Showing posts with label small mouth buffalo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label small mouth buffalo. Show all posts

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Late Summer Carp Fishing - Lake Erie

After a 3 week hiatus due to some traveling and family duties (including my nieces' wedding), I was able to get out for some carp fishing today.

The first several fish were catfish. For reason the catfish were h-u-n-g-r-y today. It took the carp a little while to warm up to my bait offerings, but I was able to land a few carp later in the day. Two of the carp fell for my homemade almond/vanilla/Southern Comfort flavored deer corn.

I caught 7 catfish, 4 carp and 1 small mouth buffalo. In case you are wondering that is more catfish than I have ever caught in one session before. Although it's not what I was hoping for, since I was targeting carp, it was kind of cool to set a new personal best for catfish.

The catfish were hitting everything I threw at them early on. Butternut flavored ground bait, wild cherry berry, bumble berry, sweet plum, anise, and peach hook baits. I switched out butternut ground bait for pineapple and finally broke the string of catfish. Then I landed a couple on my homemade almond/vanilla/Southern Comfort flavored deer corn as hook bait.

The carp did not look too healthy for some reason. Many of them were scared up more than usual with lots of redness that is not typical for this location near Lake Erie.

Here are a few pictures from today's session:





 
A little worn down looking, which is rare at this venue


Low teens carp

I have learned that a small amount of pressure on the fish when preparing for a picture
 helps them relax and they stop flopping around / risk hurting themselves

Mid teens small mouth buffalo

Ranger net
Low teens common

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Independence Day Weekend Near Lake Erie

The plan for this weekend was to fish a pier on Lake Erie that I have been looking forward to try for several weeks. The area is currently experiencing an algae bloom that has tinted the water in that area a very dark green color. Based on my experience in the past it's very tough to fish in those conditions, so we opted to try another location nearby.

I have been unable to fish for a couple of weeks due to a nasty battle with walking pneumonia the past 10 days or so. It started as an allergy, progressed to bronchitis and kept getting worse until it started affecting my breathing. Today was great therapy and I am feeling much better now.

The decision to switch locations paid off. Here are a few pictures of the fish I landed today.

A nice mid teens common carp

A nicely scaled 10 pounder

The second carp caught today with nice coloring

The first carp was landed shortly after lines in early this morning

This is only my 3rd or 4th mirror I have ever caught. It's very rare to catch a mirror carp at this particular location.

My streak catching small mouth buffaloes continues.
Despite handling the fish with great care, this time of year the small mouth buffaloes are always marked up quite a bit.
I am guessing it's left over from spawning activity.
To make this picture a little more palatable, I touched up a couple of the rough spots on this fish.
I also caught a small catfish, but can't seem to find a picture of the fish on my phone tonight. If I do, I'll post it up too.

My fishing partner today, Erik Sevo, landed a nice 21 pound common carp that is a new personal best for him and also landed his first small mouth buffalo tipping the scales at 15 pounds 14 ounces.

Congratulations Erik!

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Lake Erie Michigan Carp Fishing

In Southeast Michigan carp fishermen are lucky to have access to Detroit River and Lake Erie. On Saturday I headed out to a spot near Lake Erie hoping for a chance at landing some catch and release carp.

The Midwest Regionals are next week in Saginaw. After blanking 3 times in a row my goal for the day was to bank some fish and build confidence for next week's event. We succeeded.

Today's effort included a nice small mouth buffalo and spunky 18 and 14 pound commons.

Mid teens common

13.5 pound small mouth buffalo
 
18 pound common carp
 
 
These fish were all caught with Trilogy Carp Baits flavored corn and R & W Carp Juice flavorings.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Preparing Fish at a Detroit Area Restaurant

Buffalo fish cooking at a Detroit restaurant (Photo courtesy of Detroit Free Press and Salwan Georges, photographer)
Last June while fishing near our home in western Wayne County Michigan, Linda and I met some young twenty-something year olds fishing near us at a local lake.

They caught a few fish, but were very interested in convincing us to give them the fish we were catching to add to their cache. I shared a few fish with them that day after getting to know them a little bit. They described a process for preparing and cooking the fish that sounds very familiar to the picture above published in the Detroit Free Press article on 12/20/15.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Small Mouth Buffalo, Common Carp and Catfish

I spent the Labor Day fishing.

Here are a few pictures.

After catching 4 catfish I broke through with this chunky common carp

A few minutes later I landed this small mouth buffalo
For some reason the small mouth buffalo I'm catching this time of year are little "beat up" looking. This one was no exception and looked like he'd done a few rounds with Mike Tyson in the prime of his career.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Small Mouth Buffalo and Common Carp Catches

I caught my first buffalo a few short weeks ago at 11 pounds. I broke my personal best twice in about 30 minutes on Monday afternoon.

One of these fish was caught on a WCB pink pop-up dumbbell and the other was caught on a homemade habanero boilie. In fact I caught 5 fish on my homemade boilies.

The first buffalo weighed # 20.4 and the second one # 21.11. I really enjoyed catching these fish.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

20 pounds 4 ounces
The colors on this fish were very unusual


21 pounds 11 ounces
 
Profile picture?

Small Mouth Buffalo close-up
I caught 8 others ranging from # 20 down to # 7 for a total of 12 fish (2 catfish and 10 carp).


13 pounds


10 pounds

Catfish

8 pounds

7 pounds

9 pounds

8 pounds

11 pounds

Sunday, April 26, 2015

My First Small Mouth Buffalo

I have been fishing a venue that is known to have a supply of small mouth buffalo. Everyone I know who fishes for carp has caught one there, but I had never caught one -- until today.

I caught this nice 10 pound small buffalo at mid day on Sunday.

Michigan small mouth buffalo

Small buffalo in sephia colors