Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Whats YOUR Best day fishing

This past Friday I was off and went fishing at a buddy of mine reservoir. I fished from 9:00 am to noon and caught 40 bass. The largest a little over 5lbs and 5 around 4lbs. The rest were anywhere from a 1-3lbs. Had a ball. I got to thinking what was my best day of fishing.

My very best day was the first time I took my 4 yr old angel with me and she caught her first bass. A my best fishing buddy was made that day and we have tried to go at least once a week since.

My personal best was several years down at the ranch. In one afternoon I caught approx 20 bass. What made it unbelievable was that I caught an 11lb, 2 over 9lbs, a 8lb, 7 lb and several in the 5 lb range. All caught sight fishing beds with a red june bug plastic worm. I doubt I will ever match that again.

Lets hear about yours.

Last December one day on my pond I caught a 8lb, two 6lb, four 5lb, and a few 2-3lb bass. funny thing, any other day I would catch nothing.

Hard to pin it down to just one best day.

Haul-wise, it would be two Augusts ago when my Son joined me at our pond on a day the BG were biting incredibly well. We caught better than 30 in a little over an hour, so many that we could be extra discriminating on which we ones kept.

For whole day enjoyment, I think it was a sunny September day in Ontario in '84 when Fish Wife and I portaged one beaver dam upstream from the main lake we were staying at and limited out on nice Walleyes and Northerns. It was the sunniest & warmest day of the trip, and one big NP on the stringer pulled the boat around all afternoon.

I'll break in down like Theo did:

Haul Wise:
In the late 80s or early 90s (memory is going big time) my dad and I, and one of my partners in the CPA firm that I was one of the owners of, and his nephew. Yep that's four. Chartered a boat down in the Sea of Cortez. We were trolling around a floating island of flotsam. We had four lines in the water and as we rounded the island the port side pole started singing. We had a hook up. Before my Dad could grab the pole, the pole immediately adjecent to that got hit and immediately the two remaining poles got hit. We had found a school of Dorado. We caught our limit of 24 Dorado (6 each at that time, don't know what it is today) in less that an hour fishing. We were all exhaust and happy.

A far as entire enjoyment:
That's a little more difficult. A serious contender would be this day. Picture the summer of 2008. A warm Texas day. It sprinkled a little in the morning. Surrounded by a group of pond boss buddies. Bruce instructs Ricki and I as to how to rig a pole using the patented Condello jigging method. Ricki throws out her line while I'm tying off my jig and WHAM a great coppernose hits her jig. She reels it in and Condello even gets her to hold the fish while I take her photo. The entire day unfolded like that. Great people, great host and hostess, beautiful location, lots of fun fishing and the terrific fish fry at the end of the day.

DIED and I have also had some terrific days fishing together. The trouble with DIED and I is that we laugh almost as much as we fish. But that ain't have bad either.

My best day fishing is the first one that comes to mind. Then while reading the other replies, I got to thinking of some other great days, but I'll just share the first one that came to me.

It was almost 20 years ago, and I had started watching the fishing shows on TV. I don't know why, but seeing those guys catch bass just looked like allot of fun. I had never gone bass fishing before, so that might be part of it. I bought a new pole and a big selection of bass lures in a variety of colors.

I told my hunting buddy about the shows that I saw on TV and wanting to go bass fishing. He said they were biting at a local lake, and he was wanting to go that Saturday morning. We got there nice and early, then walked the path around the shoreline. He said they were spawning and was looking for them in the water. I didn't see anything, but he was spotting them all over the place. They were all small, so we kept walking.

About a mile down the path, he spotted a few that he said were pretty big. I looked and looked until finally seeing them. To me, they looked like there were about six inches long. I'm still not sure if I saw what he saw, but he told me to start fishing over them. I tried my spinner first. He laughed at me and told me to just use a warm. So after a few casts with that spinner, I put the worm on like I had seen on TV. He was still laughing at me, but I felt pretty good on how it looked.

It was a black rubber worm with a single weight. I over through it and was reeling it in and trying to get it over to where I saw those bass when it took off. The reel started spinning and my buddy went from laughing at me, to near panic. I don't know who was more surprised, him or me. I know that I didn't know what to do, so I just sort of stood there and watched the reel spin. Then the fish jumped out of the water and it looked HUGE!!

He told me to set the hook and start reeling it in. I pulled up on the rod and started reeling. He told me to get my tip down, so I did that too. I was about half way in when the fish jumped again and took off. I really looked big. My friend was a nervous wreck. In hind site, he knew what I had, while I didn't realize it at the time. He had the net and was half crazed by now, and was telling me to get it to the shore so he could get it in the net.

When we got it in the net and the hook out of it, I was impressed with how big it was. He was beside himself and said he'd never caught a fish that big in his life and didn't know anybody who had. He got out his scale and it weighed 12 pounds.

This was before digital pictures, so he took a full roll of film of me with it and I took another roll of it for my taxidermist. I already knew that he didn't want or need the original fish to do a mount of it, and since I don't care for eating fish, and with my friends encouragement, I released her back into the lake.

For whatever reason, only one of the pictures of me with the fish turned out. I've since come to realize that my friend is a great guy, but the worlds worse photographer.

We fished for another hour without a bite or anything. We really didn't care about it too much and called it a day pretty quickly.

My best day fishing was the day I caught my first bass, and the only fish caught that day.

Eddie

My very best day of fishing was this morning - next week will then become my newest best day all over again ....

For numbers I caught 77 LMB in 4 hours once at the old pond. That might also of been the year that I caught and released over 1400 LMB.

For Size I had one day with 7 LMB over 4-5 lbs at a friends private lake and for around these that's not bad. A lot of these LMB were 18-1/2" and 5-1/2 lbs with "out of this world" WR's. Did I mention that GSF were the primary forage fish at the time?

Eddie thats a great story.

I enjoy inshore saltwater fish more than anything. Probably my best day of fishing was on Long Island, NY in the Sound. In late October I was fishing with my dad and we got into a mixed back of striped bass, bluefish, weakfish and little tunny. I was using a light action rod spooled with 8 lb test and Acme sidewinder casting spoons. Most fish were in the 5-8 lbs range but several of the stripers were over 20 lbs. Talk about a ton of fun to catch fish that size on light tackle and never knowing what you hooked. Seeing all the baitfish breaking as the schools of predators crashed into them was great!

I'm serious - Trout from a Texas farm pond in mid April - three last night - two this morning....
in addition, a half a dozen HSB from a pound to three pounds - plus several CNBG, two over 10 inches with perfect markings in full spawning color.

You gotta love when the trout have been in a large enough body of water and not a raceway that they start to grow their fins back normally and not all misshapen. Nice looking trout George! When did you stock them and at what length and how long are they now?

Nice rainbows George, Trout are my favorite, but this year I hope to add some HSB, and see how they do.

Walked out about 1/2 of a mile to the end of a huge rock jetti made up of massive boulders in Gulf Shores, Alabama. I was 12 years old and with my brother and aunt. Not easy walking by any means especially with rods, tackle, and buckets. We hit the end of the jetti as the sun started coming up and were catching HUGE fish with every single cast. They had teeth and were breaking our lines right and left, but we did eventually scrounge up some wire leaders. They were schooled up so thick you couldnt keep a bait from them if you wanted too. Never in my life had I experienced a school of fish during a feeding frenzy and the nonstop action lasted for 2 hours!

We filled 2- 5 gallon buckets with these unknown species of 1-3 lb fish and were pumped up to have a fish fry! Carrying those buckets full of fish back across the boulders was no easy task, but I was grinning ear to ear and had plenty of adrenaline pumping! Anyhow to make a long story.... well, even longer we got back and ate those fish and they tasted like POOP! We later found out we had a nice mixed bag of ladyfish, spanish mackeral, and bluefish. That is definitely my most memorable fishing experience!!

Following in George's footsteps, today wasnt so bad:




I was fishing with my favorite fishing boat today. This boat catches some serious fish!

Bluefish taste good if they are taken care of properly and are younger fish. Spanish mackerel are much the same way...

These pics are from a few fishing trips from my dad's house on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Potomac River.

I don't know whether to consider it a good day, or a less than great day. For many years we owned a beach home near Southport, NC. I was down at an inlet fishing during a run of snapper blues when I caught a more-than citation-size sea (speckled) trout. It was about 8 lbs. I was the only guy fishing at the inlet that morning, so I couldn't show it off to anybody. It was too long to fit in my Igloo fishing cooler. I had to carry it over a half-mile back to the truck under my armpit.

I didn't smell very good when I got back to the house. My wife's immediate reaction was something like "You and your slimy dead fish need to get out of my kitchen!" I obeyed without much of a whimper. The kids were down at the beach. My in-laws were out shopping. Nobody but my wife saw it, and she didn't appreciate it. I didn't even get a picture.

Oh well, it was delicious. We still laugh about it during family gatherings.

George great trout! I hope you took pics of the BG in all their glory and are just stockpiling the pictures for a fantastic thread. *cross fingers*

CJBS,

If you ever need help pulling some into the boat, I think I still know how, and I think I still know the river pretty well from the Nice Bridge down to Colonial Beach. I've also done a lot of fishing on the other side, from St. Mary's down to Pt. Lookout.

But, my all-time favorite in that general area is flounder fishing from mid-April through mid-May, in Wachapreague Bay (Virginia). It is kind of hard to get to -- halfway between Ocean City, MD, and Norfolk VA, on the Eastern Shore. I haven't been there in about 10 years, but it was always the most incredible flounder fishing anywhere, with a few really big blues and rays thrown in for excitement.

Ken

Some of my best fishing memories were fishing the jersey shore as a kid with my father and uncles for fluke. Best tasting fish IMO.
Now the min. length is 16.5", if you get 1 keeper out of 20 you are lucky.
I remember catching those sea robin's, what an ugly fish.

I ate them and they tasted like doodoo. I will never even attempt to eat them again. I just use them for chum!

Oh my! Send the fresh ones my way before you turn them into chum.

They are absolutely delicious when properly cleaned. They are somewhat oily, which makes them very moist. The "untasty" part is the bloody lateral line. Fillet them, skin them, and then use a razor sharp fillet knife to slice out the brown lateral line from just under where you removed the skin. Soak them in a very cold, but mild saltwater solution for an hour or so.

They are incredible when baked or broiled, especially in a spicy tomato sauce, served over linguine, topped with a little fresh grated hard cheese, and a little fresh green spice from the herb garden.

Big blues and blues poorly cared for do taste fishy. But if you keep them on ice, gut them immediately and clean the dark meat out near the lateral line like catmandoo said, they are spectacular! If you are really fishy fish sensitive, coat them lightly in mayo before cooking them and the fishy taste is somehow removed...

Catmandoo, my dad's place is almost across the river from Point Lookout... He's just up the Potomac River off Cod Creek. 15 minutes to Point Look Out. We fish alot around Smith Point light house which is on the opposite side of the mouth of the river. Point Lookout has a real steep drop off, just up river is Corn Harbor, some great flounder fishing there, they just aren't quite as big as the ones in Wachapreague Bay. We'll be hitting the trophy stripers shortly when they make their spawning runs in the morning and fish for croaker in the evenings. Now croaker are some great eating fish!

A couple pictures of Smith Point Light:

I absolutely love to eat and catch croaker! Bring in a 2 lb croaker and you think your fighting a 10 lb largemouth!

I didnt say the blues, mackeral, and ladyfish tasted fishy, I said they tasted like doodoo! Just flat out gross. I havent tasted one since that day and wont. There are sooo many other fish to eat, I am not going to waste time buttering up a trash fish.....hehe

Nate,

I guess it is all in the tastebuds of the beholder. To me, there are few fish worse tasting than croaker or spot -- well, maybe grass carp, common carp, fall fish, and fresh water clams.

We need a good fish cookoff contest! Maybe somebody could bring a bunch of walleye, yellow perch, channel catfish, bluegill, etc., to the convention.

I'll be glad to volunteer as one of the chief judges of good taste!

Someday I'll figure out how to post the video of my best day fishing.

My dental partner and I left Lincoln at 1:30 a.m. and arrived at Webster Reservoir in Stockton, KS at 4:45. I discovered that there was a topwater bite and proceeded to catch 30 HSB on topwater lures that all were between 10 and 15 pounds.I had a patient at 1 p.m., so I jumped back in the vehicle at 9:45 a.m. I also caught various smaller HSB. I'm pretty sure that I never had a cast without a fish. The HSB were all around us, so if you lost one another one would hit. I guess I should mention we were in our waders. I ended up breaking a rod and two reels. The Kansas Dept. of Wildlife happenned to be present and videotaped the entire thing.

FWIW, I had one nice bite mid-morning, set the hook hard and literally (and I mean LITERALLY) skimmed a 4 pound largemouth across the surface all the way in. It was like catching a crappie. We videotaped that as well.