The past few trips......

[Red Childress]

have been pretty good if hooking a bunch of muskies only to have them shake off before netting them is considered good. I think we had 7 fish shake off between Saturday and Sunday (if you can believe that) with 2 of them being VERY nice fish plus 3 other follows!

Wednesday was a tough day with only 1 blow up on a Big Tube with no other sightings of any Esox.

[Red Childress]

We had 2 more muskies hooked and lost, of course, with 2 more follows on Saturday plus a decent pike. Then, on 'sunny' Sunday, we did not see any Esox whatsoever.

[Red Childress]

We scratched out 6 legal walleye (all between 19 and 23 inches) and lost 4 more on Saturday with one being a very nice one plus 4 trout between 17 and 23 with 2 lost. Sunday we chased muskies with 2 hooked and lost and another good follow. The Fall of 2015 should be titled "How many fish can we NOT land". I have never seen such light hits from all species of fish this Fall. I know one thing for sure, I doubt there is anyone out there with sharper hooks than we have! I have been opening up the gaps of our hooks a tad and that has helped some (I think) but WOW. In the last 4 days of musky fishing, we have hooked 13 fish and lost 12 of them!

Happy Thanksgiving and good luck in the woods or on the water!

[Red Childress]

Thanksgiving report.....Fished from 9am until 7:30pm on Wednesday and finally landed a good musky at 6:51pm under the full mooon. On Friday, 3 of us worked hard for muskies and I had a REAL big fish hooked up (in an area that I really do not fish too much these days) and after 5 seconds of headshaking, she shot to the surface and threw me. We also landed a nice pike about 1 hour later and that was it after fishing until 9pm. Saturday was another day with another lost musky (making the total 3 landed and 12 or 13 lost....losing count now) and 1 decent pike landed with only the rear hook stuck in the thin skin around the outside of her mouth. Sunday was trout/walleye day with 2 walleye and 2 trout landed and 2 lost walleye. Largest trout was 22" and full of eggs.

That's it! Still losing fish but still grinding out long days just to get a shot at 1 or maybe 2 musky bites. Frustrating.

[Red Childress]

Well, we had a rough day on Saturday with no Esox sightings at all but Sunday was much better as we put 1 in the bag and 3 other blow-ups/lost fish with 2 of those nippers being around 45" and 1 positively in the 50-inch class. The big fish we encountered were between 10:45 and 11:30am and the actual caught fish was around 4:15pm.

3 more trips for the winter then it will be time for shoulder surgery on 12/22.

Highs near 60 next weekend with rain on the way.....hard to believe!


Good Luck!

[ppalko]

Saturday was a strange day. We saw you at the Refinery Dredge in the morning. We caught some decent bass and walleye early but had little action as the day went along. Things in that pool have really changed. Does anyone know when the Ramp at the Dam opens back up? We made a change in plans Saturday and launched downstream which resulted in fishing a completely different area. Would also explain the weekend water releases as they are working on the ramp on weekdays.

By the way, walleye action on the lower Allegheny has been pretty good lately. Anyone else noticing that?

[Bob Seybold]

Red, Wendy and I wish you good luck and a speedy recovery for your shoulder surgery. One of these days, hopefully soon I will get my boat out. Been kept busy, since I retired and new puppy arrived.