March 19, 2009 – first bass of the year, Snakeden Hollow State Fish & Wildlife Area near Victoria, IL

Hey, how about that? Open water in these photos, looks good.

Not so much in 2019 and I suspect that we’ve still got a final weekend of icefishing on the local haunts. It will be interesting to see how things play out in terms of getting on the board with the annual goal of a March bass. A goal that has been achieved every year since 2002 (with a few bonus February catches thrown in the mix).

This first pair of bass from ten years ago came from two walk-in lakes at Snakeden Hollow in Knox County, IL. From 2009 through 2014 this was the standard plan for nabbing the first bass of the year and the collection of strip pits never let me down.

Original log entry from the outing, only a two bass day but I’d certainly take that right now

Here’s the original, brief report that was submitted as part of the rundown on the start to 2009.

2009 is off to a slow start for me, much the same as 2008. Weather, work and family responsibilities have all conspired to keep me off the water. I managed a pair of bass on 3/19 from a couple Snakeden Hollow lakes with the larger of the two (actually more like the least small) weighing 1-4. Both came on Bomber Flat A crankbaits (baby bass).

Top Bass for the day 13.5″ and 1-4 on a Bomber Flat A crankbait, a classic cold water bait

Yep, 2009 had a rough start on the water and it lasted through much of the summer as Julie and I welcomed a third kid in late May. However, once I consistently got a chance to cast beginning in mid-August and running through October it turned out to be a pretty darn good year. And a lot of that success was due to the opening of a place called “Emiquon.”

But those are stories for Friday Flashback posts later this year. Don’t worry though as there’s plenty to fill the all the Fridays until then. And don’t forget, there are two final Blog Banner posts coming your way to complete that 30 post series. Sooner or later got to be some fishing too. Talk to you later. Troy

Emstrom’s Pond with Troy Jackson, Tim Townsend and Terry Jackson – February 19, 2004

Sure have heard a lot of icefishing stories lately as it has been a banner season for those who take to the hard water.

Me, not so much. I’ll stockpile my time away from home and wait for open water. While I wait, here’s some pictures and the scoop from the last time I went icefishing just as it was written up in the original post entitled “Outdoor Update” on March 3, 2004.

 

“On 2/19, Tim Townsend joined Dad and me for some icefishing at Emstrom’s Pond. Seven to nine inches of ice coupled with air temps in the low to mid 40’s is my type of icefishing. I wanted to get out just to say I went considering I hadn’t been icefishing for probably six or seven years. I’m not the diehard that Tim is as exemplified by what we each consider suitable conditions. Tim had a few stories about not standing too close to his fishing partner in order to keep the ice from collapsing or being able to see the bow in the ice from an angler’s weight. No thanks for me; I’ll put in the extra effort to drill through a few more inches. Anyway, it turned out to be a successful outing, once we located the fish.

We started out around The Beaver Lodge with little success as Dad caught three bluegill and I caught one. I elected to move to the east side of the pond where I thought there might be a few green weeds that help keep the water a bit more oxygenated in the area. It didn’t take long before I pulled in a couple bluegill right off the bottom in about seven feet of water. Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long before I had some company. Before we left, the three of us had pulled in 52 bluegill and a bass from this area. Tim caught the bass that we estimated at around 1-6 since we forgot to bring a scale. Dad was the icefishing king as he hauled in 31 of our 56 fish during about a three-hour stay. All fish were caught on ice jigs tipped with waxworms.”

 

Still plenty of ice out there so will see what the rest of the winter holds in store as I wait for open water. More Blog Banner posts kick in tomorrow to pass the time. Talk to you later. Troy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Folks, I said that I was going to take things up a notch for year two of the Friday Flashback series and here we go.

Nothing like kicking it off with Clark Griswold.

What in the heck does he have to do with an outdoor blog you might ask?

Well, I’m gonna tell you.

Today’s posts takes us back 35 years to a February icefishing outing in Warren County, Illinois. Somewhere out there between Berwick and Greenbush if you must know. An old farm pond that was a fishing and trapping destination for Dad and Uncle Dick for many years in the 70s and 80s. Many a muskrat, bluegill, crappie or bass were selectively harvested from its lilypad infested waters over the years. Only place I’ve ever seen an American Bittern too in regards to my birding life list.

Dad and Uncle Dick hauling them in on one of their old faithful fishing holes

On this outing Dad and Uncle Dick weren’t the only brothers enjoying the spot. This time around a couple high school kids got to tag along in me and my brother, Brent. Kind of cool that somebody packed a camera to shoot a few shots of these two pairs of brothers doing the outdoor thing.

Me and Brent (background) getting in on the action and a classic 1976 spring haul for Dad and Uncle Dick from the pond

The photos reveal the aforementioned lilypad growth in the background of a couple shots among other things. You see, this outing predates some of the high tech gear marketed to the icefishing crowd these days. No Vexilar electronics or shelters here folks. Just knowledgeable, experienced guides, a couple lawnchairs, five gallon buckets and even a step ladder for a seat. Cool to see the low tech, low budget roots that still guide my approach to this day.

Oh yeah, like most ponds, this one was named for the landowner/farmer.

A place called “Griswold’s Pond.”

And yep, the fellow’s name was Clark Griswold.

Talk to you later. Troy

Not only am I a stat guy, but I guess I’d have to say that I’m a wrap-up guy as well. I suppose my lifelong baseball fandom may shoulder much of the blame for these habits.

And similar to the world of America’s Pastime, we started this journey in March and are putting a wrap on it in November.

Therefore, it’s time for the recap and some stats, which in the world of blogging allows me to compile another post on a particular topic or series. In the process it also helps me to figure out what it all was supposed to mean, if anything at all.

The initial run of Friday Flashback began with a post on March 16. That submission offered up the premise of the series as looking back on outdoor adventures in increments of five years. Thus, you would get Friday posts that reminisced about events from 1988, 1993, 1998 and so on up until 2013. I’m actually kind of proud of the concept and the fact that I was able to fill up every Friday through November 9 with some “fish stories” and more.

All told, the series spanned 35 consecutive Fridays and featured over 175 photos to accompany my rambles. We managed to hit each of the five year marks along the way stretching all the way back to 1988 (5 posts). Chronologically we also visited 1993 (1 post), 1998 (3 posts), 2003 (13 posts), 2008 (6 posts) and 2013 (7 posts).

Here’s a look at some more of the final stats with some help from the pics below, all of which appeared in a 2018 Friday Flashback post.

Not just fish

Lots of lures

More than a dozen guest star appearances

Over two dozen fishing holes visited

Nearly 400 bass landed along with many other species

Now, I’ve done a bit of prowling on the internet over the years in search of fish stories and such and for better or worse there’s nothing out there that’s quite like what you get here. Lots of content, local flavor and an average Joe approach that hopefully more than a few fellow outdoor folks can relate to.

And coming your way in 2019…

And here’s the kicker, I’ve got four more years’ worth of this flashback stuff. We’ll kick it all off again in March 2019 as we look back in another batch of five year increments running from 1984 to 2014. Hope you’ll tune in for that long walk down Memory Lane and in the meantime stop back by as I’ve got plenty of other stuff to fill the fishing “off season.” Talk to you later. Troy

We don’t travel too far back in time this week with a look at a 2013 visit to Eureka Lake in Woodford County, Illinois. I’d always wanted to give the 30-acre fishing hole a look but just couldn’t pull the trigger despite reading some high praise and seeing some solid fish pics over the years (including a double-digit bass). Well, leave it to a fall drawdown to push me to finally get it done as the secrets revealed when the fisheries managers pull the plug are too much to resist.

Here’s an excerpt from the original post submitted on my former blogging gig almost exactly five years ago today (11-1-13).

During my regular fishing related wandering around the internet a couple weeks ago I learned that Woodford County’s Eureka Lake was in the process of a fall drawdown. A report of a lowered lake is music to my ears and I started checking the calendar and the weather forecast for a chance to introduce myself to some bass I’ve never met. Earlier this week things worked out allowing me to meet a handful of the inhabitants and learn a few of Eureka’s normally hidden secrets.

Original log entry from the trip

Stats
Date: October 29, 2013
Location: Eureka Lake
Time: Noon-3:00pm
Weather: Overcast/windy (from southeast)
Air Temp: 45-57F
Water Temp: 48F
Totals: 3 bass
Lures: Strike King Red Eye Shad (sexy shad) – 2 bass, Yum Crawdad Texas rigged – 1 bass
Top Bass: 1-3 tie (one on each of above lures)
Weight (2 bass at 12” or better): 2-6 (1-3, 1-3)

12:02pm – instant feedback but wouldn’t pan out to be a real hot bite on this cool day

Notes & Nonsense

The Launch – The lake has been lowered in order to facilitate ramp renovations so getting a boat launched required an alternate plan. I’d picnicked at the lake with Julie and whatever kids we had at the time several years ago but I really couldn’t recall what would work best for dragging in my eight foot johnboat. I wound up finding a spot near the dam that was suitable in terms of solid footing on the exposed lake bottom but it involved a 50-60 yard drag down and up a decent hill. It took three trips each way but I was able to haul in the boat, oars, a battery, trolling motor, anchor, too much tackle, life jacket, boat cushion, five rods, a tripod and a bottle of Gatorade. As I write this, my back still twinges when I bend a certain way but other than that it wasn’t too bad. I was the only boat on the lake which made me feel extra tough as well.

1:00pm – Top Bass (tie) at 13″ and 1-3 on a Yum Crawdad

The Plan – I like to fish fast if I can get away with it and knowing I only had three hours to explore the 30 acre lake had me hoping I could find some active bass in the 48 degree water.  Two minutes into casting I had some feedback on a Red Eye Shad and I was pretty much committed for the day, for better or worse.  I did slow down around some wood in a number of spots but it was largely a lipless crankbait, spinnerbait and crankbait attack.  If I had another shot and more time to invest on the water I would probably slow down more.  But I likely won’t get a revisit this year and for this trip I really couldn’t intricately pick apart pieces of the lake and still see all that I wanted to see.

Tough day when you have to post a pic of a dead one but sure would have liked to have found it during its better days (1/4 oz Red Eye Shad for comparison)

Ones That Got Away – About midway into the trip something real heavy stopped my Red Eye Shad dead and plowed towards deeper water. Several seconds later it just let go and left me kind of bummed thinking that I‘d missed my shot at a real good bass. However, twenty minutes later I was battling a similar strike that had me all around the boat before surfacing to reveal that it was a big old carp (maybe 12-14 pounds) that was snagged in the back. I had no dipnet and no idea how I would get the thing landed and really was just hoping that it wouldn’t bust my 12 pound test and take my lure. After a good battle the lure safely dislodged and I wasn’t particularly disappointed as it was great fight while it lasted and I still had my Red Eye Shad. A fellow was walking his dog on the shoreline and we had a laugh as he said he thought that fish was going to wind up pulling me all around the lake in that little boat. I had another similar brief lure stopping encounter later that I chalked up to the same species and it left me feeling a whole lot better about that first lost fish, thinking it wasn’t a lunker bass after all. I did lose a bass at boatside on the Yum Crawdad that would have been my Top Bass although at best it may have pushed two pounds.

Interestingly, Eureka Lake is in the midst of another drawdown five years later. This time around it is to deal with the overpopulation of those carp that I snagged into and also features a complete rehabilitation of the fishery. In layman’s terms that means a total fish kill or a do over as Illinois Department of Natural Resources knocked out the remaining fish population once the lake was drawn down to more of a puddle. It sounds like the plan is to reintroduce various species in 2019 followed by a catch and release phase before establishing size and creel limits. If you are in the neighborhood I would certainly recommend taking a peek at the exposed structure revealed by the substantial drawdown as that sort of thing doesn’t happen very often. There are some killer stumps out there that could pay dividends for you down the road. Send me some pics as I don’t figure that I’ll get down that way for a look of my own. Talk to you later. Troy