Captain Ahab
Well-known member
Mike (Mr. Fish) and myself took a trip out this morning to try and find some hungry winter fish. We fished the middle of the Delaware river (the middle section, we fished from shore) and started in the Point Pleasant area. I loaded up with soft plastics and purchased some live shiners to attempt to coax a hungry smallie or walleye to bite in the very cold water (water temp this morning was about 34*)
As we set up by the river in a spot where I caught late season smallmouth, we hear a large "splash" we both look at each other and Mike says "Was that a fish?" I thought nah, what could be jumping this time of year. We then look over and see a very large and very pissed off beaver swimming around giving us the stink eye. Seems that Mr. Beaver (Beavy to his friends, which was not) was not happy that the decided to set up fishing camp near his home.
We both agreed that that although between a rock and a hard place is bad, between a rock and a nasty beaver is worse, much worse.
Anywho, nothing doing there so after an hour of freezing our (edit) off, we moved to a new spot. We tried a few different areas and not a single fish - Mike did manage to snag and loose a few lures so it was like fishing, only without the fish.
We finally decided that if the river smallmouth woudl not play, we would go for winter largemouth. We hit a nearby pond where we found this:
Notice how nice and flat the water is - becuase ice does not ripple! We did have some open water which we fished hard, to no avail.
Mike decided that he had better make sure he was ready for ice rescue duty in case I attempted to cross the lake:
We had a great day out on the water - but both agreed that this Spring we are catching twice as many fish to make up for the winter!
Hope everyone here has better luck!
OH YEAH - I forgot how much it sucks when the line freezes to your rod and then snaps back at you when you try to cast - fun, fun, fun!
As we set up by the river in a spot where I caught late season smallmouth, we hear a large "splash" we both look at each other and Mike says "Was that a fish?" I thought nah, what could be jumping this time of year. We then look over and see a very large and very pissed off beaver swimming around giving us the stink eye. Seems that Mr. Beaver (Beavy to his friends, which was not) was not happy that the decided to set up fishing camp near his home.
We both agreed that that although between a rock and a hard place is bad, between a rock and a nasty beaver is worse, much worse.
Anywho, nothing doing there so after an hour of freezing our (edit) off, we moved to a new spot. We tried a few different areas and not a single fish - Mike did manage to snag and loose a few lures so it was like fishing, only without the fish.
We finally decided that if the river smallmouth woudl not play, we would go for winter largemouth. We hit a nearby pond where we found this:
Notice how nice and flat the water is - becuase ice does not ripple! We did have some open water which we fished hard, to no avail.
Mike decided that he had better make sure he was ready for ice rescue duty in case I attempted to cross the lake:
We had a great day out on the water - but both agreed that this Spring we are catching twice as many fish to make up for the winter!
Hope everyone here has better luck!
OH YEAH - I forgot how much it sucks when the line freezes to your rod and then snaps back at you when you try to cast - fun, fun, fun!
