Smallies like watermelon!

Bex first Pike!

15" smallie caught on white speckle tube

Watermelon tubes that is! I've been reading up on the early season habits of river small mouth and the general consensus is to fish bright plastics like a tube or craw fish with a somewhat slower then normal retrieve. After some trial and error with tube color and retrieve speed and technique, the fish definitely responded to a slow retrieve with either a white or watermelon colored tube. My wife boated her first pike along with a few nice small mouth. Good times.

ACCIDENTAL FISHING!

The decision to fish Indian Pond in Northern Maine was a last minute one. My wife keeps her horse about 45 minutes away from the lake, at a long time friend's house. Through their relationship I've become friends with her husband Bob, an avid fisherman, snowmobiler and all around good guy. Bob had picked up a sweet Lund Alaskan fishing boat and was itching to take it on it's first run this year. It required about 30 seconds of arm twisting for me to get on board for the 2 hour trip North to Bingham. We rolled in, threw the fishing gear in the truck, made a pit stop for Fritos and chocolate bars (two of the four food groups) and pointed the truck to the south end of Indian pond.

Apparently all you need for the "hard to catch" brook trout.

We arrived at the lake greeted by bluebird skies, 60+ degree temps and a cranking 15 knot west wind. The west wind was warm but it was going to make fishing sketchy, most likely forcing us to find shelter on the west side or in some wind protected coves or inlets. For any of this to happen the boat was going to have to run, which was proving to be a  little bit of a problem . We dropped the boat  in the water, tossed our gear in, turned the key, and wuh! Nothing. An hour and a half, about 2 dozen four letter words, and one repaired battery connection later, we were on our way down the lake. We hit up an inlet, where Bob had caught some nice native brookies in the past, to a whole lot less wind and zero success for the first hour or so. We threw just about anything we thought might work, and were just about to try another spot when Bob hooked up with a nice 10" brook trout. It's funny how one quick fish can erase an hour and a half of skunkage. With a fresh boost of adrenaline from getting a fish in the boat, we decided to head another 5 miles up the lake to a spot Bob thought might get us into some more brookies and possibly some smallmouth. We pulled into this unnamed spot, (go find it yourself if you want the goods) set the trolling motor on a heading and started slinging some spinners. About 10 minutes in I hooked up with a nice smallmouth that reminded me why I love catching this particular fish. Strong and fast fights with a whole lot of air time. We continued further up this inlet,(another clue?) without any success until we arrive at a beautiful spot with a little more current and a whole lot of potential. Bob had had quite a bit of success with smallies in this spot in the past by throwing a good size spinner bait. He hooked on a double bladed rig and started flipping it toward anything that looked like it might hold some hungry smallmouth. I was at the front of the boat doing the same when I heard a splash, followed by some choice 4 letter words. Bob's reel had snagged on a cast and the weight of the lure when it fetched up, ripped the pole out of his hands and sent it about 8' down to the bottom of the river bed. I saw what happened and before we moved off the spot and lost the pole for good, I took my spinner off and put on the biggest hook I could find and tried to snag his sunken fishing pole. I had gone back and forth a half dozen times when, SLAM my pole just about gets ripped out of my hands! I recovered from the initial shock and started fighting what I initially thought was a smallmouth. I started reeling  and caught a flash of silver. Not a bass? Reeled a little more. Trout! Reeled a little more and got him a little closer. Big brook trout! I yard him up into the boat just as he shakes the baitless, weighted, fishing pole dredging hook I had on and lands in the boat. Bob and I look at each other in disbelief and just start laughing like crazy, taking pictures and just enjoying the hell out of one of the wierder fishing moments either of us had ever experienced.

THE TDTOP FIVE (WAY LATE)

5 - K-Dub surviving one of the dirtiest crashes I've seen him take in his supercross career. Dub was killing in his heat race against a much younger and supposedly faster James Stewart,when he caught his foot scrubbing a triple and proceeded to whiskey throttle a 70' jump, go over the bars, get drilled by both his bike and planet earth, then gets up under his own power to get off the track . If you're not a fan of Kevin Windham you clearly have issues.
4 - The intro riff to Seek And Destroy. I'm ripping this off from a FB post from a good buddy of mine. Thanks Head for getting that riff stuck in my head for the better part of a week. Raise the horns \m/ \m/ !
3 - Working on the fishing kayak.  I've got plans and they involve cordless drills, shock cord(not what you might think), stainless hardware, and a massive cup of coffee.
2 - Actually learning how to fish smarter. I read  an article from the In Fisherman the other day about early season, cold water Bass fishing. As I'm reading all the tips on choices of baits/lures, time of day, phases of moon(no bullshit, they claim this matters) I'm getting more stoked on all of this knowledge I'm going to apply to my fishing. I come to the end of the article and the closing statement is basically "of course fish being fish, none of this may work, so just throw whatever you've got in the boat and see what happens!" Gee, thanks guys.

1 - Working on some product! I appreciate all the; what is it? When is it? Oh that's what it is?! Questions about the company. I'm working on it, believe me. Getting this company going has been  a fun and time consuming process and I have a lot of people to thank so far. Thanks to Holly at Mailings unlimited for the graphic design work, you killed it! There are way too many options (I didn't know some of these colors existed) in a graphic design program for someone with my attention span to deal with. Thanks for putting up with me. If anyone needs direct mail/marketing help with their company you won't find a better group of people than the crew at Mailings Unlimited.

RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF FUN FLYING WITH MY OLD MAN

NEW TDT TEES ARE IN AND THE SECOND FREE TEE SHIRT CONTEST IS ON!

This one is easy. More movie trivia because I'm a big movie geek. What 80's movie, that was probably shown at least 6 times a day when cable came out, starred Dennis Quaid and Ringo Starr and basically had no understandable dialogue? Bonus question for a TDT hat:This one is for my Maynard homies. What local establishment had a letter fall off their sign resulting in it being called something else, for, well, ever?

The rules - No search engines! Pull this from the cob webs of your 80's hairspray and arena rock riddled brains. If you're too young, ask someone older. We all like talking about the 80's.

No family - Let's be honest, you guys are getting swag already.

You don't have to know both answers. Obviously if you're not from Maynard (you unfortunate souls) you won't know the bonus question.

The first post on the BLOG site gets the shirt and/or hat.

THE TDTOP 5 OF THE WEEK

5 -  Your moms house podcast -Tom Segura and Kristina Pazinski kill it on this podcast. Two of the best at taking any topic and bringing it places it probably never would or should have gone.
4 - The new Lorax movie - Don't care how old you are check it out. IN 3D!! Dr. Seuss was made for the third (and possibly fourth) dimension.
3 - Something about a truck- Kip Moore. Great bluesyish country song. The more you hear it the redder your neck gets! Don't judge, just listen.
2 - Weeds - I motored through the first 5 episodes last night waiting for the New Nitro Circus TV show to come on. One of the most conversational and cleverly written shows on TV.

1 - Nitro Circus Live on MTV2 - Any time Travis, Tommy, Special Greg and the crew start hucking themselves off a mega ramp I will be parked in front of the idiot box waiting to see what they snap in half. If MTV isn't going to play music any more they should turn the channel over to Travis full time, give him a giant stack of cash, and let him do his thing.

80 Degrees and Paddling in March!

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