Mike and i had some very limited time yesterday so we ran over to Lake W. For those who are new to the reports, lake W is a large retention pond that is about 25' deep, 100 acres, and has several storm drain pipes coming into it as well as a crrek. There is always a current to be found as this small lake could technically be classified as a flowage. So when you hear us talk about Lake W, all you need to do is find a retention pond that fits the bill. And they are EVERYWHERE! Just look around your neighborhood.
We threw a few different lures in the half hour we fished. I got 2 average size bass (13-15") on a Rapala Husky jerk (twitch,twitch,twitch...just like i wrote in previous reports). I also got one on a Lucky Craft Pointer (again...twitch twitch.). BUT..the King Of The Ring was yet again Savage Gear'sRattle Shad!! We concentrated on an incoming pipe that had water pushing out of it at high speed due to the recent rains. The bass were lined up waiting for anything to move. Here's a couple shots of the dozen or so fish we caught in 30 minutes. Now go find some incoming water and fish within 10' of the flow. Trust us...you're gonna score right now! These fish don't really care about the cold front. They know exactly ONE thing now: Feed and get ready to spawn. The monster largemouth and the monster smallmouth were caught by Mike on back to back consecutive casts! He was using the technique of holding the bait in the current and letting the water do the work.
This is a shot of Mike's monster largemouth being held by me. I'm posting this just to give it a different perspective in relation to size. let me stress that I DID NOT catch it. Mike was king of the hill yesterday. I'm not even gonna bother putting up my shots because they are not impressive next to Mike's.
( We apologize for the use of the camera phone. We had a little mix-up and forgot any one of the 3 cameras we use. Basically we were rushing and totally clowned it! Lesson to us all, eh?)
As you know, we at Customfish always try to stay on top of the big rock candy mountain by getting our hands on new weapons of mass destruction that no one else has yet. And we just got a new weapon. I suggest you hide the children. Savage Gear is a going to be making their presence known here in the U.S., and based on what we saw in the first 5 minutes of throwing their Rattle Shad we are extremely impressed! As you'll see by their site, they are huge in Europe. We're guessing they are gonna be huge here as well. Our first thought was to get our greedy little paws on their bigger baits and run them thru the gauntlet on Great Slave this june while catching a couple thousand monster pike. That's still gonna happen, so stay tuned for that upcoming report. BUT, in the meantime we have decided to run them thru the local gaunlet in search of cold water bass. I'll sum it up this way: 2 casts. That's all it took. 2 casts til the Rattle Shad got hammered! Now, that isn't to bad considering we were dealing with a 45 degree outside temperature and high winds. All we had to do was burn the bait in and it got hammered regularly on this short trip. Mike joined me for a few minutes and quickly landed 3 nice bass and missed a couple more. At one point Mike's Rattle Shad got hung up. Normally you chalk it up as a loss and keep going. But when you have a HOT bait that's working, you have to go to extremes to keep the mojo going. How cold is that water, Mike?
Did we try other baits? Yes. We tried the Husky jerk, Rattle Trap, Storm Subwart, a Chatterbait and the Swimmin' Charlie. All of them, as you know, are standard weapons in our boxes. On this trip none of them shined thus proving that our success with the Savage Gear was no fluke. As soon as we tied on the Rattle Shads again we were back on the fish. Our final numbers for this short-after-work trip were 3 largemouth bass for Mike and 8 for me.
Savage Gear lures will be available soon in local retailers. We suggest you get a few if you want to keep up.
I've said this before and I'll say it again: We don't get impressed that easily. That's why we love our customers.We've seen some huge muskies. We have shown you a few. There's a bunch more that we can't show you due to our policy of secrecy unless the customer gives approval. You guys give us some jobs that are truly awesome. Some of the biggest and the baddest fish in the water. We're sending out such a job today. Previously, the largest muskie we have done was a monster caught by Chad Cain. We did that fish twice because he caught it twice. I'm sure you muskie guys know the fish I'm talking about.
BUT...alas we have a NEW CHAMPION. The benchmark has been raised and you guys now have a new sheriff in town to try to beat! The new holder of the crown for 'Largest Muskie Customfish Has Done' is Paul Schlagel, owner of Enduro Guide Service out of Clearwater, MN. Enduro specializes in hunting down monsters like this on Mille Lacs and a few other lakes in the area. I strongly urge you to check out his site. He's got a great forum on there along with some truly awesome reports! ( c'mon...hit those links. Paul just earned the Customfish Muskie Crown. He deserves it!)
So..without further adieu, I present to you Paul Schlagel of Enduro Guide Service. Your NEW CUSTOMFISH MUSKIE CHAMPION with a monster that measured 54 1/2" x 27 1/2"! Truly awesome Paul! And to think, it only cost him $75 plus shipping to get all 54 1/2" up on a wall! Someone remind us to end that insane sale soon...please.
We also did this print for an Enduro Guide Service client. This fish is also an absolute beast coming in at 54". Caught in july '07 while fishing with Paul, Josh nailed this monster on one of his own hot spots! Nice goin' Josh!
In other news: Last night was the annual St. Pat's dinner at Casa Del La Libation (Mike's house). We had traditional Irish fare along with traditional Irish beverages. Q: What do you get when a Slovak and an Italian try to be Irish for one day? A: Nothing positive...I can tell ya that. If someone could please remind us next not to drink Guinness, Killians Red, a nutty irishman, Jamison, and an irish car bomb all in the same evening...we'd appreciate it. So from all of us at Customfish we wish you a Happy St. Pats week.
We leave you today with one of our favorites: "Fish On" by Primus. Enjoy.
Happy March everyone. We have a couple new things we're going to be doing this year. How about this? CUSTOMFISH TV! Yep. It's happening. The first installment is in the can. All the episodes are going to be right here. So check back often. We don't believe in set schedules. We're going to show you alot. What we do. How we fish. And some stuff that just shouldn't be on video. Sure Jimmy Houston gives his little fishies a kiss. But have ya ever seen anyone lick one??? Ya see where I'm going with this?
First up is going to be us freezing our a$$es of this past saturday. Luckily the fish cooperated and it's not just shots of Mike slipping the tongue to a fish, or Mike trying to quit smoking with the help of a cheese stick. Our fish totals were pretty good. While everyone else is sitting on their butts inside we were out there catching a mix of smallmouth, largemouth and hybrid greengills. The biggest catches were a couple of 18" largemouth and a monster 16"+ crappie that one of the attending anglers caught.
<*))))))))))><
PLUS..We're toying with the idea of some new apparel. Kinda in a different direction. After seeing the new breed of anglers at the shows in the past few years, it ocured to us that a new "look" in the sport may be needed. Something that reflects the general attitude of the 20-30 year old anglers who talk to us at the booth. This is the rough draft of one of our own hand drawn pieces. We'll let you know when it goes into production. Drop us an email and let us know what you think. Copyright 2008 by Jamie Riani ( Don't even think about lifting it :) . We track everything here.)
<*)))))))>< In other news: I got the opportunity to watch a few fishing shows this weekend. Normally I stay away from fishing shows for 3 reasons. 1) We're "inside" the fishing business. So we know for every muskie you usually see caught on a fishing show by a "pro", there was about a week's worth of footage of him casting into nothingness. Plus I know of a couple "pros" that have people pre-fish spots for them and save them fish. That doesn't take skill at all. ( yes Bob..I was blatantly talking about YOU right there.). and #2) I HATE tournaments. Especially springtime tournaments where these guys are fishing bass off their beds and then taking them to a weigh in station miles away. And again, we're "inside" the business and know a few tournament anglers who we wouldn't have in our homes. So basically I'd rather watch Mike lick a fish than watch most of these guys yank a fish out of the water and flop it on the deck. And lastly) We are either working, fishing, or spending time with our kids. Those three things trumps any fishing show unless we're on it. And even then we missed the last one. So anyway, I got to watch Beat Charlie Moore. I like Charlie. Sure he's dodging me like a head-high fastball. He wants no part of this. Who would? Especially for a TV show. What? ESPN is gonna show their star getting his a$$ handed to him on his own show by the likes of us?? Next I watched The World's Greatest Fishing Show with Mark Zona. Thank God he has Pete Maina on who happens to be in the same circle of circus performers as us. Otherwise I might have changed the channel. I'm sure Mark is a nice guy and feely admits to not being the best angler or the best host..but c'mon! He's from this area and didn't know a thing about muskies?? I dunno..Zona just kinda irritates me anyway. I thought I was loud and obnoxious! I may very well be. But I also have enough calss to know not to bash the Packers while IN Pete's boat ON Green Bay. Later that morning I caught some of the Musky Hunter TV Show. I liek the show but HATE the time slot. We just can't seem to be freed up at that time of a saturday morning. Again..work,fish,kids, all that stuff. But still, a great show. Hopefully you guys all caught Customfish Pro-Staffer John Mich on last week's episode. John Mich with a Customfish muskie, seen on Musky Hunter TV. It was great to see the video-catch-footage of a fish that we at Customfish put on the wall. <*)))))))))))>< And finally, it's random picture time! WWW.CUSTOMFISH.COM is all about the pictures. And man-o-man do we put up some good ones! We have literally thousands of shots. So many that we have to host them on seperate hard drives. So...we're starting something new for 2008. Random Picture Time! We start with these 2. I call this one "The Hot Seat" It's an unaltered shot. No photoshopping. No cloning. Nothing. Just the right angle with the camera, a bench and a fire 6' apart.
And this one we call "Burro with a dish" This is a trailer along side the Fox River. Mike and I hit this spot once a week on our usual milk run aboard his boat. that wall is a great smallie spot. BUT....more importantly, the Burro Camper has a satelite dish. What is this world coming to, we ask?
I'm calling it. Time of death for the 2007 fishing season was at 2:15pm on saturday the 17th of November, 2007. With the trade show season coming up and an ever increasing workload, I don't see us getting out again til January. Plus, I believe in the old saying "you better quit while you're ahead." And what a nice ending it was. Cold. Raining. Windy. Miserable 42 degrees for a high and water temps in the high 40's. I said to Ken on our way "We're ending on a high note. one of us has to get a trophy". Now, keep in mind our idea of a trophy is 20" or better. To everyone else it's 18". We do 18" alot. So to be fair to ourselves it's 20" for team Customfish. As we pulled up to our regular parking spot we were greeted by a nice buck and a couple does in the distance. We took that as a good omen. While the fishing was far from spectacular we did manage to reach our goal and end the year just as we said we would. A couple hours hopping spots and the final numbers were 2 smallmouth bass and 2 hybrid greengills for me. 7 largemouth bass, 1 smallmouth bass and a couple hybrid greengills for Ken. Live bait is the key. Shiners under a slip bobber with #1 or #2 circle hooks set about 2-3' down. Ken with a nice start.
Yet another big largemouth, one of many. But it was smallies we were looking for.
Found 'em! A perfect ending to the season. 20" Spike-fin Smallmouth Bass. I was king for about half an hour....until Ken decided to pull out the trump card on me about 50 yards away!
20", baby. Ken closes out with the 20" Spike-fin Smallie we said we'd get. Just like clockwork.
As I said, we were using shiners but I think 6" long bullfrogs would have worked too considering what my big spike-fin smallie gave back to me while I was unhooking it. Yuck! Sorry I had to show that to you, but it just goes to show ya what a hungry bass will eat....a 6" bullfrog AND a 3" shiner at the same time. Oh..and she'll hit twice! I should explain that. THIS IS A FIRST IN ILLINOIS SMALLMOUTH BASS FISHING HISTORY! Go back and look at the spike-fin smallies Ken and I caught. Look really close. I caught mine, and then Ken caught his 30 minutes later and 50 yards downstream. Mine was hooked in the top lip AND spit out a 6" bullfrog at me. She cleared the water once on a jump. Ken's fish ALSO cleared the water on a jump. Both were spectacular fights! UMMM..It's the same fish!!! I just noticed that as I was writing this post! We caught the SAME trophy spike-fin smallmouth bass within half an hour and 50 yards of each other! No one has EVER done that..not in Illinois anyway. That is just NUTS! What a wild ending to a wild, unbelievable and awesome year! Beat THAT, my fellow ISA anglers!!!! On another note, Ken and I will be hiring a little person to follow us around all of next year with the sole purpose of holding our fish in photos. When you are as Andre-The-Giant-size as we seem to be, the big fish we get don't look so big. Effective today we'll be accepting applications from little people.
So...that's it folks. It's a wrap. We'd like to thank everyone who fished with us this season. You were all great. We also would like to thank all of our readers and customers. Be sure to stop by the Chicago Musky Show and say Hi! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Try the veal...and don't forget to tip your waitresses! Good night!
Please keep checking in because even though we're gonna be setting the poles down for a little while, we'll still be putting stuff up here and we're changing the entire site with some BIG surprises.
Oh..one more thing. "SMALL CHILD LANDS 40" MONSTER PIKE IN DUPAGE COUNTY SUBDIVISION POND!!" My son was thrilled with his latest catch on his snoopy pole. I guess he's just like his old man; Go big or go home. There aint no room for dinks! Nice going son....even if it did come out of the little lake in our backyard.
I mentioned that I hate customfish field reporter John Mich, right? Just checkin'.
Ok..well, John just happened to "forget" to send a picture from his last field report. He just so happened to accidentally catch a huge 19" smallie while muskie fishing in northern Wisconsin a week ago. It hit a Hellhound muskie bait. He's not even a smallie angler!
