2010 Re-cap

[Red Childress]

December has been a wash-out, literally. No guide trips due to high water this entire month and it looks like my season is a wrap.

I had hoped to hit the 50 "casting fish" mark again this year but will have to settle for 47 muskies out of 81 musky trips. We did hit 4 other "trolling" fish and 3 of those 4 were without clients. We hit (and finally landed) our first 50+ inch river fish back in May. The smallest fish we caught was 31 inches, if my memory serves me and 36 of the 47 fish were 39 inches or longer which was a very nice statistic to see.

All of my trolling trips on Tionesta were cancelled due to excessive water temps.

Thanks to all of you who hit the river with me this past season!

[cband]

Pretty good season Red. I am looking forward to hitting the shows and continuing my search for a new boat. I may hit the ice a few times as well.

[Red Childress]

Thanks, Chris. I will never complain about 47 casting fish in a season but I will complain about those 13-15 days of not even seeing a fish.

This is the first year I had posted totals even thought I have kept records over the past 13 seasons. The lowest total was 21 back in '97 when I was still coaching between Nov. and March and only doing 20-25 trips per year. The highest total was 88 back in '04-'05 and with the musky/pike season lasting only 8.5 months. We were dialed in that year and had some very skilled clients to boot not to mention having 4 secondary areas full of fish for some reason. That particular winter got very warm during late-Dec/early-Jan with air temps in the 60's and low-70's which threw off my pattern and caused us to miss the 100 mark. I failed to figure things out before it got too cold to fish that particular year. I was still fishing deep and (I think) most fish had moved shallow taking advantage of the 2-3 degree warmer "melt" water stacking on the surface.

I may never have another shot at hitting 100 PA fish again as long as our primary technique remains a "casting" gig. It was just one of those special years and it seemed we do nothing wrong except loose 2-3 HUGE fish at boatside. 39 of those 88 fish were caught during the late Fall/early-Winter while precision trolling.

BTW, on December 11th we saw many of those pesky rainbow fingerlings (while chasing walleye) breaking the surface around every bridge pier between Warren and Starbrick when the water was super high so I do think they have finally spread out over a 10-13 mile area now.

[cband]

I ended up having a great season as well. The neatest one was my three year old daughter helped land a small 24" muskie this year. Funny story. I had a 8" Tuff shad trolling and had a split second rip. I figured I had hit bottom. My daughter yells something and I turn around and see this muskie with the Tuff shad T boned and doing loops 30' behind the boat. I kept the rod in the down east and she reeled it almost to the boat. I kept it in the water and cut the hooks. He did swim away.

I also managed my pb Walleye and Flathead Catfish (34.8lbs) this year.

[RapRunR]

Sounds like a good season and it's great making it back home safe too with all those trips. Congrats on your 50" Red. Just goes to show how tough it really is trying to get one of these big fish.

[Red Childress]

Thanks and you are right......hitting a LEGIT 50" fish anywhere is still a tough chore. Lots of 49, 49.25, 49.50 fish that get rounded up to 50 but not in my boat.

[Powerslave]

16 in approx 25 trips, biggest was 48", most in the 30's. All casting. A couple 2-Musky days and 3-Musky days. Spring and Fall were great, struggled in the summer months. Thanks for the advice on those deeper weed-edge baits.