Cast and Blast

On a very cold October morning Austin and I headed up the Bluestone Lake to try our hand at some fall turkey hunting. We got there a little after 7am and cruised around the lake listening for turkeys. After a while we did hear some along the bank and proceeded to call them in closer. It didn't work however as the turkeys went silent. We didn't see or hear any more the rest of the day, so we decided to pass our time by fishing. The weather warmed up considerably throughout the day, and while the fishing wasn't a whole lot better I did manage to catch a mudcat and Austin caught a few nice smallmouth. All of the fish were caught by flipping a jig-n-pig near the bank.

Buggs Island Fall Fishing

Buggs Island turned out to be a neat adventure. Austin and some of his friends usually make this trip in the spring where they spend 7 days fishing the lake. On this occasion I decided to accompany him for a 3 day trip in the fall. The fishing has been terrible this year on the Bluestone and it was a bit refreshing to go someplace new and try my hand at some different tactics. At around 55,000 acres this by far has been the largest lake that I have fished on. The forecast was to be cloudy with a chance of rain each of the 3 days we were there. Boy, did they get that wrong. It was mostly sunny the whole time, which in combination with the considerable wind resulted in some mild sunburn and wind chaffing. It didn't have the negative effect that I thought it would on the fishing though. Everyone caught pretty good numbers each day. The primary methods Austin and I employed were jigging (with either shaky head worms or a crawfish jig-n-pig) and shad colored spinnerbaits working them across underwater points jutting out from the bank. This one two punch of jig and spinnerbait worked quite effectively. The jigs were very productive and the spinnerbaits proved invaluable when the wind kicked up too much to adequately fish a jig. Our first day was spent in the Essex Branch of an offshoot of the lake called Grassy Creek. The water was rising a little throughout the day and I was amazed at how shallow the fish were. Most of our catch came in 1-2 feet of water or less. We also fished an area called Little Beaver Creek with mixed results catching 14 bass total between us that day and losing nearly that many on thrown lures and bad hook sets. The next day we fished a place called Rudd's Creek where we struggled until ultimately heading back to Essex to finish the day out with 19 fish one of which was a chain pickerel that Austin caught. Our last day there was by far the most successful. We went to a place called, ironically, Bluestone Creek. The wind was most difficult that day and spinnerbaits were used heavily with intermittent jig work during calmer periods. We ended up with 25 fish that day. Austin caught a small striper in addition to his bass and a walleye, which I have yet to catch. I caught all bass that day but they were nice ones, one of which was upwards of 4 pounds. I don't think we would have won any tournaments but I think we would have had a more than respectable showing. I look forward to going back some day.