Homemade Strawberry Dough Bait For Late Spring Carp

The good thing about a four year old is they love making strawberry dough bait since it is very much like Playdough. My son and I happily made strawberry dough bait the night before I went out fishing. The bait includes strawberry Jello, corn meal, flour, vanilla, sugar, and Wheaties.

I rigged up with some larger Raven floats, Raven #4 octopus hook, some shot, and Raven 10lb green mono-filament.

The night before I also chummed the area with corn at the private lake I was going to fish. My hope was that the chum and over night rain would get the fish on the feed.

I sat there for what seemed like forever before my first float shot down. I rolled up the slack and with a mighty swing I set the hook into nothing. A big swing and a miss!!! Another bite and another whiff! Grrrrr son-of-a….

My nerves are getting the better of me. Now completely off my game my float goes under yet again. This time I do it right. There it a huge swirl and the sound of drag. My first fish is at hand.

I manage to catch two more each fish bigger then the next. There are so many fishermen here in the US. That still look down and refuse to even try to fish for carp. I grew up fishing carp and I still have an absolute blast battling these brutes.

So you fishing snobs out there, drop your trout and bass stuff for a day, make some homemade bait with the kids, get up early and trash your nerves playing tug of war with

Some shiny monster carp!!!!

Little Atom Lures Catch Cold Front Fish

After a couple of 80 degree days the temperature plummets down 30 degrees and my bass bite I had been enjoying shuts down.

DupageAngler,com has a podcast on Wednesdays which I co-host. We were talking about the benefits of being a multi-species angler. Two of those is the ability to drop what you are going after and the willingness to change water.

Since my bass bite was dead I decided to switch to bluegills in small ponds. I grabbed only a small ultra light and a box of Little Atom plastics. I rigged a fat-boy jig, a small Thill float, and a purl micro Nuggie. My third cast I hook into the first of 3 bass. Funny, I came to this pond because the bass were not biting. I then got into some nice gills. I continued to switch colors and from Nuggies to Wedgees.

Once the bite slowed I switched lakes and quickly caught a handful of fish. Yahoo!!! The temp drops, I am wearing a jacket, and I just had a great couple of  hours. Little Atom came through big time!

These baits are affordable, durable, sleek, and deadly. They are so sensitive that it only takes a slight twitch to get the tail moving. If there is some wind and waves you don’t even have to get the baits moving at times. They are so sensitive that the waves do the work for you. You can purchase them HERE.

You can listen to our latest PODCAST where we discuss these baits and others.

A Tale of Two Rivers

I needed to get a look at the rivers after the huge flood of 2013 we had in our area. I managed to get out four times. I got out once to the fox with DA member Sooner Bass and three very short trips to the DuPage, two of those with DA member JcCrappies.

The first trip on May 4^th to the DuPage with Chunsum (JcCrappies) was a surprise. The water was still way up and chocolate milk. We fished only the nook and cranny of slack water we could find. We managed to score some smallies. We also got about a dozen crappies behind a bridge. Two nice fish we caught and one beast lost.

The second trip on May 5^th to the fox was an eye opener. On a tip from DA member Flawlessfishing we hit the Fox on a search for White Bass. We managed to get some whites some smallies and even some yellows. The water here was still very high and un-safe to wade. The real excitement came when Sooner Bass hooked and caught a 33.25 Musky!!!!

Number three was back to the Dupage on May 7^th after work, which the stress relief fishing provides after a hard day is priceless, the water was a foot and a half lower then the previous trip. The water was still muddy but the bite was much better. I had 20 smallies myself and a few panfish. Chunsum did very well also. Though the numbers were up the size was not and only one good fish was caught. But it was a blast!!

On my last trip on May 9^th, I went solo to some new water that in normal levels would be too shallow. I try to make myself fish new water a few times a year. To my surprise in an hour I caught 3 cats and one small mouth.

Another week or so with no major rain and the rivers will be hot and ready. I fished all these trips with my standard drift rig. I happily use Raven steelhead products to dial in this technique.

Anyone can successfully wade and catch fish at rivers, including you.

Crappie, Kayaks, and Calm

My good friend Chunsum signed us up for Kayak Wars. Kayak wars takes teams of five who catch, measure, and photo their catches for points. At the end team with the most points wins. Now, none of us live in our yaks so we have a snowballs chance in hell of winning, but we at least want to have some points. Chunsum, Sooner Bass, and I decided to meet at a small lake and we were praying for just a few points each.

It was the perfect fishing morning. This day was warmer then it had been, the water was calm, and the lake invited me to enjoy the magic it holds. I had a very stressful week at work. As I have gotten older anxiety has become a resident in my head and is getting harder and harder to deal with. Only fishing can make it shut off like a magic door to a problem-less utopia.  Once in my yak and set-up I took a deep breath and my worries drifted away and were replaced with content and calm.

It did not take long for the first of 15 fish for the day to bite! I used a few different rigs. I just rotated them, trying to find what would work best. The first rod was set up with a crappie slip float and a straight minnow. The second rod had an ice jig and a Little Atom Jumbo Wedgee. The third stick had a thill float with a double rig of a tube jig and lake fork shad. The last set-up was just a float and crawler combo.

I landed several nice fish. I landed only one crappie nice enough to score points on Kayak Wars. They don’t make it easy. One cast my Thill slowly disappeared, I set the hook and what I thought was a small fish decided to quadruple in size right at the side of my yak!!! My big fish opportunity vanished as it was covered with my expletives and tears. I didn’t have a chance.

JcCrappies (Chunsum) caught plenty of fish as well and managed 2 fish for points! Ted (Sooner) met us late but ended up with about 15 fish when he finished. It was the perfect day for fishing, laughing, and relaxation.