And you thought YOU were having a bad day.

*The names in this story have been changed to protect the guilty*

On Thanksgiving, Customfish friend Mitch Hamstein went to his mom's house for dinner.
Mitch brought his two dogs. One of them a sizeable 100lb lab named "Lucky".
They had a great time.
And then they left. Or tried to.
Ya see, when "Lucky went to get in the truck via the front seat he accidentally stepped on a musky lure that Mitch "accidentally" left on the floor of his truck.
And..."Lucky" promtly got hooked.
Oh wait...it gets worse.
Then "Lucky" hooked the carpeting.
So..now Lucky is one with the lure which is stuck to the carpeting.
Horrible so far isn't it?

Wait.

It gets worse.

Mitch then attempted to free "Lucky".
And hooked himself in the thumb right down to the bone.
So...now Mitch is one with the lure in the dog stuck to the carpeting.

The paramedics freed them both and they were stitched up at seperate hospitals.

Ok..so you were saying something about YOU having a bad day? I think not.

Customfish life preserver

We do things big at Customfish.
We make huge pics.
We like everything big. Because size matters.
We kept that in mind when designing the Customfish Life Preserver.


Did I mention we like things big?

Now click here and get big huge mondo stuff on the Christmas cheap.

SALE SALE SALE!

It's winter. And that makes us a little crazy.
Crazy enough to have a big friggin sale.
big musky pics on sale! And huge fish pics. Any trophy pic. Muskies, bass, darados, tuna, sharks..whatever. It's time to get that gift for someone..and we're gonna halp you do it.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE MAIN PAGE FOR DETAILS!

Go with what these pros use. Mike Norris, Spence Petros, Ted Takasaki, Lee Tauchen, Gregg Thomas, Tony Grant,Chad Cain, Kevin Cochran, Mike Hulbert, Todd Forciers, and a host of others.
We also do signs, banners, advertising items and artwork for Muskies,Inc, Musky Hunter Magazine, Bait Rigs Tackle Co., Llungen lures, Musky Mayhem, Stock Building Supply, Festing.com, The State of Illinois, Pipestone Lodge, Hook N Horn Resort , and a many others.
We also do website design and hosting for sites such as Taltson Bay Big Pike Lodge.

Contact us HERE for any of your large format printing needs. From photographs to booths to banners to signs. We got ya covered!

...and large format printing too.

Lago Casa update

The lake that Customfish partly owns (Lago Casa) is frozen over.
The topwater bite has slowed down considerably.
That is all.

Taking muskie pictures or anything else!

FINALLY!!! I FOUND WHAT WE ALL NEED!!!
We at CUSTOMFISH have been trying to figure out a way to take fishing pictures while fishing solo...especially big musky pics !

Check this out!


How cool is THAT!! You can set it on the deck. Wrap it on a steering wheel. Set it up on uneven surfaces. Anywhere...on anything! Think about it; You're out there muskie fishing alone. You get a 50" muskie. You land it. You've already got your camera on a Gorillapod ready to go. Push a button, hold up the fish, snap the picture, and let her go! PERFECT!!!
Here's the LINK

We at CUSTOMFISH aren't shy about spreading the wealth of the good stuff we find. If it helps you...it's helps us. And this seems to be something that can help all of us out and capture even more memories!
<*))))))< *click*

Also...please check in to the site often. There's BIG news coming!! A BIG sale. Big musky pics greatly reduced! How reduced?? Let me put it to you this way...if you have a nice muskie picture (or any other fish), you may want to get it out and get it ready to send over to have a Life Size Picture made out of it.
Stay tuned. This is gonna be big!

Click here to go to the HOME PAGE

"Ok folks, it's a wrap!"

VISIT THE HOMEPAGE (CLICK HERE!)

I'm calling it. Time of death for the 2007 fishing season was at 2:15pm on saturday the 17th of November, 2007. With the trade show season coming up and an ever increasing workload, I don't see us getting out again til January. Plus, I believe in the old saying "you better quit while you're ahead."
And what a nice ending it was. Cold. Raining. Windy. Miserable 42 degrees for a high and water temps in the high 40's.
I said to Ken on our way "We're ending on a high note. one of us has to get a trophy". Now, keep in mind our idea of a trophy is 20" or better. To everyone else it's 18". We do 18" alot. So to be fair to ourselves it's 20" for team Customfish.
As we pulled up to our regular parking spot we were greeted by a nice buck and a couple does in the distance. We took that as a good omen.
While the fishing was far from spectacular we did manage to reach our goal and end the year just as we said we would. A couple hours hopping spots and the final numbers were 2 smallmouth bass and 2 hybrid greengills for me. 7 largemouth bass, 1 smallmouth bass and a couple hybrid greengills for Ken.
Live bait is the key. Shiners under a slip bobber with #1 or #2 circle hooks set about 2-3' down.

Ken with a nice start.


Yet another big largemouth, one of many. But it was smallies we were looking for.


Found 'em! A perfect ending to the season. 20" Spike-fin Smallmouth Bass. I was king for about half an hour....until Ken decided to pull out the trump card on me about 50 yards away!


20", baby. Ken closes out with the 20" Spike-fin Smallie we said we'd get. Just like clockwork.

As I said, we were using shiners but I think 6" long bullfrogs would have worked too considering what my big spike-fin smallie gave back to me while I was unhooking it. Yuck!

Sorry I had to show that to you, but it just goes to show ya what a hungry bass will eat....a 6" bullfrog AND a 3" shiner at the same time. Oh..and she'll hit twice!
I should explain that. THIS IS A FIRST IN ILLINOIS SMALLMOUTH BASS FISHING HISTORY! Go back and look at the spike-fin smallies Ken and I caught. Look really close. I caught mine, and then Ken caught his 30 minutes later and 50 yards downstream. Mine was hooked in the top lip AND spit out a 6" bullfrog at me. She cleared the water once on a jump. Ken's fish ALSO cleared the water on a jump. Both were spectacular fights!
UMMM..It's the same fish!!! I just noticed that as I was writing this post! We caught the SAME trophy spike-fin smallmouth bass within half an hour and 50 yards of each other! No one has EVER done that..not in Illinois anyway. That is just NUTS! What a wild ending to a wild, unbelievable and awesome year! Beat THAT, my fellow ISA anglers!!!!
On another note, Ken and I will be hiring a little person to follow us around all of next year with the sole purpose of holding our fish in photos. When you are as Andre-The-Giant-size as we seem to be, the big fish we get don't look so big. Effective today we'll be accepting applications from little people.

So...that's it folks. It's a wrap.
We'd like to thank everyone who fished with us this season. You were all great. We also would like to thank all of our readers and customers. Be sure to stop by the Chicago Musky Show and say Hi!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Try the veal...and don't forget to tip your waitresses! Good night!


Please keep checking in because even though we're gonna be setting the poles down for a little while, we'll still be putting stuff up here and we're changing the entire site with some BIG surprises.

* Jamie's hat by reelpure.com


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~><))))*>

Oh..one more thing.
"SMALL CHILD LANDS 40" MONSTER PIKE IN DUPAGE COUNTY SUBDIVISION POND!!"
My son was thrilled with his latest catch on his snoopy pole. I guess he's just like his old man; Go big or go home. There aint no room for dinks!
Nice going son....even if it did come out of the little lake in our backyard.


I gotta send that to these guys.

Now John is just rubbing it in.

I mentioned that I hate customfish field reporter John Mich, right?
Just checkin'.

Ok..well, John just happened to "forget" to send a picture from his last field report. He just so happened to accidentally catch a huge 19" smallie while muskie fishing in northern Wisconsin a week ago. It hit a Hellhound muskie bait. He's not even a smallie angler!


Note to self: Drown John.

Monday. 11-5-07.

Happy monday. Now get out there and kill something!

It's just not fair.

Ok.. so, you all know my good friend John. My fishing partner on the Taltson Trip John. Customfish northwoods reporter John.
Well, John went fishing again. For..oh..I dunno...like the last 2 weeks.
He sent me this. His new personal best. 50.50" x 24".
Did I mention I hate John?? No?? I hate John. Although I want John's life. Ironic, isn't it?

John's report:
Just returned from 13 days on the water in Northern Wi. The weather was too good...the water not cold enough, yet the the boat still caught fish.
28 total for the time fishing. Enjoyed some friends and filmed a Musky Hunter show.

Jerk Baits and suckers accounted for most of the fish. Size went from 28" to 50.50". The boat started 0-7 on sucker strikes, only to come back with a vengeance finishing 10-13.

I was fortunate enough to film a fall sucker/Jerkbait show with Jim Saric over three days while in the northwoods. 45 minutes into the shoot I caught my personal best...a 50.50", 24" girth flowage beauty on a jerkbait. Needless to say it was quite a moment for me, with it being my home lake, the lake my father taught me the game and the significance of it being onfilm. After that we settled in for 8 more fish to 41"...and a show was in the can.

Baits that worked besides suckers were HellHounds, Mantas,Kickin Minnows,bulldawgs. Orange was the color of choice. The water was more stained than ever before..the excess rain in the north made it look like rootbeer.


See this fish on an upcoming episode of the Musky Hunter TV show.


*NOTE: Ya see that picture? THAT is the perfect muskie shot. There's no holding the fish out and making it look like a marlin. He's gettin' low and making a smaller profile of himself YET keeping the fish on the same plane....notice that it's above his knee. THAT is a no bull***t picture right there.
Yep. It's true. I taught him everything he knows. Well, except that whole watch-me-light-this-on-fire-trick. He learned that somewhere else.
Nice fish John! Congradulations!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And finally, this:
I've had a couple trips out that I was gonna write about but screw it. John's trip just pissed on my parade. In a nutshell I've been catching a dozen smallies an hour. So go to a river, throw a wobbling crankbait and burn it in. That's about it...it's just that simple. Now go!