The Bucks County Angler

  November 24th, 2024… It's 54° out and extremely windy. But for whatever reason I still decided to go fishing for carp. So packed up my three favorite rod and reel sets. A bucket. And a couple of types of bait and set out on a walk to Lake Luxembourg which is only about a half a mile away. Now, the current state of the lake is not overly great. There's been a month and a half long drought going on and it's definitely taking a toll on all of the fishing spots in the area. This year. The water has receded at least 200 feet in the last couple of weeks, leaving a rather muddy mess in its wake. But more on that later. Setting up for carp fishing is pretty straightforward. You need bait, in this case I choose sweet corn and worms and set up one or two rods that you know can handle the load of a larger fish like a carp. Because it often takes quite some time for carp to get hungry and want to bite always prop them up on fishing holders. Which is exactly what I did for this occasi...

  Let's talk about small game fishing               OK, so everybody wants to catch the big fish. You can convince absolutely no one about of concept that small fishing is better. However, there are times when small fishing is required or even unavoidable. Maybe you're trying to catch bait fish for example. Or you're with younger members of the family and the smaller fish are going to be more suitable for them. Maybe it's all that's available in the particular water you're angling in. Whatever the reason, there is lots of different methods for catching smaller ‘pan’ fish and a variety of species to catch here in the Bucks County area.         First and foremost there are sunnies, also known as pumpkin seeds and bluegills, depending on what kind of markings they have and where you're catching them. Sunnies are far the most easy small fish to catch and where you can use almost any var...

                                                               Lake Luxembourg and in the Neshaminy Creek.           One of the most enjoyable fish to catch anywhere is the largemouth bass. One of the most beautiful fish in freshwater, it's prized by anglers all over the world as one of their absolute favorite fish to catch. Now of course, you can catch them with a variety of live bait, night crawlers, red worms, minnows. Even crickets and grasshoppers work pretty well. But there's something kind of special about catching them with lures. I think it's because you must have a considerable amount of skill in order to get the bass to strike the lure and even more so to successfully land the fish. Full disclosure, up until very recently,...

  Bucks County Angler           Fishing for carp at Lake Luxembourg . February 2024 – June 2024   Believe it or not, there are some exceptionally sizable carp swimming around the rather small lake that is Lake Luxembourg . I myself have pulled up several large common carp in the last year or so alone. Most people will tell you that carp are basically vacuum cleaners, roaming the bottom of the lake, sucking up whatever they can and that's true for the most part. You can catch them on globs of raw chicken, bread dough, sweet corn, and a lot of other less than conventional baits. But, you're always gonna be successful with sweet corn and big fat night crawlers. Cutting the bigger ones in half so that there is more scent for them to follow underwater seems to be even more effective. At different times of the day, you'll want to cast out to different parts of the lake. In the middle of the day, say 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm, it's best to ...

             Catching white crappies Lake Luxembourg , November 27 2023           Contrary to the belief of many, you can do some very good fishing in the colder weather. The fact of the matter is as long as the temperature is above 40° the fish are not all that inactive. Oh, it's true they're going to be slower and less hungry so you just kind of have to work at it a bit harder. One particularly good trick I learned was using under-spin jig head lures technique that worked particularly well on this particular fishing trip to Luxembourg which resulted in two of the first white crappies I had ever been able to pull up. Fishing with jig lures involves letting the lure sink to the bottom and then jerking up the tip of your fishing rod infrequent intervals to create the appearance of a dying fish or other prey. It's a good idea with certain under spin jigs to add a small amount of weight righ...

                                   Lake Luxembourg , October. 6, 2023   So, I thought that I would take another fishing trip for the day. So I traveled down to the boat rental house area of Lake Luxembourg and cast a few lines in the water using the usual night crawler bait. After an hour or two of only catching some bluegill sunnies, I decided to try out a new fishing technique that a fellow fisherman had taught me at Tyler Park a few weeks earlier, known as wacky bait rigging. Within two casts of trying that, I pulled up a very nice sized Largemouth bass, the 1st I had caught of that size in a year or two. It also marked the first real success I had ever had with any kind of non-live bait lure, having exclusively used worms for the entirety of my fishing career. Wacky bait turned out to be just about the best s...