Believe it or Not?

[thomaskgrosvenor]

NJ Fishing Pals:
1) Walking the dog this past week at the lake around 9 pm. Saw two unattended fishing poles. One had a line in the water about 5 – 10 feet off the shore. Saw the bobber moving around and thought it was live bait swimming. Then the bobber started to pop under, Then it started to move away and it looked like the pole was going with it. Went over and grabbed the pole. I held it for a minute and asked a jogger and then a walker going by if it was theirs. Since owner of pole was no where to be found, I asked another walker to hold my dog while I reeled in the trout, about 15”. It looked like it swallowed the hook so I got it one grass to get a closer look (it was dark mind you) and it flopped, shook the hook out itself, and flopped back into the water. Put the hook in an eyelet and left the poles. Went back to the location after making a lap with the dog and the fella was back there fishing. (The morally upstanding side of me wanted to make sure the poles were retrieved by owner. The evil side of me was thinking finders/keepers. But after so many years of CCD, the moral side of me always wins)
2) Had told story to some colleagues from work who fish and they told me of the winter stock at this lake and that this winter the stock was of trout of good size. Feeling a little bit guilty of the easy catch on someone else’s pole that I am taking credit for, I figured I would torture myself with some fishing at this lake and try for a trout that I legitimately earned. Needless to say, I have caught decent bass at this lake but only with a great deal of time and effort, hence the use of the word torture.
3) So Christmas Eve day arrives. I went over to the lake with a bunch of jigheads with different sized trailer grubs, crappie and trout magnets. Not sure if this was the best stuff to use, but it is what I had and involved some tactics I wanted to try out. (Was not what the fella whose trout I caught had on his line). Needless to say, I spent an inordinate amount of time diddling. Finally as I was making my lap around the lake I came to a bridge where a feeding stream enters the lake. The current of the stream into the lake was pretty good in that there had been some significant rain. At this stage I was fiddling with the tiny white trout magnet. I casted into the current at the edge of the bridge and something pulled the bobber down. Started to reel it in, it jumped and spat out the hook. About a 8-10” LMB. I thought maybe the little trout magnet hook was too small as I wanted to try again for the bass, so I switched to the larger crappie magnet (as labeled) in the chartreuse color. Casted into the current to catch the one that got away but got a nice crappie instead, about 8”, biggest one I have caught. A little later, got another one slightly smaller. I was very happy with my crappie. They were very good looking crappie. Again, though, when I catch fish here they are good fish but finding them is never easy and when I do it is far from a smorgasbord.
4) Had more free time on Christmas day. Went back to the lake with the dog for his walk. Figured I would try some more fishing based on all the activity I saw the previous day. (lots of carp jumps, but haven’t gotten around to fishing for carp) Just wanted to work with the trout magnet. The lake was very calm. Not sure this was a good lure for these conditions. Anyway, walked the dog, made some stops. Little fish teased my little trout magnet and bobber. Went back to the spot where I caught the other fisherman’s trout, and under my bobber went! I got excited! My dog got excited! It felt like a good size fish, landed it……..and at last………….. an approx. 18” …….catfish (not sure what kind, very black with white stomach). Got it back into the water quick. Dog turning into good fishing teammate.
5) Finished walking the dog, brought him home, still an hour and a half of daylight left. Since I saw a lot of activity in the water, I went back with the spinners for a round of a new form of exercise I am inventing called fish-jogging (pronounced fish-yogging, with a silent j as Ron Bergundy says). Moving with purpose, along with joggers and walkers, I rapidly covered the entire lake by 6 pm making may casts with spinners and caught many small up to about 8” lmb, but no luck with trout. I had tried spinners here last summer but nothing touched them. Strange these fish are.
6) For you executives, the executive summary:
a. Crappie magnets can catch crappie
b. Trout magnets can catch catfish
c. A highly educated individual with multiple PhD's I once worked for said to me: "You know, you're never going to get anywhere in life unless you learn to take credit for other people's work."
d. It has been unseasonably warm, perhaps creating unusual pond/lake fishing conditions for this time of year?

[MudCat08]

Sounds like some fun days on the lake. You could also try powerbait for the trout or nitecrawler under a bobber (the fisherman in your story may have been using one of those baits). But if you are not fishing for dinner and are only C&R then avoid powerbait because that is a sure way to gut hook the trout.

I find fishing for trout difficult in stocked ponds and lakes, not sure why. so you're not alone haha. I caught a couple of trout in rivers that were stocked in the fall this Christmas week. Insects came out and the fish are feeding!

[thomaskgrosvenor]

Don’t mind me replying to my own post. Stopped back at the lake on Saturday. Much colder than Friday. Saw the buzzbait posts from Friday and thought I would try mine out. The lake seemed much less active than on Friday and none of the big movement I saw in the water from Friday was around. Needless to say, did not get any hits on the buzzbaits. I have been trying them on the river with no luck as well. Got them a bit squeaky setting them up in front of a fan and letting them spin for about 6 hours. Someone in a kayak told me they caught a pike on the river with a buzzbait. I caught a pike on the river with a senko on my bass/pickerel rig but have had no luck with any of the recommended pike lures.
Anyway back to the lake. Saturday, some of the guys were scoring some nice catifish like the one I caught Friday. They were going to eat them. They looked tasty but I’d take a rain check on any offers to dine on them, thank you. Again, wasted a significant amount of time, but learned some things.
Finally, Sunday arrives and my OCD toward the lake is still kicking on account of the weather prediction of unseasonably high temps. Figured I would try the silver minnow spoon lure with some different trailers as it is advertised as a versatile lure that can catch trout. But it was kind of cool all day long and no sun. Tried some of the spoon techniques I have researched but no luck. Over this past summer, I caught a bass with a spoon/twister tail combo while I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. Other than that, have had no luck fishing with spoons in ponds/lakes or in the river.
Saw a few trout caught by anglers using powerbait. Anyway, no luck with the spoon. Went home, got the dog. Walked the dog. Went food shopping. Then finally at about 7 pm air temperature got up to about 60. Had to go back to the lake and see what was going on. Air was warm, breeze was strong but cold. Saw some nice currents and through my crappie magnet on jighead/bobber combo into them and caught two more crappie, one small and one big (for a crappie), wasting very little time, and now will call it quits at the lake until spring.
They say a picture speaks a thousand words, but I prefer the thousand words approach for my anecdotes. However, it is cool to see the impressive fishes you folks catch.