Originally posted by doobs
my brother and sister inlaw
live in Gouldsboro, rightr next to Big bass lake.
He tells me the fishing is almost nonexisitant at BBL.
Well, wouldn't call it almost non existent but its definitely tough fishing if your not used to the area.
Your work'n for your catches.
The fish are there. You can see em. Even caught a few the first few days.
First day there I caught a small Pickerel bout 12" on a white roostertail
Nephew and bother in law each caught a small largemouth again around 12-13" on rubber worm
Next day we hardly caught anything. Couple small perch and a few bluegills
Nephew however caught a REALLY nice largemouth around the 5 pound range.using a rubber worm If he sends the pic I'll put it up.
Was hit and miss all week long. slowwww fish'n and the stuff we did catch was mostly small stuff around the 12-14 inch range.
and again more perch and panfish
Right at dusk one night I caught a decent sized 17 inch largemouth (no scale to weigh) using a small Spinner & jig combo lure I concocted some years ago that has always worked nicely for me.
My son was skunked outright for the first 3 days before he even managed to catch a sunny. Finally on the 4th day he managed to catch a few bluegills a really really small bass and a couple perch.
My 8 year old daughter using a little closed faced ultralight Shakespeare Microspin and Uglystick setup I picked up for her caught a ton of sunnies and a few perch in the 12" range including one she caught just by dipping about 6 inches of line in the water off the edge of my canoe.
Very Nice trouble free quality setup for kids HIGHLY reccomend Thurs my brother in law and I decided to take a ride around and check out what else was in the area and tried finding spots on the upper Lehigh River but alot of the areas were posted "Private property No Fishing"
We did find a few spots but nothing really spectacular or worth even writing about.
We eventually checked out the Nescopeck and Hickory Run State parks where I managed a couple of small catfish and at Hickory Run managed two Brown Trout in the 12-13 inch range.
We Finally ended up our day at a public access area on the Lehigh where nothing at all happened. but we were only there for 1/2 hour before we had to turn back and head back to the womenfolk and kids. We figured at 10 hours of fishing we were reaching the boundary of keeping the peace and an all night beotch fest. But I saw enough of it to come to the conclusion I want to visit that river again to canoe & fish it.
Friday during morning and early afternoon was pretty uneventful.
More perch and more panfish. Found a nice Bluefox spinner that nailed me all sorts of hits by just about everything but unfortunately the largest catch I had of the day was myself.
While out in the canoe with the wife I hit a snag. and gave it a quick jerk to free it. Well it did come free alright. and flew through the air and hit me right square in the knee in that soft fleshy area right below the kneecap embedding hook and barb about 1/2 inch deep. And that sucker wasnt coming out easily no matter what trick I tried.
So I pull out my buck knife and on seeing this the wife decides she doesn't have the stomach to watch what Im about to try to do so she insists on heading back to shore.
Me being the bullheaded sort was insisting that we didnt need to go in and I could just leave the lure attached to my knee while we fished and get it out later inasmuch as it wasnt hurting unless I was trying to get it out.
Being the worry wort she is, needless to say she didnt like that idea either and insisted we head to shore to enlist the help of my brother in law or perhaps seek out an emergency room.
So we headed in and my brother in laws first response was predictable "Yup you got it in there" Then he asks me if I want to try to get it out or go find an ER. Well, me being me the ER deal just wasn't gonna happen unless I was writhing in pain. And that wasn't the case either so out came the buck knife again.
Glad I keep that thing razor sharp right down to the tip but sharp metal against flesh sure does feel hot.
So anyway I work the tip of the knife along side the hook and make just a 1/4 inch incision about 1/4 inch deep that would make any surgeon proud.
At that point I was able to pull n the skin and manipulate the hook so it just slid out. Heh, Damned if Im gonna ruin a brand new lure if I dont have to. LOL
The rest of the day was otherwise uneventful
getting near dusk we decided to head out to the lake closest to where we were staying (there are several in the area other then big bass) where we hadnt had much luck before. A weather front had just passed through and thought the change in pressure system might make a difference.
It did. We saw more action in 2 hours then we had the whole week long, Swirls,nice sized fish jumping so often and so close we had to laugh.
My brother in law waded out to a little island and managed 5 bass ranging from 12-17" in less then 1/2 hour and missed on a bunch of others using a rapala.
While I didnt catch anything I had quite a few near misses using a weedless rubber frog popper and had really nice pickeral around 30+ inches on my line while dragging a a worm on a weedless setup.
I dragged it through the weeds and saw a swirl head to my bait like a torpedo.
It took the line out, I set the hook and started reeling in. It rose to the surface about 6 feet from me and rolled over then *plink* it severed through my line like a red hot knife through soft butter and was gone. VERY nice fish.
After that it started getting too dark to see anything and my daughter was whining to go back to the place we were staying at so we left. But it was the most fun I'd had while not actually catching anything in a long time.
But the fish are there. VERY nice sized ones too. But you gotta work for em.
Lures we found worked were mostly small to medium sized spinners that go down around 3-4 feet in open water and Rapala or otherwise floating type lures in and over the heavy weeds.
No luck at all, not even hit on buzzbait type lures.
All in all a pretty decent week Not GREAT. but no real complaints. I just wish I had another week there now that I think I've figured the place out.
But a decent week. Was either drinking. Or fishing or just plain relaxing.
and my daugher has finally started baiting her own hooks
I've had worse weeks LOL
