this is me and my 5 lb. 22 inch smallmouth i caught on a red crawdad crankbait

I'm  not sure how to title this story. But I know how to tell it.
I have been living in Utah since 1979 and one of my favorite fishing places to go is in Lehi at the Jorden pump house where the Jorden river begins just at the north end of Utah lake.
I have been going there for many years and have cought many good size channel and mud cats as well as small bass and carp. Anyway one day I decided to intraduce my wife Debbie and our sons to my fishing Hole . thinking that this would be a good chance to show off some of my skills I didn't know what was in store for me.
right off the start I found that none of them knew how to string up any gear  (hooks & sinkers) or even mount a worm." Oh Boy!" I began to get all set up and out into the water after about a half hour or so the fun began. While I was busying myself getting my own pole together our one boy gets a snage I put my things down and go to help him just as I get him fixed up my wife catches the first fish.
Just a small half pound channel.we decided to let it go then I get her back out into the water and return to my own pole.Just as I was ready to go out She is Bringing in another and it was  little bigger about a 1.1/2 pound channel cat. so again I set my things down and helped get her fish off the hook and onto the stringer.
I went to pickup my pole when once again our boy was snaged and just as set my pole down to go help him my wife is pulling in another . I'm Sure that many of you Fishermen who has set out to teach your spouse and or children how to fish have expieranced this kind of trouble.This went on for about an hour or so our boys decided to go around to other spots and try thier luck while the wife and I remained where we were. Now what was really intresting about all this Is that the flood gates were open and creating a good flow of water with wakes on the surface I recall telling them about the catfish how they like to bite and run. My wife must have kept this in mind being that as soon as she felt a tug she would real in She would real in so fast that the fish would leave wakes on the wakes (any faster they would have been flying threw the air) those fish didn't know what was happening. I wish that my video camra had been working  It would have made a good comedy for AFV. I finally caught one fish But she managed to fill up two stringers worth .
Many Stories to come Crazy_Gill


Crazy Gilley

My name is David Clarke, my lifetime member # is 90231866. I just received a collection notice from RMCB for $19.98 and all i can think of is that is for one of your over priced calenders that I specifically, in several nasty words, forbid you to send me more of after I paid for the last one. I wouldnt pay $20 dollars for this calender in a store or from you, never, nada, dont want it, dont SEND IT TO ME!!!!! AND CALL OFF YOUR DOGS!!!!!! If this xxxxing calender marks my credit I will spread word of your predatory rip off tactics far and wide. Ever since I became a life member all the little gifts stopped. The rod/real you published as being worth $130 sold brand new for $59 and you keep trying to force feed me this goddamn calender. AGAIN I DONT WANT IT, DONT SEND IT. MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS APOLLOCONTRACTORS@HOTMAIL.COM. I EXPECT A RESPONSE STATING THAT YOU HAVE CLEARED UP THE COLLECTION AND WONT SEND ME ANY MORE CALENDERS!!!!

It all started on Friday wen I (dad) brought home a two man 10ft john boat. While this is not much for some folks, you would have thought that this was the Queen Mary for my son and I. My son is 16yrs old and not really into fishing but likes hanging out with dad. Well we got all our gear ready, checked all the rods and reels, prepped the boat on the drive way on how we were going to set and place gear in the morning on the water. It was getting late and my wife was taking pictures and reminded up boys that we needed to put our toys away and come eat diner. Well we proceeded to put everything in the truck and tie everything down for our early morning journey. We ate diner, talked about what fishing hole we were going to, took our showers and went to bed. Now here comes some funny stuff, my wife and I both set our phone clocks but sat them for week day hours and not week end hours, so my son sat his clock correctly and was sitting out in the living room for about 30 min before coming to wake me up. We got our coffee double checked our list and headed out for the lake. It took about 40 min to get there and we unloaded the boat, sat everything up like we planed, shoved off the shore and started fishing. About an hour into it we just seen the sunrise over the water and could fill the nibbles on the lines. Then wouldn't you know it we forgot our net. To bring this story to an end we had about six uninterrupted hours of father and son fishing time and it was the first time either one of us had been in a small boat on the water and we watched the sunrise together. Just a moment in time but a memory for our life time.

Tim AllBee

The Best Worst Trip Ever... This was a trip we planed for my son who is on mid-tour leave from Iraq. We were planning a rockfish/lobster trip to San Clemente Island (SCI) which is about 60 miles off the So Cal Coast. We met up with my friends Roy & Henry about 4:15am at Dana Point where they had the boat in a slip. After a great breakfast we headed over to get a full scoop of mixed live sardine/anchovy for the fin fish. The bait looked good, the weather was perfect and we were off. Well about 35mi offshore the bilge alarm goes off. We stop and pop the hatch to find water running out of a raw water cooling line cap. My friend Roy pulls the cap and see's the o-ring is missing, he asks Henry and he informs us he dropped the cap in the bilge 2 days ago and took 2 hours to fish it out. Roy finds the o-ring and puts it in the cap but noticed that sea water was running onto the Alt/generator. Just so you know the past year Henry was diagnosed with Dementia, so we take him out and help him. He has always been the kind of guy who takes you on his boat and refuses to let you pay for anything. So taking care of him on the water is the least we can do. Well we made the decision to keep running and save the 2nd set of batteries for later that night. Mistake!!! We get to the island and all the electronics go dead. The first set of batteries died sooner then we guessed. We pulled some charts out to try and locate fishing spots to very limited success. We scratched 5 rockfish before heading around the backside. Now if your not familiar with SCI or Catalina island, the back side faces the brunt of wind and swell when it comes up. Well at first it wasn't bad, we scoped out Pyramid Cove for little then headed to China Point. Now remember we don't have any active gauges, temp, oil pressure, etc. unless we flip over to set 2. Well we ran thru a kelp bed trying to run the alleys to not clog the cooling filter. As we hit China Point I was running the boat and ran into 10' swells coming at us in a V pattern. The southern swell was the main and the rebound off the point the 2nd. You didn't know which way to head to keep into the swell. After a 15min white knuckle ride I got us to the other side where the wind had picked up to 15 knots with 8'-12' swells at 5 seconds. Well we said the hell with this and ran back down hill toward the point and calmer waters when all the sudden I hear Henry yelling fire in the hold. I about wetted myself as we were right at the tip of the point where it was a washing machine ride in the V pattern of swells coming up our stern. I spun the boat 180 and put the bow into the swells and cut the motor to idle. Roy ran down, popped the hatch and yelled up the motor is overheating, don't shut her down. Now I'm thinking no electric power, motor at 250f and smoking hot & huge swells pushing us toward a reef. I jumed out of the wheel house to the bow and dropped the anchor to keep us off the reef. Roy found that we sucked up kelp and blocked the cooling system. After clearing it we got the motor cooled down and were good there. But now it was the fun task of pulling a anchor by hand. No Alt/Generator meant no winch. Well it was down 150' rope plus 10' chain with a 25lb hook. I brought my son up with me to pull it and soon we find it's hooked in kelp on the bottom. After 30min of boat moves and us pulling little bit at a time we finally got the hook up and got away from the danger. So we thought... Back to Pyramid cove. We fished the boiler rocks for nada while scoping out spots to set lobster nets. We set up a long drift across the cove so we could take turns napping. After we got up had dinner as the sun went down with plans to load up on bugs. All started well with 2-4 shorts per pull. We knew they were here and our bait was good. Well when it got pitch black out we found out Henry didn't charge either spot light. Now we are running blind with commercial pots all around us. Yep it happened, we wrapped a comm pot line in the prop. What a mess, I had to have my son, Jon hang on the swim step in water in the low 60's trying to cut off about 20' of rope by feel only. Well we got out of that mess and decided to move our nets along the beach line. Well this started great, we were pulling 4 to 10 per net. Still all shorts but it gave us hope. Then the current pulled a quicky on us and sent our floats in a different direction then we were pulling from. Bam, we wrap again, Jon goes back in to cut us loose which didn't go as expected. The waves started breaking outside where the started and this put our nets in the surf line. We took the first broadside and it rocked us hard, Roy yelled we gotta move now and we told him to gun it and we'll cut the rope after. Well pop goes the rope along with a $60.00 net. We go for the next one and bam, again we wrap up. This one went quick n easy. After that we pulled our last one and decided to leave for home. We had the #2 battery set to run the GPS and radar so off we went. Well we get about half way home and the Bilge alarms going off. The pump quit on us 30mi out. We decide to run after seeing very little water in the bilge. We got home safe about 2am and headed home for some good sleep. Here was some of the fun highlights we had that made the trip good despite all that happened. 1st I pulled a 3 1/2ft Morey eel up in one net. I saw it as I lifted the net but when we put the lights on, it was gone. Guess what? It was on the deck between my legs. I've never had to deal with one before and hope it's the last. That thing was pissed and was all over. They can move backwards as fast as forward. Everytime I tried to net it to get it off the boat it would slither out and after one of us. Well I finally got it out of the boat and back home. 2nd Jon pulled 2 nice rockfish up in nets to his suprise. To bad it's illegal and had to toss them back. The last was the bioluminescence that made the nets glow in the water, on deck & on his gloves. This was his first hoopnet trip and he enjoyed the whole experience, good & bad.
Fish for fun, Fish for food.

Hi my name is Orlando Ch.I was fishing with my daughter and i caught this really nice Bass.This is the biggest one i ever caught.I caught it with a black craw plastic lure.

HEY! I want people to know that I do deer hunt now and then. I like to hunt with a crossbow. I also like to target pratice alot. But when I shoot alot, the string fray's and it wont be long befor I am replacing the string. I just had a great idea that I am sure will help save your string to.

 I just so happen to have a spool of 50 lb. spider wire fishing line on my computer desk where I was making some pre-made leaders for the next year of cat fishing. Setting beside the desk was my crossbow. I thought, what if I used the 50 lb. line as a bow string wrap. I took about 5 ft. of line and begin coil wraping the bow string.

  20 rounds of shooting and the 50lb. spider wire show's no sign of wear. I think it is going to work just fine. Pass this on to other fisherman that like to bow hunt.

                                         FROM; Fishinjeff

I don't know if it was the farm pond or the fact that I was used to catfish not fighting very hard but I remember a specific little 1 acre farm pond where a little 5 lb catfish would take a person at least 5 min to bring to shore. It was the same pond where I saw my first (and only) albino catfish. But the best fish, to my knowledge, that was ever pulled out of that little pond was a 7 1/2 lb catfish that took my mother (rest her soul) a good 20 min to bring in to a point where we could get a net under it. I'm sure that my mother thought that fish was some good eating later that summer.

This might be the 2nd year in a row that I will be taking a break from local tournament fishing. With these economic challenges we have all been up against, I decided to pay off my boat, truck and focus this year again on more quality time with my family and also my friends. Last year and this year I will continue to focus on parts of fishing I still feel that I fully do not understand to the best of my ability (River Fishing!). I also live very close to Lake Michigan (Chicago Area), so I am making a pledge to myself to explore more of the big lake as well this year. I would be interested to hear if any dedicated local tournament fishing anglers had to make some of these tough decisions as well, withought ever loosing sight of have much fishings is part of our life style? Greg

Explain this to me.  3 eyed walley.