John Kelley

That's awesome, it is turning your downrigger ball into a giant bottom bouncer weight!! Ingenius indeed!!

That's a good one, for sure!!

I don't really have a dog in this fight, since I am from South Dakota, and therefore my opinion probably does not matter too much, but I have been wondering about the whole pike management thing for years now. I grew up in Central Minnesota, where we had so many pike it would make your head spin! Every lake was absolutely full of them, from hammer handles to about 6 pounds, with the occasional 10-12 pounders. At the turn of the 20th century, it seems, my prior statesmen had gone on a pike trophy spree, catching and kiling any and all monster pike in our 10,000 plus lakes, and wiped out most of the trophy fish, allowing the smaller pike to over-reproduce and stunt themselves. You see, not only are large pike great spawners, they also keep a check on the overall pike population, by feeding on the smaller pike. I did my research on pike behavior over the years, including some very good conversations with some of my British angling friends, where they have treated pike like we treat muskies, since the early 60's. They have these smaller, shallower lakes over there, which constantly produce monster pike over the 25 pound mark. I asked my fishing buddy, and research scientist, Iain Murray, what their secret was to producing such numbers of trophy pike, and he told me it was quite simple, really, "don't keep any pike over 9 pounds". He said they had figured out that most 9 pound pike were females, and that they were at that crucial crossroads in size, where they were switching over to a larger sized prey fish, in the 1-2 pound range, and were ready to make that jump up into the larger framed "top of the food chain predator". I have often wondered why we can't treat the Northern Pike the same way we treat the Muskellunge, which is just the Northern Pike's larger cousin. Like I said, I was born and raised in Minnesota, where we had the second largest pike ever caught and registered in American waters, @ 45 pounds and change. Second only to your Great Sacandaga record Pike of over 46 pounds!! Makes me kind of sad to see the state with the largest recorded American pike, and I still say the largest recorded musky (Art Lawton's 69 pound 15 ouncer), whatever the IGFA says, to treat Pike in this "catch and kill" method in tournaments. The state I live in now treats them much worse, I must say. When I go ice fishing out here on the prairie, I constantly see 10-15 pound pike thrown out on the ice as "trash fish", and it makes me mad. South Dakota has a very small population of people(around 800,000), so most of the lakes have some really nice fish in them, but these people seem to only want Walleyes, Perch, and Crappies, and anything that eats them are considered garbage fish. I try to do my part and release large pike whenever I can these days. I released a nice 40 incher earlier this winter. I just hope she does not get caught by another Sodak, and clubbed and left for the ravens. Anyways, I really love your New York fisheries, and wish you guys the best with instituting C & R tournaments. Sorry for my long-winded rant.

Maybe you guys out there, but we are frozen in pretty solid out here on the prairie. Still have a couple months of ice fishing ahead of me!!

I have been a Black's guy, and have really liked them over any pinch style release, but after reading your posts about the dual tension controls on the Chamberlains', I have decided to order some and try them next season. I fish the MO river for Kings out here in South Dakota, and I am constantly towing walleyes around, and never knowing they are on: all the way up to 29 inchers. It would be nice to be able to crank the rods all the way over, and still have a walleye be able to trip the release. I have a couple of them now, and they seem like they are going to work out awesome. They look just like a fancier version of a Blacks, with a horizontal tension knob, plus the vertical tension knob. They ought to work great for Lake Michigan Browns this spring as well!! Thanks for the tip, Captain Rich!!!

Nice looking red phase Ruffie!!

Thank you Pap, and I intend to do just that!!

Best eating game bird of them all!! Good shooting, man!

Thanks Les, wish I was back there, though. Really miss those big salmon!!

Another fine piece of art, Paul!! How big was this male brownie?

Yeah we did, that was the best part!

I took advantage of the New Year's holiday, and took a couple of days of vacation to head west 350 miles or so, to ice fish the only lake in South Dakota that has lake trout. My friend Mike decided to head out there with me, and so, with my brand new insulated Frabill shack packed in the back, we headed to Rapid City. Mike had never caught a trout before, and I was hoping to put him on some big ones. The first morning the ice looked fairly solid, with about 4 inches of solid ice, as we slowly made our way out onto the lake. I drilled the outside line holes, and started setting up the 4 outside rods and holders. I think I was on the 3rd one when Mike yelled that we had a bobber down. I ran over to the hole he was at, monitored the situation for a couple of seconds, and told him to set the hook. Mike fought the fish for about 10 minutes, with me hollering directions at him the whole time. We finally iced about a 14 pound laker, and Mike was all grins. I thought we would really slam them that day, with quick action like that right off the bat. It never happened. We caught 2 nice rainbows to accompany that lake trout, the first day. The temperature got up to about 39 degrees F, as well, and the ice started to get really dark and rotten looking! The next morning a huge cold front blew through, and we towed my shack to a different spot, which was about a mile or more away by foot. The cold front added some inches to the ice, but shut the fishing right down. We got blanked on Saturday, with a high of about 5 degrees F. That night it got really cold, so we decided to head out to the original spot we fished the first day, and where we had at least hooked up with a few fish. Sunday proved to be the coldest day of all, with a high of -8 out on the ice. We decided to just fish through the shack, and actually did quite a bit better that day. We caught two smaller lakers, 5 rainbows, and a brown trout. We also missed one fish, that seemed like a decent lake trout. Here are some pics of the lake and a few fish. Thanks.

I was going to say that looked a little bigger than your old Aquasport, Captain Carl! Great looking boat!!

Good thing my licensed wife was driving me around today, as I just could not resist taking the double at the end of this ditch, when I already had two in my vest. The one person limit is 3 per day. Nice bunch of roosters today!!

Yeah, straight west of Gettysburg, about 15 miles. Birds are pretty thick again this year!

Walked a couple of ditches after work last night and got these two nice roosters!

That would be a two man limit out here on the prairie.

Sweet, man, best eating duck out there, in my opinion!

That's some good shotgunning, man!!