Last 2011 fishing trip to our cabin (long and lots of pics)

[WatterBoy]

Well, last weekend was our last "fun" trip to the lake. We have one more trip left up there this weekend, but that will only be long enough to winterize the boat, pull the dock & lift out of the water, and rake a bunch of leaves. But I digress, let's talk about last weekend's fishing!

Friday morning, 10/7

My wife put on a big bass clinic Friday morning! All I could muster in the two hour morning outing was one measly little pike. Kaye, on the other hand, had the 5" wacky-rigged senko on a dropshot working like a dream, even though we were battling constant 25-35 mph winds, with gusts to 45, and off and on showers as well. We tried to fish a couple of our normal favorite spots, but the wind was just too much of a grind to deal with, so we tried a new spot we'd never fished before because it was at least somewhat out of the wind (although you can't tell that in the pictures! ).

Kaye's third bass of the morning was this 4lb 0oz Smallie that was 18.0" in length and had a 13.75" girth. A purple pearl senko with blue flakes was the color of choice to entice this one into the boat. This tied her PB Smallie from earlier this year!



Sandwiched around the big Smallie above was a 2lb 10oz LM and another nice Smallie -- this one at 2lb 13oz (no pics of either). And just a short while after that came her PB Largemouth, which weighed in at a plump 3lb 14oz, the heaviest 17.0" LM I have ever seen. This time the senko was watermelon in color with black and red flakes. This gave Kaye a PB 5-bass bag of 15lb 9oz, crushing her previous best of 12lb 13oz, and also beating my PB bag by ONE OUNCE! She was quite excited to say the least!



Friday afternoon, 10/7

We went out for another two hour session early that afternoon before rain forced us back to dry land. We each landed 5 fish during that time, but Kaye caught the only one worthy of a photo. This Smallie came on the same color senko as the previous PB LM above, and it checked in at an even 3 pounds and 16.75".



Saturday morning, 10/8

I made a 3 hour solo outing on Saturday morning, again in high winds and intermittent rain showers, and had much better luck this time. I landed 8 LM, 2 SM and 3 pike -- 8 of them coming on my new favorite lure, the jig & pig. (Thanks, Kory! )

Here are the 4 best -- 3lb 1oz, 2lb 8oz and 2lb 8oz, 2lb 12oz



I also met up with some more of those overly aggressive, nuisance pike that morning. Here is one of the two of them that completely inhaled my jig, causing me to need to retie, but I guess I should be thankful they didn't make off with the whole thing!




The colors are really awesome on the lake this time of year. This is a shot that morning of a shoreline where we have caught just over 100 fish this year.



And this is another spot we fish often:



Saturday evening, 10/8

Kaye and I both went out again on Saturday evening for two hours and this time it was my turn to catch more fish (7-3). I nailed this 3lb 4oz, 17.25" LM on my second cast (thus, avoiding the "fish caught on the first cast" jinx! ) with a Storm square-billed crankbait (Shad color).



I landed 3 more fish within the next 40 minutes, one of which was this 3lb 11oz, 17.25" LM. It fell prey to a 3/8 oz PB&J jig with a Green Pumpkin Super Chunk Jr. trailer.



Kaye ended the evening on a high note by boating this 3lb 11oz, 17.0" Smallie, again with the 5" wacky-rigged senko on a dropshot, and this time the color was Motor Oil with red flakes.



Sunday morning, 10/9

I had time to sneak in a two hour solo session on Sunday morning before we needed to head back home. This was the sunrise that greeted me on my final boat fishing trip of 2011.



It was great to just be out on the water one more time, even if it rained most of the last hour. I was just running up against the absolute latest time I could be out before I needed to head back in and made one final cast with my watermelon jig & pig. I had an immediate interested party on the fall and shortly thereafter this 2lb 6oz, 14.75" LM greeted me in the boat and posed with me for a self-photo in light rain.



Thanks for reading, guys. It's been a truly awesome year at the lake. We've hosted family and friends almost every time we've been up there and 32 different people have combined to catch 987 fish! And there were many, many great memories made in addition to a bunch of good fishing!

P.S. - one last picture since there are already so dang many in this post anyway. This is our dog, Lucky, inside our cabin last weekend.



.

[bcklash]

Great pictures and report again. Some nice fish and Lucky is just beautiful.

[Bubba_Bruiser]

Way to close it out man! Nice Haul!

[lilmule]

Beautiful country,nice pics,quality time indeed.

[Jrob78]

You really do have your own little slice of Heaven there Dean. Thanks for sharing it with us! Beautiful pictures and nice fish! I hope the winter goes by fast for you so you can enjoy it again soon.

[bamabassman]

dean, i truly enjoy your reports buddy. you guys have got a great place and an abundance of fish. thanks so much for the pics. love the lil pet too.



i hate having this old computer i have to use for now. but hopefully i can get the other one fixed shortly. take sso long to get something posted with this one. sorry.

[keithdog]

Thats a really great way to end the year Dean. I'm going to miss seeing more pics untill next year. But you had a great time there this year for sure. Love the pics.

[rrw4258]

Some more great pics!! It looks like a great time, and a great place to go for the weekend. I always enjoy reading your fishing reports!

Ryan

[66KingFisher]

Great pics, and the fall colors are beautiful.

[MIbasser]

Great pics!! Looks like it was a great last outing of the year.

[Dogmatic]

Wow! Just beautiful.

[woody]

Hey Dean, great report and pics. Thanks for sharing.


-Mark