new kayak!

What a way to wrap up your year of fishing!

Gorgeous brown trout! Great job!

Love the photos of the glowing eyes! I've never had luck catching an 'eye that I'd illuminated with my headlamp, but it definitely seems to be working well for you. There is something exciting about seeing that pair of glowing orbs, especially when there's a lot of space between them - then you know the big girls are on the prowl. CG_Fishes makes an interesting point about the timing - I too have found that there's a window of higher feeding activity right at dusk (the witching hour). After that it seems pretty sporadic, at least in two of the main lakes I fish for walleyes at night. In one of the lakes I think the fish move shallow, whack a rainbow trout or two, and are done for the night - the trick is getting your bait in front of them before they find that first stocker rainbow.

Nice walleye! The Magdraft seems to be a favorite of the big marble eyes.