Category: freshwater fishing

Posted on

Commodore Club on Great Moose Lake in Hartland Maine

Hey Folks!

Hope you’re all doing well. Today I’ve got a guest post from Michael Norton. He wrote me a note and I thought I’d let you all in on this nice place to grab some fresh water fishing!

So here’s his post:

The Commodore Club on Great Moose Lake in Hartland, Maine is available for weekly fishing trip rentals in May and June every year. Originally built in 1888, this is a one-of-its-kind, post-and-beam sporting club. You can accommodate a group of 20 at the off-season rate of $1,500.

Great Moose is a bass and pickerel lake. There are brown trout for the gifted. This lake also makes a good base to jump off to other lakes and streams. The only challenge is that the Club amenities and slices of history will keep you there — full kitchen (microwave, electric and Garland gas grill, circa 1930, for the big feeds), 10 bedrooms, billiard table, poker tables, a rambling porch overlooking Great Moose, all on 15 private acres.

Here’s a vistor post from the Boston Herald blog a couple years back:

“We were fortunate to discover Great Moose Lake three years ago and will be arriving on Sunday at THE COMMODORE CLUB…A 10 bedroom hunting and fishing lodge on 15 acres, billiard room, ping-pong and card tables. It has a triangular fireplace that fills a small portion of the huge great room. My husband worked with one of the siblings that owns the club, and this will be our 3rd year renting. Enjoy your vacation,….and pull up a kayak and say hi!”

Until this year, renters have been July/August primarily and, as the post indicates, closely associated with our family. Most come back year-after-year. One fishing group came for about 20 years every June until everyone had retired to Florida. Our goal is to find some new people who like to fish, enjoy good times with friends and appreciate this gem of Maine sporting history that is off the track and not off the rack.

You can find pictures and contact information to rent the Club at VacationRentals.com

You also can email one of the owners, Michael Norton, at [email protected] Deposit and references are required.

There’s also a book on Amazon.com called Around Great Moose Lake (ME) that features several vintage photos of the Club and describes some of its history. Take a look and consider the Club if you are bringing together friends or family.

Sounds great – eh? Check them out!

Catch you later

Posted on

What Freshwater Fishing Rod Do You Use?

Wow! It’s been quite a while since I’ve made a post. So lets get right to it.

I was reading about a new fishing rod made by “Element 21” that actually uses some bio-technology to add carrot fibers into the rod creation process! Can you believe that? Very cool.

I’ve used my good ole trusty Garcia Mitchell for about forty years and it hasn’t ever failed me. It was top of the line and is a lite-ultralite rod. It makes it very easy casting the light lures I like to use and I’ve landed some nice 5-6 lb fish on it.

But after reading about these new “Carrot Stix” fishing rods, I’m tempted to buy one and check them out. So I was wondering if any of my readers have any experience with these new rods? If you do, please post a comment here and let me know how you like it? I would really appreciate it!

If you’ve never heard of these rods (like me, before today) you can check them out at their site. Just click on the link below:

Carrot Stix Fishing Rods

From what I’ve read, they just signed a distribution agreement with “Dick’s Sporting Goods” so they should be fairly easy to find in the very near future!

So come on guys/gals and share your experiences with these new and interesting rods please.

Catch you later.

Posted on

Freshwater Fishing Tales and Lies

It’s common knowledge that fisherman, especially freshwater fishermen tend to stretch the truth a bit. Those less educated in the ways of fishing might even call it a lie.

You know that right? Well apparently it’s so very well known that the IGFA has to resort to polygraph testing when certifying a fish as a record catch! Oh the IGFA is the “International Game Fish Association” which is tasked with the job of keeping records for fish caught. When a possible new world record fish is caught, they go about certifying the catch and making sure all appropriate rules were followed when the catch was made.

If you’ve been under a rock for the past few months, you probably didn’t hear that a potential world record largemouth bass was caught in Japan this past year. (I also wrote another post about it here: new-world-record-largemouth-bass.)

Anyway, back to the IGFA. It turns out that since it’s been 77 years that the world record largemouth was caught, they wanted to be very careful about certifying the latest record catch. Now the fish that was caught was only 2 ounces bigger than the previous world record, and as such, it does not qualify as a new world record … but it does qualify as a tie for the world record under IGFA rules. That is, once it gets certified.

Good news is that the catch a was certified. But you should read this article in the “Shreveport Times” to see what the fisherman went through to get it certified!

A Fish For The Ages

The guy had to take a polygraph for goodness sake! Now that’s taking your certification process VERY seriously!

So how about we all start a new trend and try telling the truth when it comes to our fish stories? That way, maybe we won’t need to take polygraph tests when we catch a new world record fish! Can we make it work? Or is it just too much to ask of us?

OK – OK. So we like exagerating a bit. Don’t ask too much of us!

Here’s to hoping you all catch the fish of your dreams this year!

Happy New Year and I’ll catch you later!

Posted on

NJDEP – New Fish and Wildlife Issue

Just a quick post today.

The new “Fish and Wildlife Digest” issue is now avialable for all of you who fish in New Jersey.

It includes highlights of regulation changes for the 2010 year, as well as listing the season dates, size and creel limits and when and where the trout will be stocked.

So cruise on over to the NJDEP site and get your issue today! (It’s available as a pdf download for you.)
Just click on this link: NJ Fish & Wildlife Digest

Catch you later.

Posted on

Largest Freshwater Fish – A Perch?

What do you think of when someone tells you they caught a perch? You probably think of a small panfish – fun to catch and release, but not big enough to keep and eat. Right?

You can check out some pictures of our typical North American perch here:Labor Day Freshwater Fishing Fun (My sons caught those!)

So imagine how surprised I was as I read that the perch in Africa can get to be huge. How huge? Well check this out:

Largest Freshwater Fish - Nile Perch

Click on the picture to see a full size view.

That’s quite a large freshwater fish!?! You’ll be amazed to learn that the man who caught the fish had to fight off a crocodile while trying to land the fish! Wow … and I thought I had it hard fishing – fighting my way through the briar patches and dealing with ticks! lol It kind of reminds me of a real life version of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man And The Sea” – only this was in freshwater.

Anyway – you can see more pictures and read the whole story here:
Man vs. Crocodile vs. Giant Nile Perch: An African Fishing Adventure

Hope you have a great day! And a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

Catch you later.

Posted on

Jumping Asian Carp Killing Our Waters

You know it upsets me when I read about invasive species being introduced to our native waters and so I share the news with you to help me find relief! So thank you for your tolerance and patience with me. 🙂

Did you know that the Silver carp, one of the imported invasive Asian carp species can jump 10 feet out of the water? And did you know that it grows up to 50 pounds? Imagine water skiing or running your boat along a river and trying to dodge these jumping fish! Well that’s what they do on the Illinois River.

I read a report on these and 3 other invasive Asian carp species in USA Today while online today. It seems these fish are knocking on the Great Lakes’ doors and the Folks don’t want them in there! The Federal Government has been called in and the Army Corp of Engineers has been assigned the task of stopping these Asian carp. They’re currently using an electronic barrier to stop the fish, but they are also planning on poisoning the fish while they make repairs on this electronic barrier.

It cost the Army Corp approximately $40,000. in electric fees per month to run this barrier. What a waste! All because the US Fish and Wildlife Service thought it would be good to use these Asian carp to keep aquatic vegetation down and private businesses wanted their fish farming ponds clean!

If you’d like to read the full article and see a picture of the jumping Silver carp in action, just go to:

Invasive carp threatens Great Lakes

There’s a reason why certain species live only in certain areas of the world. I truly believe God knew what He was doing when He set up our planet His way. It’s unfortunate that we think we know better and end up ruining what we had naturally because of our ignorance. Maybe one day we’ll learn our lesson?

Here’s hoping so!

Catch you later!

Posted on

How many different kinds of worm rigs are there? What are they?

Here’s a question I found on yahoo Answers that I found interesting and thought I’d share it.

I get to do a project on fishing which is cool so give me all the information you have on Bass fishing with artificial worms. I already know the basics concerning a Texas, Carolina and Wacky rigs.

I need as much info about this for a project so be generous.

powered by Yahoo Answers

Posted on

Freshwater Fishing – Texas Catfish or Chameleon?

There’s so much information to be found on the Internet!

I was reading about a gentleman who caught a rather large catfish in Texas last month. How large – the catfish weighed 45 pounds, measured 41 inches long, had 28 inches in girth and was 9½ inches across its head. Oh! … And it was caught on 6 lb test line!

Now I know that certainly isn’t a world record fish, but you’ve got to give props to the guy for landing such a large fish on such light gear! Unfortunately there was no picture of the fish in the article I was reading. Perhaps that’s because he was too embarrassed to show the pink spinning reel he was using! (He claimed it was his wife’s!) lol

But I digress … The reel (pun intended) reason for the topic of this post is the other catfish caught down in Texas. The one that had the coloring which was similar to a killer whale! The size of the fish was not given, but the coloring was. The catfish was “a blue catfish that was colored in a vivid black and white pattern, much like a killer whale.” Very unique coloring for sure!

Turns out that this wasn’t the first catfish caught in that lake that had this coloring. There were 3 – 4 other fish caught in the last 4 decades that exhibited this coloring pattern. Another fellow, who is the curator of aquaria for the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center, said that he had a “black and white blue catfish on display in that facility that eventually reverted to a normal bluish gray color. The same thing happened to a killer whale-colored blue cat in Cabela’s Fort Worth store, where curator Tim Huebner said it took about 18 months for the fish to morph into a traditional color.”

Biology professor Tim Bonner at Texas State stated that the condition is called partial albinism and could result from an injury or stress caused by environmental conditions. Who said that the chameleon is the only animal to change its color?

So I was wondering what it was that was in that lake in Texas that was causing such stressed out catfish? Perhaps the fish there can read and all the bad news going around is stressing out those poor cats! Hah – guess we’ll never know!

If you’d like to read the article, you can find it here:

Crazy Catfish

Have a good day and I’ll catch you later!

Editor’s Note: Biology professor Tim Bonner at Texas State was kind enough to send a picture of the uniquely colored catfish for everyone to view. He said the picture was sent to him from Texas Parks and Wildlife fish biologist – Bruce Hysmith (the actual photographer is unknown). So here’s the picture and many thanks to Professor Bonner!

Texas Killer Whale Catfish
Killer Whale Catfish

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.