Fish Ohio Saugeye trip

Three generations of moke family launched the boat at Alum Creek about noon on 7/26/2014 to do some fishing. The pleasure boaters were right on our tail, but our mindset was to embrace sharing the lake. Leaving the boat ramp, we encountered a stiff south wind which made drifting and trolling easy with 3/4 oz bottom bouncers and worm harness, and it also meant we could concentrate on fishing with minimal distraction of boat control. In shallower water, we caught more species but not the target keeper saugeye. Throughout the day, we caught 8 different species including crappie, largemouth, yellow perch, rock bass, sunfish, channel catfish, white bass, and saugeye.

Pappy was catching most of the fish on a green harness with gold hammered blade; the only one I had on the boat. So, pappy did what pappy's do; gave his harness to Kurt and retired for nap. Wasn't long when pappy's nap was interrupted by this guy.

 

Kurt caught it completely on his own; his only assistance was netting the brute. That's all we heard about the rest of the day, and we loved all the ribbing we got about Kurt's big fish of the day. At 7 years old, Kurt is really an accomplished fisherman. In last 30 days, Kurt has two "Fish Ohio" muskies and now a saugeye.

At 4pm, we headed to the ramp to avoid the approaching storm, but the pleasure boaters beat us to it. With about 30 boats lined up at the ramp, we put the rain fly up to ride out the storm (including small hail on the deck), and then got back to fishing.

 We caught one keeper saugeye during the storm. After the storm, we found the fish stacked up in 20+ ft. of water; on two passes we had double saugeye hookups, and missed a triple because pappy had a swing and miss.

Here is another 17 inch saugeye that Kurt caught.

 

 Most of the keeper saugeye were taken in 20 to 25 feet of water. We ended up keeping saugeye of 18, 24, 17, 16.5 and 16 inches as well as a yellow perch that took the hook too deep.

Target speed was between 1.0 and 1.5mph most of the day. When action slowed, we change speed and direction with s-curves over the target depth. Here is a picture of the total catch.

 

 Kurt could not wait for Mom and Luke to get home from the fair to show off his catch.

Creeking..

Nothing like a little creeking for the soul.......

Natural Bridge State Park

I can't believe all my years in Ky I never made it down to the Natural Bridge area.  It was so beautiful to see the bridge.  We had lots of fun ride on the chair lift up the mountain.  Then hiking around the area to see the Natural Bridge from one side. Then hiked to the other side and walked on the Natural Bridge.  Then we took a hike to see the cave and the balance rock.  We did lots of hiking and all the kids did a great job. I even did a great job. It was a great day of exploring.

Forth of July

For the fourth this year we planned a last minute trip to meet up with family in Ky.  Uncle JJ, Aunt Jayna, Rylie and Alivia made the trip from TN.  We made our trip from Ohio, along with Grandma and pappy making the same trip.  We headed down to my old neck of the woods, so I was excited to show the boys were I went to collage.  

 

The cousins were so excited to see each other and had so much fun swimming the whole day.  The rest of us enjoyed relaxing by the pool, talking, swimming and having fun.  That night we watched the fireworks from the parking lot of the hotel we stayed in.  We all enjoyed the fireworks, poppers and glow sticks the kids had. Happy Fourth of July!!!

Sunset Fishing

 I love how these picture turn out of the boys fishing.

Beating the heat

Summer is here and so is the heat.  The best way to beat the heat is get wet. So off to the splash pad with Anna and Nat for a afternoon of fun.

   

Great evening

What a great evening for a baseball game.   Luke caught another fly ball tonight and then threw it right to first base.  Everyone was cheering for him and he looks over a just smiles at everyone.  Then he goes right back to business. He also had two great hits tonight.

After the game Kurt wanted to go fishing to try out his new muskie lure.  The whole family took the trip over to the alum creek spill way to cast a few.  On Kurt's second cast he caught a nice 36" muskie.  Thank goodness Rick was there with us to get the muskie off the line.  Kurt was so happy and excited after that catch he didn't quite talking about it all evening.

I could not have asked for a better evening for both boys!!!!