Paul Trybul

Gregg, If you want to sell your old kayak after you buy the SOT, I would be interested.

Gregg, I finished off your book last night. It was a pretty easy read and I found your adventures and misadventures to be entertaining. Actually had me laughing out loud a few times. I'm sorry you didn't make it to the top of the mountain but I'm glad I never went musky fishing with you.

Up by me we have a lot of box elder with some maple, oak, and occasional sycamore tree. Maybe its just my luck but most of my smallmouth don't make it past 18 on the tape measure.

I've got a Honda Civic and I like it. The downside is it is small but I think it is bigger that the fit. I've got up to 42MPG with it on an all highway tank of gas. Real life 32-35MPH with a lot of in town driving. Hondas have a great reputation for not needing much work done and they have great resale value. Look at 2002 Honda values compared to 2002 models of other cars and their values. You can put canoe or bike racks on anything.

I did so much fishing one fall I got what they call tennis elbow. It hurt every time I set the hook, opened a door, ect. Someone showed me a stretching exercise and I haven't had any problems since. You take your arm and extend it straight out with palm in the air. Take your other hand and bend your four fingers down and towards your body. Do this on both arms and before and after fishing and you can prevent elbow tendinitis. You're not the only one keeping detailed fishing logs. Nature has a way of repeating itself and it helps to identify the patterns. I started keeping logs back in 2000, now I have 7+ years of data that I can refer back to. I rarely get skunked and I find myself in the right place at the right time with the right presentation often. Since I don't ice fish, it also gives me something fishing related to do over the winter months. I never kept tract of casts though, just hours fished. Does it really matter if you plug 100 cast per hour with a spinnerbait or 25 with a slider if the results are the same? I used to track a lot of things but now I just look at date, location, hours fished, temp, weather conditions, water conditions, fish caught, size of fish, lures/techniques, and if I waded, canoed or boat fished. I went from catching 200-300 smallmouth/year up to over 1400 last year fishing about the same amount of time. My fishing logs and joining the ISA certainly contributed to that success. This year I probably won't break 1000, but that is what sacrificing vacation time for a Cananda fly-in will do to your smallmouth numbers. My walleye and pike number are up though. Over the winter I may cross reference moon phases versus success but I don't know what that will mean to me anyway. I fish when I get the chance regardless of moon phase.

I have a pretty good feeling by the trees with the white bark in the back ground that the fish Don is holding didn't come from Illinois. Just a hunch though. It definately is a sweet fish no matter where it came from. There are 20" smallmouth caught in IL waters but the grass could be greener on the other side.

Would the 2 fish species there be snook & baracuda?

I observed something similar the other day with a softshell turtle. Also the smallmouth in the spring seem to follow the sucker runs up tributaries and eat the little morstles they kick up too. You have to love the opportunistic nature of the smallmouth bass.

I prefer the low, clear water myself. Give me some shortened days and some cooler evenings down in the 50's and the late summer/fall feedbag will get turned on for sure. I think the low clear water is more of a benefit to small to medium size rivers and creeks this time of year. There is a lot less good habitat then and the fish are stacked in easy to read locations. I still like higher flows on bigger rivers. It pushes the fish towards the shorelines, creates distinct eddies and the fish are less spooky. As far as "hot" lures goes, I don't think it really matters most of the time. Its more about being in the right place at the right time with a presentation that is big and in the strike zone for a while. For whatever it is worth my last 2 over 16" IL smallmouth came on yammy hula grubs on back to back casts in the same pool of a low clear stream on a hot day, in the middle of the day.

Not knowing much about the guy, I would guess that he is uneducated and lucky.

Yeah, catfish seems to be king down in that part of the Rock. Most guys are out bait dunking and not bass fishing.

They all look like big pig beasts to me. I think your brother Jim's is the biggest, a 20"+ smallmouth for sure. Jonn, I thought you guys fished the upper Wisconsin river one time on your way up to Sylvania? We didn't really get a report on the Rock River camp out. Besides Rich's 20"+ drum, how did you guys do?

I'd love to show you guys a picture of the 19.75" but I can't. Unlike Norm simply not bringing a camera I have a different problem that seems to be very consistant. In the past 11 months I've been on 3 different canoe trips with 3 different people and have caught a smallmouth of 19.5" or better. In all 3 cases I've pulled out my camera, posed for a picture and at the end of the day only the pictures I took myself are on the camera. From this point forward, there will be a mandatory 5 minute photo taking training coarse before any canoe trip with me.

I almost got my 1st river 20" on the Wisconsin River. I guess a 19.75" river smallouth will have to do as my personal best for now. Kevin, I am going to continue to cut my local rivers short especially after my canoeing adventure on the Wisconsin River this past weekend. All rivers are not created equally and the section I fished completely blows away anything I've fished here in IL. Scenery, wildlife and the size and girth of the smallmouth. The rock river tribs we fish are not even in the same league.

That's a nice theory but the when we shocked the Apple, the trout were bigger than the smallmouth on average.

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll try the teflon tape and if that gives me trouble, I'll try a dab of superglue. I don't plan on switching to left handed any time soon.

This guy didn't but at 9.83 pounds he came pretty close. How come we don't have smallmouth like that around here? Here is the article if you want to read more about this California record bass: http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing...tory?id=2931118

I haven't read the book yet but I think I know the answer to the 2nd question. I think I remember you telling me the answer to the first question too. I must have left before Pete's encounter with the snake. I guess I'll have to read the book to find out.

Norm, We all need to pitch in and get you a camera.

Over the years I've ran into a laundry list of different problems with my fishing reels. This year I found a new one. I've got an Abu Garcia reel and when I'm reeling in a fish the handle comes loose and folds in. The screw on the side that allows you to switch the handle from the left or right side just becomes loose all on its own. I was wondering if anyone has ever ran into this problem and if so, was there an easy fix for it?

Kevin, thank's for the report. I've only been that far back once and I do remember a nice plunge pool with chunk rock in the chute and the pool opened up like a small pond. I figured you would like the better average size in that stream. My best advise to you Kevin is to upgrade that 6# mono to fireline or powerpro and you'll feel the bites better. It still can be tough on a windy day with that big bow in the line. You actually have to watch your line in combination of going by feel. I guess as long as we poke sharp metal points into a fish's head there is going to be some mortality. 15% seems pretty high. I know I lose a few but I would estimate 1-2 in 200. It is hard to predict any long term effects though. I remember one time a small fish about 6" hit my lure and it must have just had 1/2 the lure in its mouth. When I set the hook the hook went right in the head behind the eyes and killed it instantly. I felt the bite but then it was like reeling in a stick. That was one fish in several 1,000 over the past 5 seasons. I still think that in rivers natural mortality is much higher than angler mortality due to C&R.

Jude, don't feel too bad because all rivers are not created equally. I have a feeling there are a few more 20's in Norm's river than the ones we fish a lot. Combine skill, experience with better opportunity and more 20's will come to the hand. Put me down for 1 lake 20" this year. I'm hoping a float trip down the upper Wisconsin or Menominee Rivers later this month will put my 1st river 20" er to my hand. At least I know my odds are better than fishing my home rivers.

Karen just e-mailed me the updated schedule. They will need ISA manpower help August 6th, 7th, 8th, & 9th on various pecatonica river tribs. PM me or call Paul Trybul at 815-703-2651 if you are interested. By the way, since I volunteered a day to help the DNR, Karen was nice enough to send me the past 3 years of sampling data on the green, rock, kish, and upper mississippi river basins. Pretty good information I'd say.

Karen Rivera from the DNR called me today and said they are postponing the sampling. Conditions are not right but they will try again the 1st week of August. I will keep everyone posted as we get closer.