Beltzville Lake 6/8/13

Hit Beltzville Lake on Saturday, June 8, 2013.  The plan was to catch the sunset bite before doing a little night fishing.  Water temps were consistently showing 68 degrees.  The lake was stained and water clarity was pretty tough by Beltzville standards.  Seems as if all fish are post spawn!  We fished from 5:00PM to 2:00PM and boated between 15-20 fish.  Fish were taken on crankbaits, topwater, jerkbaits and various plastics.  Here are a few from today.  I won't mention the two BIG ones lost around midnight.  I promise .. :)

Not sure why I had the "serious" face on.  Haha!  Check out the NICE smallie though .... Nice chunker!

  STRIPERS are better than STRIPPERS!  

However, Chad pulled in the BIG fish of the night.  I could have claimed that but lost 2 MONSTERS.  But I won't talk about it - promise!  

Beltzville Lake Bass Bonanza 5/11/13

Friday, May 10, 2013 - I had a District XI Athletic Director's meeting at the Mahoning Valley Country Club.  Beltzville Lake is about a 10 minute ride from this location so "common sense" says "go fishing!"  HAHA!  After my meeting, I was on the lake in 30 minutes.  However, I wasn't feeling so hot and my trip lasted only 2 hours.  While there, I took notice to schools of BIG stripers and catfish feeding in the coves.  It appeared as if they were chasing trout fingerlings.  After speaking to a park ranger, my suspicions were right.  They apparently dumped thousands of fingerlings in recently.  The fish looked extremely grateful!  They wouldn't take any of my offerings so I watched in awe how they would SWOOP in and grab a quick bite to eat at the local TroutDonald's.

Saturday, May 11, 2013 - It was a late call to even fish.  It came down to heading to the North
Branch of the Susquehanna (2 hour ride) or staying local and fishing Beltzville (30 minute ride).  My buddy Chad really wanted to fish Beltzville and talked me into some night fishing.

This was the prize of the day.  We fished from 2:00-11:00 as we were beat on by the sun, wind, rain and eventually HAIL!  Yes, we withstood the urge to leave after that final storm and it paid off.  This LARGE mouth was pushing 5lbs.  I could kick myself for NOT taking a picture of its belly. It was bigger than a fat kids smile at an ice cream stand!

My buddy Chad hooked this smallmouth on a Pike while helping me land that largemouth above.  It was a fun few minutes for us.  This football was pushing 3.5 lbs on the Richter Scale.

We totaled 29 bass today.  Not too shabby for fishing the DEAD SEA!  Water temps ranged from 60-64 today.  The weather was absolutely ridiculous.  We went from shorts and t-shirts to hoodies and wet weather gear a few times.  The hail storm woke the fish up though.  NEVER leave during a storm.  The real storm of fishing fun starts when the rain exits stage right.  Here are a few more pictures.  Enjoy - steeler

All fish are CPR!  Catch - Photo - Release ...

Animal Planet MEETS the Susquehanna River 5/4/13

Oh what a night  day!  :0  Even Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons couldn't have scripted this day any better.  I'm NOT that old but using this reference will make you wonder.  HaHa!  I set the alarm for 3:30AM and hit snooze until 4:00AM.  I was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike heading for the Susquehanna River at 4:30AM.  However, on this day there was a special guest - my 12 year old daughter, Olivia.

Yes, she slept most of the way to the water.  But that's okay ... she was saving her energy to do this:

Water temps this morning were 58 degrees.  By days end we noticed it climbed to 62 on the fish finder.  Blue birds sky prevailed for every minute of our fishing adventure.  However, it was nature that stole the show today.  

Not quite sure what kind of snake this is?  It was pretty big though.  He somehow became entangled in my tube bait.  It took a minute but this slithery fella was able to swim away without incident.  We were also lucky enough to witness an eagle carry a BIG small mouth bass to his lady and kids for lunch.  Pretty good day on Animal Planet meets the Susquehanna River.  

My daughter had an outstanding time watching the eagles, the turkeys, the turtles, the red tailed hawks, the herons and even the Muskie that attempted to railroad a smallmouth I was reeling in towards the boat.  I had an outstanding time just spending time with my little girl.  Almost forgot - we also did some bass fishing

  

40 bass total today!  1 walleye on opening day (Catch - Photo - Release).  Spending the day fishing with your daughter ..... PRICELESS!  

Hey, not even the JERK who did this could have ruined our day

steeler fishin'

Fairview Lake Fishin' Frenzy 4/28/13

Woke up at 5:00 this morning and knew it was going to be a GOOD day!  I was unable to fish the Susquehanna River on Saturday.  However, my buddy James D. Rowe invited me to fish Sandt's Eddy on the Delaware River.  Well, the weather person said it was going to be nice up in the Pocono Mountains thus a change in plans.  We booked it up to Fairview Lake and were on the water by 8:30AM.  The birds were chirping, the sun was shining and I was SMILING!  How can you not smile when about to fish?

Water temps ranged anywhere between 55-57 degrees depending on where the sun was beaming down on the lake.  We were able to collect a nice mixed bag of smallmouths, largemouths, pickerel and a lonely rock bass.  There were no "beds" in the shallows but that should be happening soon!  In all, we probably boated 20-25 fish.  It was a great day out on a new lake.  Thanks for the invite James!

Notice the black tail and spots on this largemouth pictured above 

Funny, you can see me taking a picture in the background!

Jerkbaits and tubes were the TICKET today!  Thanks Wacky Worm and Lucky Craft!

steeler

Lincoln Leadership Basketball Year in Review 2012-13

Yes, this is a fishing blog.  However, I also double as a Head Boys Basketball Coach for Lincoln Leadership Academy Charter School in Allentown, PA.  As you may have already read in my biography, I also serve as the Athletic Director and Dean of Students at Lincoln Leadership.  We are a small "A" school in District XI.  This is our 4th year of existence and only our 2nd year as members of District XI of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (P.I.A.A.).  We finished 12-12 (13-13 overall including district playoffs) last season and barely made the district playoffs.  However, this season we finished 16-6 (17-7 overall including district playoffs) and made it to the semi-final game vs. Pius X.

Earlier in the season, Pius X defeated us 81-51.  We didn't take that "ass-whoopin" very well to say the least.  It made us tougher, stronger, hungrier and more willing to stand together as a team.  Yes, our season ended at the hands of Pius X.  However, we were better prepared and lost a tough one this time.  With 4:00 minutes remaining in the game, we held a 3 point lead.  Unfortunately, we could close and lost 48-40.  Proud of my guys though.  Here's a video sharing some highlights from our season.  Enjoy .... - steeler

p.s. The link is directly below this sentence.  It may be tough to see for some reason.  High school basketball is awesome.  Just check out the fan support from our students that traveled all the way up to Stroudsburg High School to cheer us on.  Amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnT-uhu50B4

The Vlad & Steeler show returns! 4/13/13

It's been nearly a year (so it seems), but the Vlad & Steeler show was finally able to produce a NEW episode.  Good to see you back our there fishing Wayne.  We were also accompanied by James (James D. Rowe from EPFR for a few hours).  Originally, our plan was to hit the North Branch of the Susquehanna River for some FAT smallies! That changed with all the rain this week! Anyway, we then had to settle for PLAN B - Beltzville Lake.  Early in the morning, this CHUNKY bucket mouth was sitting in about 20 feet of water & fell victim to a smoke purple tube.  Thanks for the photo op BIG GAL!

The water was nice and calm for the first hour this morning.  This allowed us to chuck tubes.  Here was fish number 2.  A somewhat respectable largemouth ...

Right before the winds picked up, this NICE pickerel decided to join the party.  Thought it was a musky when first surfacing.  It looked like an awesome fish once its gills flared up.  If the body would catch up with the head, this fish has potential to be a MONSTER!

Wayne didn't have such a great day! Unfortunately, the fish were being stingy and chasing my lures instead.  Sorry buddy!  Just gives you a GREAT excuse to get out again in the very near future, right?  This stick fish was sweet though ....

The winds were unfortunate today.  However, we are die hards and spent the day catching up.  Good day Wayne.  Still beats sitting at home on the couch.  Well, at least when it's NOT football season.  HaHa!

Hey Wayne and James, anyone see my sunglasses?  Oh yeah - they are sitting atop the house at the bottom of the lake now.  Never fun losing your "chick checkin' out" glasses.  Haha!  Just remembered that HUGE smallmouth I lost at the boat Wayne.  DANG!

steeler

Where's WALDO & Mooooooo ... 4/7/13

Spent Saturday night at my little brother's wedding.  Fishing was the last thing I expected to be doing on Sunday.  HOWEVER, the Mrs. encouraged me to get out of bed and chase some smallies.  Yeah, she's the best!  My other brother and I exchanged texts back and forth this morning.  Honestly, we both had to convince one another to hit the river (Susquehanna) for a few hours of fishin'.

We started fishing around noon and the clouds were covering the mountain side.  After about an hour, the sun peeked through, but so did the gusting winds.  GEEZ!  It was like a hurricane but without the rain!  This completely eliminated the tube bait bite.  HOWEVER, the jerkbaits were the ticket today.  Steve and I chucked Lucky Crafts from noon to 5:30.

Water temperatures ranged from 43 to 44.9 today.  In total, we brought 23-24 fish on board.  Most were in the 15-16 range.  If memory serves me correct, there a few nice fish today.  2 were 17 and 1 was a sweet 18.  We also took pictures with a walleye.  Haha!  Unfortunately, Steve lost his favorite Lucky Craft.  A musky decided he wanted to swim around the river with it hanging from its' mouth today.  :(   We also had about 5 or 6 fish come unbuttoned.

Great day of fishing that also included watching 1 adult eagle hovering above with three little ones.  Can't wait until next week!  I'm guessing this week of nice weather will really wake the smallies up.

steeler