sometimes you eat the Bear and sometimes the Bear eats you

[John Jarosz]

Well, yesterday the Bear ate us for breakfast & lunch. We also brought our own lunch. Dan Scheda & I went out on what looked like a perfect day; The opening site was watching an osprey diving toward the water for a meal. For us it was the middle of the week, we were the only ones out there, threatening rain all day (but it didn't), heavy overcast & warm but not hot. Water temp was 74 deg.

Not a hit, not a follow, nothing. The only musky signs were two of them on the surface. One broke & splashed the water; the other cruised the surface with only the dorsal & tail fin showing like the conning tower of a submarine. They looked about mid to high 30's. Heart rates were going up.

As Dan & I usually do when muskie fishing, we took out our ultralights & fished for panfish. Surprise, surprise!! We managed crappie in every single spot we fished. Most were undersize but we still managed a few keepers that hit the 9" mark. Who catches crappies in the middle of July on tube jigs?...and keepers yet? I always thought of them as an ice-out, cool spring morning, minnows on a jig type of fish to go after, but not that day. Throw in a few sunfish, bluegills and a nice 14" largemouth Dan got, & it was a fine a day as one could ask. 

[Josh Ketry]

This was on the Niagara?

[John Jarosz]

Josh...I wish it was the Niagara! Sorry for the confusion. The "Bear" was Bear Lake in Stockton. Crappies in the Niagara would have been a real find!

[Josh Ketry]

Yeah that is why I asked. I was stoked to hear that!  lol