Hellhounds

I haven't posted anything for quite a while so I figured I'd show you all a few Hellhounds I painted last week. In the 1st pic, the 3 on the left is in a Dirty Roach color, the 3 in the center are what I call Mean Streak and the 2 on the right are Hot Pike. In the second photo the top 2 are a fishing buddies requested sucker color and the bottom 2 are in a classic Black Perch color.
I have a bunch of soft plastic swimbaits that will finished in a day or two, I post them as soon as possible, hopefully it won't take me as long to get them posted as it took this time.

Going to the Dawgs

A few before and after photos of a pack of Dawgs I did for a friend this week. There was several mag size and a half dozen pounders.
Colors
Retro Perch
Cisco
Red Bar Perch
Dr. Carp
Brass Sucker
Bluetreuse Shiner

Recent Adventure

I made it over to my home lake this week. Even though I knew with all the rain we've had received in the last couple weeks that the water levels would be higher than I like but not having been out fishing for a few weeks prompted me to go anyway just to see how bad the conditions were. The water was up about 10 feet above summer pool but had been lots higher, judging by the drift lines in the parking lots. Most of the ramps were closed and the couple that were open you had to use the high water access roads to launch your boat. With the water temps in the high 60's and the water clarity pretty good I still had hopes of at least seeing a musky or two. After several hours of casting in, around, though, over and under, the massive amounts of flooded brush I have not even the first glimpse of a musky so I decided to try something a little different so I motored to one of my favorite weedbeds, which is normally in 6-8 feet of water but now was 16-18 feet deep. The best way to fish this spot, I figured, was to troll it so out came the rod holders and down went the deep divers. After a few hours of trolling, I had the same results as earlier that morning, nothing. With all the new cover in the water and every place looking like it should have a fish in bush I couldn't resist going back to casting. I seemed like every musky in the lake had vanished but the shallow brush was full of bass, they would follow my baits out to have a look and short strike at the surface lures. Most of the baits I was using were as big as the bass that were chasing them. With this trip the target was musky so I didn't have any of my bass gear in the boat.
All in all it was a very nice day to be out on the water and even though I didn't see any muskies, I cannot wait to go back and do it all over again. Just being out there is what make this sport so great, catching fish is a bonus. Days like this makes one understand why they call it fishing, not catching.

More Colors

Two more color on the Wide Tail Swimbaits
Real Perch
Orange Perch

This Past weeks Project

Some Widetail Swimbaits that I finished this week for a friend.
Colors
Nuclear Perch
Firetiger
Aland
Chartreuse Red Head
Hot Pike
Crazy Northern Lights
Perch
Yellow Tiger
Red Stripe
Island Special
Black Perch Orange Tail
Hot Bluegill
Custom Perch

Totally Commited

Here's a few photos I borrowed from a couple friends blog. I liked these pictures because it shows how much these pike were fooled by the Paddletail swimbait. They were so convinced that the bait was real that they completely inhaled that 8" bait on the strike.
The fist 3 pics are from Erik Walmann's blog and the last 2 are from Michael Andersen's blog.
Thanks Erik and Michael for letting me use a few of your photos.

Current Pike Competition Standings

Here's the current top 3 entries in my Pike Competition.
1st- Erik Wallmann 10,040 Grams (22.1 lbs)
2nd & 3rd Roger ?? 9,800 grams (21.6 lbs) and 9,500 grams (20.9 lbs)
These are some really nice pike. These 2 guys are making it tough on the rest of the competitors as it takes a fish of well over 20 lbs to make it into the top 3 positions now. The season is still early so I am excited to see just how big the fish have to be to place in the top 3 at the end of the season.

Mega D Makeover

Some before and after photos of two Mega D's that I gave a face lift to this week. These are headed for my box (like I really need them).
The first one started life as a orange tailed Walleye and I transformed it in to one of my favorite colors that's called Dr. Carp.
The second one I changed the color but not the name. The manufacturer called it a Cisco but I changed the color to my version of a Cisco.
These are big and heavy baits, commonly referred to as pounders. I hope that I move some fish on them before I get to tired from throwing them...........due to their size probably won't take very long.