Fishing With Pete, Susquehanna River 10.17.10

[dadTB]

Hello Folks,

I had the pleasure of fishing with my good friend, Petey Hanford, on Sunday. He texted me this past week and said he had an empty seat on his boat for Sunday. I jumped at the opportunity since it's been almost a year since we were last fishing together.

He had picked out an access just north of Harrisburg, Pa. which took me approximately 1hr. and 50min. to get to from Southern Lancaster County. I arrived around 7:15 a.m. and shortly after, Petey pulled in with his Tracker and 40 hp jet.

He had disconnected the VRO (oil) pump on Saturday and it took us a few minutes to get the motor up and running properly before we launched. Now Pete hand mixes the gas and oil... 50:1

We arrived at our first hole around 8:00 a.m. and immediately began putting fish in the boat. It was simply incredible!

All of our fish came on tubes. In fact, Petey had four fish in the boat before I nailed a nice 17" on a Winco Tastee Tube. By the end of the day, we had boated 67 bass with countless pick ups and drops!!

It was the best day I've had on the water during 2010!

The water temp reading on Petey's depth finder read 50 degrees in the early morning and rose several degrees as the sun warmed us. The water was gin clear. The water I've been fishing at Lake Aldred is never this clear due to the water rushing through the turbines and stirring the water and sediment.

The air temp was in the upper 30's when I left Willow Street at 5:35 a.m. and it rose to 68 degrees by the time we left the water at 2:45 p.m. There was a brisk southerly wind blowing early and it shifted to WNW in the afternoon as the front moved on by and the high pressure settled in.

High blue bird skies greeted us as the sun rose over eastern hillside. Even with the high sky, we still had a tremendous day... Go figure!

I will definitely remember this day for quite some time.

A big thanks goes out to Petey for inviting me along and putting me on some of the feistiest bass I've caught this year.

Check out the pics:

The first bass that came to the boat...

Pete's first Fish Of The Morning - 17"


Another 17" Came To Hand


The First 18.5" Of The Day


Finally... A 17" Hook Up


Dad Puts and 18" In The Boat


Another 18" for Petey


Another 18.5" Smallie For Pete


18"


Check Out This 15.5", 3 lber - What a chunk!



dadTB

[HiCountry]

NICE!

[willyredeemed]

wow, that's awesome! i used to live in lancaster county, akron to be exact...a small town bordering ephrata. my family and friends are still there.

[patrick reif]

Is that the same Pete Hanford who makes extremely sweet jigs?

He was one of the jig makers that inspired me to start pouring my own.
I've never met the man, but it looks like he can fish them as well as make them.

He put it on you didn't he. HAHAHAHA.

Don't feel too bad about it...I have a buddy that does the same thing regularly.

That's a sweet 15". I love the footballs.

[FBMoche]

Those are some nice smallies! Congrats on a great day.

[riverlover]

I'm always jealous of you Pa. & Va. guys; looks like a great trip and one that will be a great memory to get you through Winter. Beautiful fish!

[PawPaw]

Congrats on a great day Dad!!! Those are some really nice fish!

[Stump]

Stellar!!!

[Redfish]

Thanks for sharing...that is some nice 'footballs' you have there with those smallies!

[dadTB]

Petey is definitely the jig head maker. I was his "Best Man" a few years ago in his wedding. We've been good friends for a very long time.

He had me by about 8 bass in the early morning and then I got within 1 of tying him. We then hit a sweet spot where he was able to pull away some from me by 10. I told him I would have to make up some lame story as to why... i.e. front ending, bad arm effecting my hook set, dull jig heads that I had gotten from him, etc. LOL! I must say that we had a lot of "pick ups and drops", but I can't complain when we had so many that it gave me "bass thumb" for the day.

Some days, the smallies like that soft plastic to sweep behind the boat and the back end angler benefits. On Sunday, they were pretty much just out of slightly forward of the boat on the drag which can benefit the boater. The trick is to figure out what they want and create that situation over and over again.

They were schooled up in several key spots and when we left those areas... Nada!

Several key ingredients came together... The crawdads are migrating and the shad and blue herring are now running down river. It is feast time for the smallies as they prepare for winter.

[cmayes]

That's a nice day!!

[dadTB]

Going out with Petey again tomorrow... Same location. Let's see if we can repeat. The river rose a couple of feet since we had rain this past week. We'll see if it has made a positive impact on our fall fishing.