TWIF (This Week in Fishing) July 9th - July 15th

Each summer my family and I take about a week to get away from southern Maryland. This year we decided to head to Wisconsin. Why Wisconsin? Well the timeshare we own has a property in the Wisconsin Dells. We had visited the area once before, 5 and a half years ago, and we wanted to see the area in the summer. Considering that the temperatures back home were in the mid 90's and it was pretty humid, man was I glad that we were away. We used the place in Wisconsin as a halfway point since ultimately we wanted to get to South Dakota.

Once in South Dakota, we visited Sioux Falls, the Badlands National Park a little further west as well as Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial. I also got my family to climb Harney Point, which is the highest point in South Dakota. Actually at 7,242 ft above sea level Harvey Point is the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains.

In trying to keep with the "This Week in Fishing" theme that I've been using recently I'm going to bring everyone up to date on my week in the midwest.

Our property at the Tamarac Resort, in Wisconsin Dells, had a small pond, maybe a couple of acres, that they referred to as Hummingbird Lake. As mentioned in my previous post, the lake was home to loads of fish. Being catch and release only, there were lots of panfish, predominantly bluegill, cruising the shallow areas. In fact many fish were guarding beds.

As I would approach the shoreline these little fish would swim up to the edge looking for scraps of bread thrown for some of the ducks that had taken up residence. Using a small 1/32 oz jig with a small tube worked some, but these fish seemed to have a hard time of getting the entire bait in their mouths. (They were pretty small.) So at one point I drove over to the Walmart and picked up some Gulp! 1 inch minnows in chartuese. Their profile was narrow enough that the bluegill could bite down and hold on. Later in the week I found, sitting on the walkway around the pond, a very small jig. I think it may be a 1/64 oz with some white hairs tied to it. I tied that onto my ultralight spinning rod and was able to catch quite a few as well.*

All totaled for the week I caught about two dozen of these little guys. (Photos of bluegill and the small bait)

*As a footnote the FishNerd podcast that I enjoy quite a lot mentioned in one episode a little while back a "scavenger challenge." Finding a piece of tackle and using it to catch a fish. Here's my "entry."

Now being a small pond there was also a fair number of largemouth bass as well. I could see them cruise the shallows here and there. Any attempt at catching one using a hard bait, crankbait or small jerkbait, was fouled due to the amount of grass in the pond. I could have spent hours casting them and probably pulled a good amount of the grass off of the bottom. Instead I went to a tactic that I'm not as comfortable with - the old soft plastic worm. I tried both a Texas rig as well as a Carolina rig. In all honesty the Carolina rig worked the best. I was able to rig the bait as "weed less" as I could. I'd cast it out and let it fall on a slack line. If something didn't bite then I'd drag it a little on the bottom a few feet and wait. The bites I got usually came after the first or second drag. Tick, tick - THUMP and set the hook! There were some nice sized fish in the lake, most of the ones I caught going between 14 - 18 inches. The best fish I caught was one evening when my wife had my phone. Luckily a few other people were fishing as well and I was able to get another angler to snap a nice photo.

Altogether I caught just around 18 largemouth as well. Now being that some of our time was spent a way from Wisconsin I felt I did pretty well with over 40 fish total. If I had one regret from the trip it would be the lack of time to try another location within the Dells. We were there as a family so I wanted to spend as much time with them not go out on a fishing adventure on the river with a guide or by myself. Next time though I will spend some time along the river to see if I can have any luck in catching something there.



On a couple of other notes in respects to fishing from this past week:

Since the fishing was pretty easy this week I actually got my youngest son to come out to the pond with me. While he was with me, he hooked into a nice largemouth and did a nice job fighting it to shore.

Also I received a couple of texts from my sister. She had taken her grandson, that she is raising, out with the Rocket Fishing Rod I got him for his birthday. Not only had they gone out, he actually caught a couple of nice bluegill.

Then I also received a "tweet" this past week from a student from this past school year. In class he knew I enjoyed fishing and would occasionally ask how I did "this weekend." One day in class he was especially interested in how to "surf fish." I told him what I know, which isn't terribly much. Well this past week I received this photo

with the caption: "@ReddenDE finally caught my first fish! It may be tiny but there's more to come!!!😂🐟" It was really neat hearing about how he did. I've had problems with social media before- but this was one time when it went well.

Lastly, being the FishNerd that I am, whenever I'm near any body of water I always try to keep an eye out to see if people are trying to catch something. Well while we were visiting Sioux Falls this past week, and everyone seemed to be looking for and catching Pokemon, I spotted this gentleman on the other bank. He was fighting pretty well, and had come to the point where he needed to figure out how to get his fish in the last 10 or 12 feet.

Of course it meant that he needed to lift his fish, a carp, up into the air. Unfortunately as he started to lift the 18 or so inch fish shook off. Fortunately I got his picture.

Back to Maryland next week- until then Tight Lines!