Fishing is bad for your hands

About five years ago I took a trip with my wife and my brother out into Lake Michigan for perch. After about three hours and 6 beers later we headed back in. On the way the waves were around 4-5 feet. In our 16ft boat it was quite rough and it wasn’t long before all the bouncing made me have to pee. Not just a little bit you can hold it, but terrible mind bending pressure in my bladder. We were close to the pier and since it was a busy Memorial Day weekend I couldn’t just pee over the side. We pulled up to the pier so I could jump off the boat and use the bathroom at the state park. While I was attempting to lift myself from the boat to the pier we lurched forward causing my hands to slip and all of my weight transfer into my fingers. It was at this point I felt a snap and burning in my left hand. I looked down and my ring finger knuckle was missing and the swelling was immediate. I ran to the bathroom and when I was done the pain in my hand became unbearable. I thought I had dislocated my fingers and began pulling to pop it back in. Every time I pulled I could feel and hear a grind in my palm. We pulled the boat and took off for the emergency room. When we arrived 45 minutes later and I got X-rays it was revealed to me that I had broken 2 fingers inside my palm. So after all was said and done this fishing trip costs me 3,000$, two plates and 12 screws to repair my hand. Below are some pics. If you don’t like somewhat gruesome medical stuff, I’d stop now. 

New Website

We have finally bought a big-boy web domain.  Head over to Fishingfails.com to see our new site. We are still working on the theme, but updates will be coming soon.

 

Thanks, Chris and Kevin.

Fishiking review!

As we have said before our newest hobby combines fishing and hiking. We choose a lake and begin our hike. We stop about every 50 yards or so and fish from shore. While the fishing is typically slow it offers some great fun. 2 weeks ago we headed out to Hall Lake. I have been holding off on this post because there is a great video of my wife crossing a downed tree over a swampy marsh. I’ve wanted to post the video but so far getting it to my phone has proved difficult. So here are our pictures from our trip. We sadly and typically caught zero fish. But Chris losing his shoe in the mud was entertaining.

Here we are walking down the path to find a new spot.

Chris and I found a nice log to fish off of. We had to move after a bit because our butts and legs were going numb.

Sometime I had to climb to get my line in the perfect spot. Or course those spots held zero fish.

I think we even stumbled onto Sasquatchs raft.
So as the weather turns and our open water become covered with ice our adventures turn to hard water fishing. Check back to see how we do our first year on the ice.

Christmas Promise

I’m sitting in an airport at 6am on Christmas morning. Although this impending trip will reunite me with my family for the annual celebration of Ricky Henderson’s birthday, there is something else I’m excited about. I’m headed to Vermont, and nestled on the West coast of Vermont, is Lake Champlain, my favorite fishing lake. Growing up in Vermont, my father, grandfather and uncle used to take me out on Champlain to fish for lake trout, walleye and salmon.

Every summer I head to Vermont to see my family, but I always pack my rods. As of the past few years we have caught walleye, bass and hundreds of nice perch on the lake that I love. As we speak, Vermont is getting snow, but I know for a fact that there is no ice on Champlain. Although I have a schedule of Christmas parties and family activities to attend, I know exactly where I can find a rod or two, and I have a few spots in mind already. My goal is to get a line wet at least once.

 

But I do have a Christmas promise. For the next week I will post at least once a day and continue to work on a more professional site. New domain, new look, more posts, I promise.

Merry Christmas,

Chris

p.s. I have 150 bucks in Gander Mountain gift cards. It looks like it’s time for a new baitcaster.

More hiking than fishing.

 

As Kevin mentioned in the last post, we have decided to consider our inability to catch fish an ability to hike. Today, we are packing up some backpacks, strapping on a rod, pouring some minnows in a zip-lock bag and headed to Hall Lake. After talking to people who can catch fish, this lake might be a mistake, but for hiking it will surly be a win. Check back tonight for results..

Adventure Fishing

We have embarked on a new activity. We call it “Adventure Fishing”. Basically we choose a smaller lake in our area and shore fish. However one major draw back to shore fishing is the lack of spots you can access. We have incorporated hiking into our fishing to remedy this. The lake pictured above is at a local park we have had success at. We decided to forgo our regular spots and try all over the lake. Last Friday we hiked all around this lake. We would walk to a spot fish for 15-20 minutes if no bites we would move along about another 20 yards or so.

We had little success at any of the spots we tried but the adventure is what becomes fun.

I mostly spent my time “fishing” my phone out of my pocket to take pictures.

Here we are at one if our spots that we had a lot of success at. It’s difficult to get to and hard to cast. However there are a lot if bass here. Just not this day.

This was most of our time. Walking to another spot.

Chris was able to get a couple nice shots too. Here we are trying in vain to catch any fish we could. This is a great panorama of us looking for another spot.

We love adventure fishing and while its always great to be on a boat to actually get to where the fish are, there is a major advantage to adventure fishing. It allows us to venture into the woods to pee, and we can use our time walking looking for evidence of Sasquatch.

Guarding State Secrets

We all have “hot spots” that we know we can go to and catch fish. We pride ourselves in having this information that we are in control of. We protect our secret spots like a mother lion over her new born cub. My question is “why?” Most fisherman have a deathly fear of his spot being over run by casual fisherman. If these non-regulars come in a catch fish before long the lake will completely out of fish. Outdoors man are the only people who share a hobby and do not share “trade secrets”. My wifes grandfather flies model planes, he would never not help a fellow flier find ways to enjoy his hobby more. Women who crochet don’t keep their stitch patterns secret. Why do we feel the need to keep all of our tricks, tips and spots a bigger secret than presidential launch codes. My own grandfather was one of these fisherman. He wouldn’t take pictures of his catch in fear that someone would recognize the background and find out where he was fishing. He would routinely give out false tips to fellow anglers so they would think they were getting a hot tip. I guess false tips are better than no tips. When I was in Florida fishing the fellow anglers in the pier were more than happy to give out spots and share success stories. The guys at the bait shop were more than generous with information. Here in Michigan it’s like pulling teeth. It’s like we have to prove our worthiness to get information. My classification rank us still relatively low, but if I’m privileged enough to have a fellow fishing enthusiast share his secrets with me I feel honored. And if said angler wants his secret to stop with me I’ll respect that. But if I find my own spots to catch fish I’ll share with anyone that asks. Hell, I will probably be so happy to have caught fish I wouldn’t be able to stop talking about.

Edit: After writing this I had a very successful fisher man share his secrets with me. If your reading this I thank you! And be assured I will keep your secret. I guess maybe I’m becoming a KGB agent of fishing. Guarding State Secrets.

Fishing Anonymous

Hello my name is Kevin and I’m an addict. This is where I imagine all of you saying “Hi Kevin” back to me. I’m officially addicted to fishing. Even though I am terrible at it, I can not get enough time on the water with a line wet. After 2 fruitless trips in a row I’m more obsessed with getting back out than ever. I spend so much time reading Wired2Fish and In Fisherman. I’ve joined awesome web forums like Offishial Business and Michigan Sportsman. I could get an exceptional amount of work done with all the time I spend reading about fishing. When I do catch fish it only causes me to want more and more. Gone are the days where blue gills would suffice and I could go home happy. No, I think blue gill are a gateway fish. A start to an addiction leading you to chase Pike, Walleye and Large Mouth Bass. I have to keep up on the condition of the weather something I could care less about before my addiction. I pay attention to Lunar and Solunar cycles. Of all the time I’ve spent researching fishing and in the water, I’d still say its the best hobby I’ve ever been involved in. It allows me to spend time with my friends and luckily for me my wife loves fishing too so I can spend extra time with her after our long weeks at work. I’m very much looking forward to when my son is older and I can spend time on the water with him. It has generated lifetime memories and solidified lifetime friendships. I think I’ve finally found an addiction we should all have. And if I do get sent to rehab for fishing, make sure it’s in a dessert with no water with in 100 miles because I know I would relapse.

Fails from the past

This is a story from the spring of 2011. My family had planned a vacation to Florida for spring break. This is a trip my parents and brother take every year. Being new parents my wife and I thought it would be fun to take our 6 month old along for the trip. I immediately thought it would be a great trip to catch some trophy bass I had read about in Florida. We were staying in Kissimmee so my brother and I began researching good spots to catch bass. We discovered a lake about 3 miles from where we were staying named Lake Tohopekaliga, or Lake Toho for short. This lake is known for producing monster bass and frequented by bird watchers. We decided that this was the perfect place for us to catch some of the biggest bass of our life. We realized that the tackle we had was not sufficient and we needed to by new rods and reels. We went to the annual Fishing and Hunting expo and bought all new set ups. We each spent roughly 75$ on our new rigs. We were set to go and packed our bags and headed to the airport. We arrived in Tampa and waited for our luggage. We gathered all our belongings and quickly realized that our poles were missing. We went to the lost baggage area and saw our rods sitting in the corner. We spoke to the attendant at the airport and explained the rods were ours. After 20 minutes of convincing she reluctantly gave us our rods.

The next morning we woke up and made our way to the local bait shop to gather intel. We were told that the bass liked “live shiners” so we purchased two dozen shiners from the bait shop at a whopping 12.95$ a dozen. I’m pretty sure they had us marked as tourist as soon as we walked in the door. We made our way down the road to a local park that had a fishing pier and we had read fishermen had pulled out 5lbs plus bass. We fished for about 4 hours and lost all 24 of our shiners with no bites. The next day we did the same thing. Only this time we went at night. 4 hours, zero fish and 25$ missing from our wallets.

The next day we went morning and night. 24 shiners each trip at 25$ a pail, 8 hours and no fish. This went on for 3 more days. Finally on the final day we heard about a canal so we went the extra 10 miles and tried the canal. There was no where to fish near where we parked so we hiked in about another half mile, terrified of encountering an alligator the whole time. We finally found a bridge over pass and began fishing. I was able to catch one bass, about 15 inches. Unfortunately there is no photographic evidence of this fish as the phone the picture is on is at the bottom of Lake Manistique. You can read about that story here. Tales from up north.
This was one of the worst fishing trips I’ve ever been on. 5 days, over 20 hours, over 200$ spent on a combination of Reels, Rods, tackle and bait. We won’t even mention plane tickets, rental cars and renting the house for the week. Needless to say I will not be going to Florida again and spending so much time fishing. I think I’ll just spend my time with my son meeting Mickey Mouse.

The Banana That Cried Fish

That is a banana. not only a banana, but a sad banana. Since everyone seemed to be celebrating Halloween this weekend, I figured I should bring last year’s costume on the boat and make everyone take turns wearing it. Originally, the idea was the last one to catch a fish and to don the nanner, but since three of us didn’t catch anything, it stayed on Kevin’s old lady for the later half of the day. Is this not the saddest picture you have ever seen?

The report is short, but Kevin caught our first two walleye of the year, although they were both really small. Keith caught some nice slab crappie and an infant bass, and the rest of us got a doughnut.

p.s. No, Kevin isn’t holding the fish close to the camera, his hands really are three times the size of Andre the Giant’s. I swear.