Ice Bucket Challenge

So, as these videos on social media popped up everywhere, I had my fingers crossed that no one would nominate me. Well, someone did, and me being a good sport, I participated. Instead of donating my money to ALS, I will be donating to Autism awareness. I just wanted to share my video with all of you. 

....and remember people...It's not stupid....it's nice :)

Buzzing in darkness

3:30 AM is either late in the into the night, or early in the morning. It all depends on how you look at it.

Clocks wrong. The hammer will fix it!

For me 3:30 AM is early in the morning, and for the past 2 weeks, I have been fishing for about 30 minutes before I go into the gym for my morning workout.

There's just something really peaceful about fishing when you have nothing but the moon and stars providing you light. The lake I fish is always calm and almost glass like each morning. The other day I was joined by 2 hooting owls, who talked me into fishing for an extra 10 minutes.

Watch out for those skunks...and not the fishing kind.

For these quick outings I primarily use either a spinnerbait, or a buzzbait. I always start off with the buzzbait, because, there's just something extra cool about casting that lure into the darkness and being able to hear it chug along. The best is when you hear the bass blow up on it, and even better is when you hear a blow up and you can no longer hear the chugging of the lure. FISH ON!! 

Beware of the shadows.

Ninja fishing!

I'm going to try tossing a big popper with my fly rod next!

One of those days...

Have you ever had one of those days, where it seems nothing wants to go your way?

The Subaru all loaded up for it's first of many trips.

Well, I had one of those on a recent trip to the Northwoods of Wisconsin.

The target species - Musky with a side of smallmouth bass.

I enticed 2 follows from the same musky in the first 20 minutes with a fly I tied, but couldn't get the shiny green beauty to commit. As the day went on, I had another musky follow, and then I was able to get one to commit, but me being over excited about the take, I lost focus and didn't strip set the hook, and went with a hook set I would normally do for bass. I realized the second I lifted my rod. The fight lasted about 3 seconds after that, and then my line went slack. D'oh!

Orange Crush - 8/0 single with an articulated shank.

I was able to hook up with multiple smallies, but just couldn't bring them to hand. I had a 4 +lber smash one of my flies, and then swim behind me, back around, between my legs, back around me, back out, and back through my legs before coming unbuttoned. All of the others came unhooked when they went airborne. After 9 hours of wading we went back to the car to grab some lunch, and I switched to my baitcaster and an inline spinner. New set up - Same story. Hooked up with multiple smallies, but they just didn't want to stay on. It became quite comical.

I know what you're thinking...you use barbless hooks - Correct - But on the flies that I recently tied for this trip, I completely forgot to smash the barbs on them.

Oh, well...there's always next time!

At least my buddy The Fat Gordo was able to hook up with a bunch of those beautiful Northwoods smallies, and I was able to take some pictures of them. 

Flexin'

I love my GoPro camera!

All in all it was a great trip, and it definitely won't be my last. Unfortunately, I will be sending in my rod to Redington for repair. 2 of the pieces came apart while casting and the male ferrule on one of the pieces snapped at the tip. Thank goodness for their warranty.

End of an 10.5 hour wade. - Exhausted.