Archive for category Parker's Fishing Blog
Final Tournament of the Year – Lake Arthur
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on November 12, 2009
The final bass tournament of the year has come and gone. The bass club I fish in, West Penn Bass Hunters, had there final tournament of the year on Lake Arthur last Sunday. I had not pre-fished for this tournament, but Lake Arthur is my home lake so I had a good idea where the fish might be. After looking through my notes from the past few years, I decided that I would need to fish shallow weedlines and/or wood to get my fish. We launched from 528 launch at 8am, with clear skies, no wind, warmer than average air temp, and the water temp was 49°. My first stop of the day was a cove about half way down the lake. Not knowing exactly where the fish would be I picked up my white chatterbait and started down the bank. It didn’t take long to get my first hit, maybe 15-20 minutes, but it was just a 13” largemouth. My next bite, coming just a few minutes later was much better, a solid 4.56lb largemouth. After getting that big girl so early, I was planning on having a great day of fishing. I fished around that cove for the next few hours, changing my lures and trying a spinnerbait, jig, jerkbait, and a beaver but was only able to get few more dinks. I moved down around Bear Run next but didn’t get anything down there so I decided to make the run all the way back up to muddy creek. I fished around in weeds with a spinnerbait and chatterbait for a few more hours with no success, so I decided to try dragging a beaver. I was able to get one hit on the beaver, which ended up being my last keeper of the day, a 3lb largie. My final stop of the day was up in Shannon’s Bay where I got one more dink on a chatterbait. It was time to take in my fish in and see how everyone else did. My total weight with my two fish was 7.65lbs and it was just enough to squeak out the win over two other guys that had three fish limits. It was a great day to be on the water as the weather was nice and even though the fishing wasn’t great the size of the fish I got made up for the low number of fish I caught.
Another Tough Day at Wilhelm
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on October 19, 2009
Sonar from the roadbed on Oct 18, 2009
Took at trip to Lake Wilhelm on Sunday with my Dad. It wasn’t the warmest day on the water but it is October so fishing in the cold comes with the territory. It was 38 degree with 15-20 mph winds, brrrr. Water temp was 49 degrees. We launched around 10:00 AM from Launch #4. We started fishing on some humps and roadbeds with a shad colored crankbaits and jigs for the first 2 hours without a hit. I’m pretty sure there were fish down there, see sonar, they were just not willing to eat for us. Next we moved down the lake to a weed bed and was able to get two hit on a black and blue jig but didn’t get hooked up. We then went to some laydowns but still couldn’t get hit. We made one finial stop on the way back up the lake in a small weed patch in 5-7 feet of water and I was able to finally get a fish. I nice 3lb largemouth on craw tube. The fish were not eating as good as I was hoping but it was a beautiful day on the water.
ABA New York West Division on Oneida Lake
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on October 1, 2009
This past weekend I fished as a rider in the last divisional event for the bassmaster weekend series, New York West Division on Oneida Lake. This was the championship so it was a two day event held on Saturday and Sunday. Much like Leo has said in the past, these guys from the ABA do a fine job at putting on a tournament.
Leo and I arrived at Oneida Lake Thursday afternoon and practiced both Thursday and Friday. We found some solid spots around some of the shoals that littered the lake. The main pattern was a 3/8 or ½ oz white spinnerbait over 10 or so feet of water. Let me tell you that the smallmouth in Oneida are some of the strongest fighting smallies I have every seen. In fact I didn’t talk to too many guys that didn’t have at least one spinnerbait broken by these guys, I myself broke two. The secondary pattern was to pull a green pumpkin tube or beaver.
Day one of the tournament was not what I would call and nice day on the water. Heavy winds produced some bumpy conditions, 3 to 5 footers. Despite the bad weather conditions my boater was on good fish and I was able to get limit of solid fish using my ½ oz white spinnerbait on day one. This put me right where in needed to be for day two.
On day two the wind had died off a little but the rain moved in. My boater had some smallmouth he fished in practice about half way down the lake so after a few stops in the morning we decided to run down and see if we could get into them. We pulled up to spot and within an hour had a small limit. We worked this area for the reset of the day and we were able to cull up but not quite to the quality of fish from day one. Once again just about every fish came on a ½ oz white spinnerbait, a few came on a green pumpkin tube.
I was able to put together my first top 5 finish in this series, finishing 4th. All in all it was a good weekend of fishing. If I learned one thing from this trip it was that I’m more out of shape then I ever thought possible. Throwing a ½ oz spinnerbait for four straight days had my arms sore. I have no idea how KVD does it.
Trip to Lake Wihelm
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on September 7, 2009
Made a trip up to Lake Wilhelm on Saturday with my girlfriend and the dog, we launched around 10:30 AM from Launch #4. We started fishing on some humps and roadbeds with a shad colored crankbait, did this for around 2 hours without a hit. Next we moved down the lake to a weed bed and was able to get two hit on a white 3/8 oz spinnerbait but didn’t get hooked up. Our next stop was some laydowns farther down the lake. I was able to get a small largemouth, 14” or so, on a 3/8oz black and blue jig. Not a big fish by any means but I was very happy to finial get a fish in the boat. I worked the rest of the laydowns on that shore and got a few more hits but was unable to hook up with anything. We made one finial stop on the way back up the lake in a small weed patch in 6 feet of water and I was able to get another largemouth and lost one on the same jig I caught the other one on. The fish were not eating that well at all but it was a beautiful day on the water.
Practice Doesn’t Always make Prefect
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on August 24, 2009
This weekend was a mixed bag of fishing for me to say the least. My buddy and I were signed up to fish the Mcfeely Tournament at Lake Arthur on Sunday, which is a great tournament for a worthy cause, put on by the guys at Consumer Direct Sports Supplies every year. I had been getting a few nice fish out of the weeds just about every trip out there this year, but it had been less consistent as of late. I wanted to go practice the day before the tournament to check some spots and try to find some more spots to make sure I was on fish. I told myself going in I was going to stick one fish in each spot I hit just to make sure they were the quality of fish I was looking for.
5lb 13 oz Lake Arthur Largemouth
The morning started off better then I could have hoped for. I punched my black and blue Picasso jig with 65lb braid into the first patch of weeds I came to and bang, a nice 4lb largemouth. So I left and went to my next stop. On the first cast, I got a small keeper. I left that spot and went punching pads in th next area I wanted to fish and got a nice mid 40’s musky. The first of three musky I had hit in Bear Run that day, other two got off. I did have to give her my jig because I couldn’t even see it in her craw and I didn’t want to killer her trying to remove it. I didn’t get any bass in the pad so I made a run down the lake to check some other holes I hadn’t fished yet this year. At my next stop I punched into some weeds and pulled up a nice 5lb 13 oz largemouth. (Sorry for the bad picture all we had was a cell phone to take the picture.) After that I thought I was going to be in great shape going into the tournament the next day.
Well sorry to say my buddy and I never got a keeper during the tournament. I’m not sure if it was the weather difference that changed everything or what. Saturday was sunny and nice and Sunday was overcast and cold. We did catch some fish but never got a good one. We did, however, have another musky attack but it didn’t hook up. On that note, if anyone is looking for musky, Lake Arthur seems to be really picking up right now.
What can you do? Sometime you get the bass and sometimes the bass get you. What else can you say? I think of it this way, it better to have caught some fish on Saturday and had a good day of fishing then to have never caught them at all.
Lake Arthur Tournament
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on August 3, 2009
Once again Leo and I fished a tournament again this weekend. This time we were at Lake Arthur. We put in at the 528 launch around 530am in the pouring rain and started our run up the lake to the tournament launch site at the restaurant. We made it about half way there when an unexpected visitor decided to join us. A bat bounced off the post of the front seat and fell into the bottom of the boat. After quick stop for Leo to remove the bat from the boat we continued up to the restaurant with the hopes of recovering from a poor showing the previous week at Lake Wilhelm. We ran to our first stop, a deep weed patch off a point and starting catching fish right away, the issue was they were not keepers. We worked the area for a few hours but were unable to get anything to put in the livewell. We then ran to our next stop in a set of pads and once again got fish and had blowups but nothing to take with us. We made a few quick stops on some brush piles but they didn’t produce anything. Our next stop was a road bed which got a smallmouth off of but once again it was short. Our last stop of the day was in the pads again and we got a few blowups on a frog, one of which yielded us our first and only keeper of the day. So once again we did not do as well as we would have liked to but it was still a good day of fishing with some good stories to tell.
There are fish in Lake Arthur?
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on July 30, 2009
There are fish in Lake Arthur, (see Leo’s blog below) say the guy who getting them every week. I will have to agree that the fishing was better then normal for us last night. My dad and I were also able to manage three keepers that got us in the top 8, 3rd place, for the first time this year. It hasn’t been a horrible season, like last year, but we haven’t been knocking them dead either. We have been able to get one or two keepers pretty much every night. We just haven’t had a good enough bag of fish to weigh in until last night. I’ll call it luck that got us our three keepers last night, we finally got the right bites and we were able to land all our fish. Lets hope it keeps up but knowing Lake Arthur we will probably not get a bite for the next two weeks.
Tough Lake Wilhelm Tournament
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on July 27, 2009
Well Leo and I fished the open tournament at Lake Wilhelm over the weekend but it was not the day we were looking for. I’m sorry to say we were unable to get any those solid fish that Lake Wilhelm is known for and not only were the fish we got under sized by Lake Wilhelm standards but they were also few and far between. We knew going in that our strategy of fishing ledges, roads, brush piles and the creek chain was going to be was going to be feast or famine, but I do have to say that it was even harder then we thought it would be. We were fishing those areas looking for the schools of big largemouth that tends to hold on those types of structures during the summer months. Even though we were unable to put together a big bag of fish it was still a nice day on the water.
First Time Out
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on June 29, 2009
by Liz Stark
Unlike my boyfriend, I’m not an avid fisherwoman. I don’t know the difference between a jig and crankbait. Don’t ask me which bait is best to throw in a brush pile because I choose my bait based upon which one is prettier and matches my rod. With all that said, I think I did pretty good for my first time out this year.
On Saturday afternoon, we decided to go to Lake Arthur and we got on the water around one o’clock. It was a warm day but the wind was blowing to cool us and our dog down. Jon caught the first and biggest fish of the day which was a good sized large mouth bass. I don’t know how much it weighed, but to me, it looked huge.
My first fish looked puny compared to Jon’s, but I was excited about it because it was definitely bigger than my first fish last year. At the end of the day I had four fish on a
cute purple worm. I had a good time, got some sun and spent some quality time with Jon on the lake.
Ohio River Emsworth
Posted by Jon Parker in Parker's Fishing Blog on June 2, 2009
My dad and I made it out fishing on Saturday from around 10am to 5pm or so. We went out on the Ohio River up by the lock at Emsworth. Fishing was slow but we were able to catch some fish on a small gold inline spinner and gulp minnows on the bottom. We did get a bunch of different species: smallmouth and spotted bass, white bass, catfish, and a nice drum (sheephead). The river was a little low but was still moving pretty good. The water was clear to lightly stained and 67 degrees.
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