4-28-13

This morning I guided Greg Hubbel Jr. on a turkey hunt. We had no more than gotten out of the truck this morning and could hear tom's gobbling all over. It sounded like there was 6 or 8 different birds so we headed in that direction. At our first set up I called and the tom's gobbled but I could hear hens in between us and the tom's, so we stayed put for awhile and then moved on.  At the next stop we had gobblers all around us but again, the hens had their attention. We could see a tom no more than 80 yards from us strutting his stuff but there was no way he was leaving his girl, so we snuck out of there and tried to find the others. As we moved along we spotted a group of 3 tom's up on the hillside and they did not have any hens. We crept into position and I gave a soft call that they immediately answered back to. Each time I called they would gobble but they just would not come towards us, as they did not want to cross the ravine between us and them. In true killer fashion I put together a quick plan. I was going to have Greg sneak down into the ravine and then up the other side while I sat and called to the birds to try and focus there attention my direction while he put the sneak on. I have done this in the past and had it work a few times so we gave it a shot. When all of the birds were facing away Greg slid down the embankment into the bottom and I kept calling to try to keep the birds from moving off in the other direction. As soon as Greg started to make his way up towards them I continued to call and the birds puffed up and strutted in circles, so far so good! I could see Greg was nearing the top of the ravine so I began calling aggressively to try and drown out the noise he was making. The birds stayed put and as Greg peeked over the top I saw his gun go up and then watched as a gobbler was knocked off his feet. The shot was true and the stalk panned out. The tom had a 7 inch beard and 1 inch spurs. Although it didn't happen the way it is supposed to it's always nice when a plan comes together! Either way the results were the same and Greg ended up with a beautiful bird!!

Casey  

4-26-13

Today I guided Andy and Al for stripers. We launched at Teesdale and started fishing below the ramp with the worm. On my fourth or fifth cast I had a bite and it was fish on! The guys informed me that they did not want my charity fish, so I battled the beast and before long had a 20 pound hen to the boat. After a quick photo session she was released to go make her babies. That was a good start to the morning and as we continued to work the rock walls we picked up a couple more nice males for the box. The boats were starting to show up so we headed up stream to see what was around Lupes Bend. We switched over to minnows and started working our way back down stream. We didn't get far when Andy hooked a fish, but it came off right at the boat. We continued working our way down and as we neared a likely spot we got a double, both of which were nice keeper sized fish. We continued working our way down stream and picked up a fish here and there. All of the fish that we caught today were good clean fish in the 4-10 pound range. We called it quits at 11:00 with a box full of nice schoolie sized stripers for the table.

Casey 

4-22-13

Today I guided Bob and Les for stripers. With the water dropping I decided it was time to head down South, so we trailered the boat down and launched at Knight's Landing. We launched around 6:00 and headed up stream for 5-6 miles. As we rounded the corner there was a tree laying in the water with a huge break behind it and it looked too good to pass up so I slid over to it and tied off. As soon as the boat was sitting right I put on a live minnow and slipped it over the side. Les had not had his line in the water for more than a few minutes when he had a pull down but it didn't stick. When you are fishing live minnows form anchor you have to let the fish pull down the minnow and then lean the rod tip down until you get steady pressure and then set the hook. Les was having a hard time getting the hang of it as he missed 6 fish in the first 5 minutes. Bob on the other hand couldn't get bit but he finally did and soon had the first fish in the boat. Les caught on and then it was a battle who was going to get the next fish! We stayed in this spot for a couple of hours with steady action the whole time and then it died off, so we moved on. At each and every stop we would catch a couple fish and then it would die and we would move on. We fished several different locations today and caught fish at all of them. We ended the day around 1:00 having boated a box full of nice fish and a few shakers. It was a great day on the water despite the howling North wind.

Casey