I was in Orlando Florida for a week doing the Disney World thing. It was my son's make a wish trip. We had a great time and fortunately for me I had time to sneak away for half a day to do some flats fishing. Fishing on the flats is my favorite, I can't get enough of it. On this trip I went to Titusville, and went out in the famous Mosquito lagoon. I must say it was everything that I had seen on TV or read about. What a great place, I want to move to Florida so bad. How great would it be to flats fish all the time.


The top picture is the biggest sea trout I caught that day. I know its not a giant, but it was actually my first ever. The redfish is also my first, a 15lb beautiful specimen.

I threw a fly rod for a little bit, but the cloudy conditions really made fly fishing tuff, which doesn't bother me because lately I am finding more and more situations where fly fishing is not only the least effective method, but its kind of a pain in the ass for various reasons. So most of the day we threw plugs and large live shrimp. I did have some sweet blow ups on top water plugs from redfish. A 15lb redfish will get your heart going a little faster that a 4lb bass.

Was in Idaho last week for work. I ended up have Thursday afternoon off so I wanted to do some fishing. The only river I could find that wasn't blown out and too high was the south fork of the Boise River. So I went down there to check it out and see if I could catch anything. Unfortunately I did not do my homework first, so I had no idea what to through as far as fly selection. There was a caddis hatch, but I had no luck with that. So after about an hour I decided to through streamers, good thing too because I ended up catching this beautiful rainbow. I had to fish a full sinking line to get the fly down deep enough. My fly of choice was an olive circus peanut. I actually had never caught anything on the circus peanut before, but I had not fished it that much either. So I sold out and fished it. Well needless to say I am sold. Great fly and I had a great time fishing. And I think I am probably turned into an exclusive streamer guy for trout, well maybe I will occasionally nymph.

Eagle Valley Reservoir Nevada

Had a great trip to Eagle Valley Reservoir in mid June. I took my boys camping up there, Jared loves to catch trout and Kellen just loves camping, fishing and being outside. This was Kellen's first camping trip that he has been on since he was 1 1/2.

Water conditions were good. The water was cool, and the weeds were still pretty thin around the shore line. Weeds are good and bad, good because they attract fish and food, bad because it makes fishing from shore difficult. But in this case the water was fairly clear and very fish able. the weather was outstanding. Warm during the day about 80 and high 40s at night.

Now to the fishing. Most shore anglers were chucking bait of some kind, marsh mellows seemed to be the popular choice. And alot of fish were being caught. I personally don't like bait chucking, its boring, plus i wanted to try a new technique I read about, using jerk baits. So I rigged up two rapala x-rap's in the 3 inch model and olive/silver color scheme. And it worked, very well. We caught about 30 trout total in two days of fishing, some big and some small. We just cruised the shoreline and made casts to shore and parallel to the shore, just as if you are bass fishing with a jerk bait. The hits were very aggressive, and most trout stayed hooked after the hit! When the wind would calm down I would pull out the fly rod. Caught some nice trout on olive/white clouser and clouser half and half minnows. However these were not standard clousers. I tie my flies with synthetic hair instead of buck tail, it provides a more translucent look under water. I did ok with the fly rod, but it was so windy most of the time casting was very difficult. At certain times during the day even fishing with a spinning rod was hard due to the wind.

All in all it was a great trip. I wanted to experiment with jerk baits for trout and I got to. It is basically bass fishing for trout and is not only very effective for larger fish, but is fun. But most importantly its easy, my 9 year old son had the technique down after about 10 casts.

Lake Mead Largemouth

Went to Lake Mead last weekend. I heard the bass were up on beds, but I didn't find any. The water was very clear, so I didn't see alot of bass action, or milling around. But with the water that clear its hard to tell, because I could have been scaring them or else they were deep out of eye site. Either way I only caught one bass, the one in the photo. Caught it on a Rapala X-shad rap(light blue back). Tossed a few different lures this day, jigs, crank baits, scrounger head jigs and some jerk baits. The crank baits and jerk baits where the only thing I got any attention from the bass with. Water temp was 58 degrees, and air temps were around 70 but it was a bright blue bird day so fishing was tough.

Southern Nevada Pond Largemouth

Went to Floyd Lamb Park today. It was really windy and cloudy. It was hot out, so the clouds were a welcome, but the wind can go away! The wind was blowing so bad it was almost impossible to cast a fly rod. I have been hitting up the pond all winter experimenting with different fly patterns with no luck. I was not even really seeing any bass activity. But we have been having very warm days and warm nights this week, so I figured the bass would be active. I guessed right. Unfortunately there were so many people at the park it was impossible to fish it correctly, just all the activity made for poor fishing. But I did manage to get into one, and get a few other strikes. I was bouncing a green pumpkin jig with a green pumpkin trailer off the bottom and around stumps. I got a few strikes with this method. But I did notice a small bass chase my jig to the surface when I pulled it in. That gave me and idea to try and swim the jig around the shoreline. That was the ticket. After about the third cast swimming the jig I got bit and landed the bass in the picture, well I hooked it and let the little guy reel it in.

Went up to Cold Creek pond today. There was no snow at the pond itself, but plenty of snow on the mountain. In the picture, my son Kellen is playing in the snow. The pond's water level was full and really dirty. There were a few other people there fishing, but I didn't see any fish caught. I did see one fish rise. My kids threw a gold kast-master and I threw a couple different nymphs and an olive and a purple woolly worm, as well as the kast-master. But we didn't catch any fish this trip, not even any strikes, which is really strange for that place. Usually you can't make a cast without at least a small nibble. I think I might go to Lake Mead later in the week and try to catch one of the big stripers that are chasing the stocker trout around.

December Stripers

December was a pretty good month for stripers at Lake Mead. I got down to the lake about four times. I didn't really know how good the fishing would be, and my son wanted to go and is not really into going in the kayak in the dead of winter, so we bank fished. We did pretty good. Caught fish three out of the four trips. No more than 5 fish in any particular trip, but not bad for a few hours fishing. I got kinda lucky, I went down to Hemingway harbor where the hatchery trout are dumped in the lake. I was going to throw big trout swim baits in hope of getting a big striper. Once I got down to the lake there was like I expected, alot of people bank fishing. But to my amazement they weren't fishing for planter trout. They were all striper fishing. There were thousands of shad all balled up against the shore line. Most anglers where netting the shad and using them for bait. The stripers where not far behind the shad. I was using storm swim baits in shad color patterns. You had to be able to cast quite a ways out past the shad bait balls, but that was where the stripers where. On the first day I hooked three in a matter of 20 minutes, which wasn't bad considering that most of the other guys had been there all day using shad and hadn't got a bite. Here is a picture of my son Jared holding a striper he caught.

John Day River Smallmouth

My grandfather passed away a couple weeks ago. It was pretty sad, he taught me everything I know about fishing. I grew up fishing with him on the John Day River in eastern Oregon for smallmouth bass and steelhead. So after the funeral my brother, cousin and I went down to Clarno along the John Day River. It was kind of a tribute fishing trip, a chance for us three to get together and do something we all love in a place that is very special to all of us. The fishing was pretty good. Water levels were low because it was the end of summer. But we had no problem finding bass willing to bite. We used soft plastic worms, and switched off using one of grandpa's old fly rods. We caught about 50 bass between the three of us, unfortunately none of them were over 10 inches long. Oh well maybe next time, it was still a great day to be on the river.

Cave Lake Nevada,

Had a nice camping trip to Cave Lake in Northeastern Nevada at the end of July. Cave lake sits about 14 miles south of Ely Nevada at around 7,000ft elevation. The browns and rainbows where not very big, I think the biggest we caught was about 16 inches but there were plenty in the lake! My son and nephew slayed the trout one day with night crawlers. But mostly they used kastmasters and rooster tails and did fine, averaging about 6 trout every two hour period. I mostly fly fished, having success with olive crystal buggers. But in the evening when the hatch was on I used a lite Cay hill dry fly to clean up! It matched the hatch very well. My son even caught fish by using a dry fly on a spinning pole with a bobber. Most of the fish were around 6-8 inches. I think if I would have brought my kayak I could have found some larger fish. I also had some success trying a new lure and technique. I tried some mini jigs. I tried both small marabou jigs and well as the small plastic tube baits by themselves and with a bobber. Best method I found was a tube without the bobber. I caught two rainbows on the rig with only about 1 hour of hard fishing time. The strikes were pretty savage as well.

This is a picture of my son with a nice little papio (blue fin trevally) that he caught in K-Bay on the island of Oahu. The other picture is of my daughter Marissa's first ever bone fish she caught. Both fish were caught on squid.

In the middle of K-bay there is a huge sand bar. At low tide some of the sand bar is exposed, at high tide depth on the sand bar ranges from ankle deep to about three feet. So as you can imagine many fish come up on the sand bar to feed, especially bone fish. The edge of the sand bar drops off really fast into about 20-40ft of water, depending on the area.

When I fished by my self I would walk the sand bar using a fly rod or if the wind was bad I would use a small jig and a spinning rod to chase bone fish. But when the kids came I would just anchor on the edge, chum up the water with squid over the drop off and then still fish with squid for bait. We caught bone fish, trevally, small flounder and what ever else swam by. It was great fun and a good way to fish with the kids. Plenty of action to keep them interested.

Not a great picture, but it's all I could find. This is 40-50lb Ahi (yellow fin tuna) that I caught off the North shore of Hawaii a couple years ago. A buddy of mine and myself where out fishing over some reefs in 40-70 feet of water trying to catch some medium sized GT's. We were throwing 6 inch poppers on the surface, mine was in a sardine color. About an hour into fishing I hooked this fish! I was only using 20lb line, so the fish took alot of it. He was bulldogging me and staying on the bottom, so we didn't actually know what kind of fish it was until I almost had the fish in the boat. Needless to say, it was a long fight. After almost an hour and a half of chasing the fish around in my boat and being spooled twice, I had the fish in the boat. Berkley Trilene line is good line! Man did that fish taste good on the BBQ!
In the spring in Hawaii it's not uncommon for some of the pelagic species of fish to come close to shore looking for food. So that explains how I hooked him. At the same time I was fighting my fish a kayak fisherman was hooked up as well. His Ahi was taking him for a sweet little ride in that kayak! Good times, I really enjoyed fishing in Hawaii when I lived on the islands.

Not a bad fathers day. High winds kept me off Lake Mead, so instead my son and I went to Floyd Lamb State Park. Great little spring fed urban fishery in North Las Vegas. We only caught two fish, but they were nice. My son caught his on a chartreuse power bait grub and I caught mine on a green pumpkin 6 inch worm rigged on a stand up jig head shaky head style. The pond has a water inlet right next to some reeds. Looked like a great spot. And sure enough it was. We caught both of our fish in the first 40 minutes of fishing. The rest of the four hours of fishing was slow.

Another Fine Peacock Bass!

This is my son Jared with his first fly rod caught fish. Of course I had to cast the fly, but he did all his own stripping, hook set and fighting of the fish. This peacock was caught in September in Lake Wilson Hawaii off of a main lake point. The fish where stacked up like cord wood. We literally almost caught a fish every cast. He caught the fish on a clouser minnow. But not any clouser, the color had to be just right. In my experience the peacocks in Hawaii like gold, yellow and purple more than any other colors. So that is the color combo I tied the clouser minnow in. For that pattern I used a yellow belly, purple back with gold flashabou in the middle. I also used chartreuse green barbell eyes and chartreuse thread.

Lake Wilson Hawaii Largemouth

Lake Wilson has some nice largemouth bass as well. This is my son with a nice one caught on a carolina rigged lizard. Although I never found the largemouth to be anywhere in numbers. The most I ever caught in a day was five. The water is pretty dirty in the lake so dark colors are a must for plastic lures. My favorite method was to carolina rig a lizard, either in black with blue metal flake or black with red metal flake. Crank baits worked well too. I would crank the points with deep divers and this would produce most of the time, and you always had the chance of hooking a peacock with a crank bait as well.

Lake Wilson Hawaii Peacock stories!

My favorite way to fish Lake Wilson is fly fishing,
which also happens to be my newfound passion.
Although it could be difficult to do without
a boat or kayak, it’s extremely effective. I have
found that baitfish imitation flies draw far more
strikes than the surface flies you usually see on
fishing shows. I like to fish on or around points,
schooling fish or any fish I have found along the
shoreline. Sight fishing is possible if the weather
cooperates and is really fun.

If you fish in the spring when the bass are
spawning, be prepared to go “bassmaster” on
them. The peacocks will be in pairs along the
shoreline and sitting on their nests. They will
bite, but you have to put the lure right into
their nests and entice them into biting by
making them mad. It’s the same principal that
the professional bass fishermen use to catch
spawning largemouth bass. I learned this technique
when I lived in Texas and did a lot of
bass fishing.
I like to use some kind of brightly colored
plastic bass lure like a tube or small grub in this
situation. It has to be bright so you can see it
on the nest as well as see when the fish takes it.
My favorite fly pattern to fish is the Clouser
minnow. I have caught everything from salmon
to bonefish with a Clouser, and the fly did not
disappoint me on Lake Wilson. I tie my own
flies, so I had to experiment with the color
scheme of the fly. I came up with a combination
that outfishes any lure or fly I have fished with
on Lake Wilson. The fly is tied with chartreuse
thread and has chartreuse lead eyes. The body
has a yellow belly/bottom and purple back/top
with a few strands of gold Krystal flash running
down the sides of the fly. I like to make the fly
about 4 inches long, because I can start fishing
it at 4 inches and then cut it down to a shorter
length if I feel the need to downsize my fly.
This fly just slaughters the bass, especially
when they are schooling and get stacked up on
the points. I have had days where I caught fish
on almost every cast on certain points around
the lake. I fish this fly on a sinking tip line, but
you don’t have to because the lead eyes will
sink the fly. You just may need to use a longer
leader to get the fly down to where the fish are
if you don’t opt for the sinking tip. I usually use
around 2 feet of 8-lb tippet with a 3-foot
section of 20-lb shock leader.
The retrieve of the fly should be short quick
strips of about a foot to 11⁄2 feet. This style of
retrieve has been the most productive for me,
but don’t be afraid to experiment, especially if
you are not getting any strikes. I hope this info helps anyone going to Hawaii that wants to catch a peacock bass. It is alot of fun!

Lake Wilson Hawaii

Who says you have to go to South America to catch peacock bass! We lived on the island of Oahu for three years, and caught many peacocks just like this one. There is a small lake next to the town of Wahiawa on Oahu that has great peacock bass fishing, as well as a few largemouth and smallmouth bass. If you go there are a couple of guides that work the lake and a quick Internet search can help you find them. It is a great time. This fish is a six and a half pounder my son caught. I had a fiberglass replica made and the fish is now on our wall! If you go make sure and bring gold kastmasters, they are money! Small top water lures work as well. But the best lure I found was a purple and yellow clouser minnow with chartreuse eyes and gold flashabou. That fly produced for me on slow days when nothing else would.