Post by mwardncsu on Jul 13, 2014 16:29:54 GMT -5
Weather: started in the low to mid 60's with mostly fogged out conditions - fog burned off my mid-morning to yield mostly sunny skies with light & variable winds - temps in upper 80s.
Water: 83, visibility of a 3-5'
Techniques: Alewifes on downlines (4), alewifes on 1/4 & 3/8 oz lightlines (4), alewife on lightline float (1) alewife or 6" gizzards on lightline planers (2)
We had our Club tourney on Saturday - had hoped to come up to the lake Thur night to catch bait late that evening so that they could "cure" and more importantly I could get some more sleep on Friday/Saturday - but it was not to be.... We went out after bait around 10:30 on Friday evening - had to throw the net three times to clear out all the non-alewife species - large gizzards, assorted sunfish and crappie - one throw of the net had, I don't lie, 50 crappie from 4" to just under 15" crappie... but once I cleared that stuff out the ales started to appear in the net and were of nice size.
After putting about 4 doz ales and 5 or 6, 6" gizzards in the tank we decided to go throw on the banks some with plugs to see if we could pick up an early start to the tourney (ran from 4pm on Fri to 4pm on Sat - if things would go our way we could sleep in Sat and not even worry about the bait..... Well, that was not to be - we did hear a few fish busting ales that were flipping on rip-rap, but never hooked up after fishing an hour or hour and a half. So we headed back towards the house - stopping at a light for "one more throw" to add a few more to the tank as backup for Nathan that was going to be out the next morning with a buddy and his son - that time one new throw yielded 4 dozen nice ales itself - tossed about 24 more in the tank and we headed to the dock.
We were on the water by 6 am, greeted by pretty much white-out conditions.
The plan was to fish my creek where we'd caught some the weekend before. I was a little worried as we were not marking many as we idled out, but as we got closer to the creek mouth we started to mark a few so we put out bait. Well, after checking a shallower point at the mouth of the creek we turned to pull along the bank and the screen lit up with a small pod of fish
Now we're talking.....
The next 10 or 15 minutes are a little blurry - partly due to the lack of sleep and partly due to the frenzy that followed..... one hit a downrod and was on but came off as Mark started to reel it in. Shortly after a lightline bowed up and I landed the 1st for the tourney - one right at 28" - measured & photoed and decided to keep him as we were harvesting some for a Club fish-fry at the next meeting.
I think it was around then that we saw this on the fishfinder.... 1st one of these I've seen on the Roanoke since last Summer I believe....
I had a downline get hit and I brought a bit smaller fish than my 1st to the boat - this one about 25".
As I was working on getting the fish unhooked, measured and photoed a downline reached down to the water and Mark went to work on that fish - while doing so a lightline right next to him also hooked up. He got the 1st fish close to the boat, which was smaller and then focused on the 2nd - which was a better fish. Landed his 1st for the tourney - a fish which needed to see a chiropractor or something
- we released the downline fish which was small but kept his 27"
Well, at that point after dealing with the triple we had several lines out of the water, more than half the rest tangled up in each other and no baits on whatever was left. Once we got things sorted back out we never could get back on the school, but there were still scattered fish so we stayed in the area working it and picked a few more up on lightlines - including another 27" for Mark.
We were treated to a nice sunrise as the fog burned off, but as the bite died off hard, we discussed calling it and getting some breakfast and a good nap before the check-in - or to keep fishing to see if we could at least upgrade my 25" and maybe one of his.
Well, we made the wrong call and decided to go looking for bigger fish - we were having a problem keeping bait alive - realized that once the baits got below about 20' they were dead in 5 min - looks like the thermocline has setup up on my end of the lake. We started working down the lake to try and get far enough down where it had not setup so that we could fish downlines and lightlines deeper since the fish were generally holding 20-30'. We checked out a few spots on the way down the lake - above and below the bridge - picked up a few smaller striper - the size seemed to keep diminishing as we went - and a few white perch.
Around 11 we decided it was time for some lunch so after a break we tried two more spots on the way back up the lake - finally picking up one more to give us some vindication in our stubbornness. Back at the dock around 2 or 2:30, had the boat put away by 2:45 and cleaned up and to the check-in about 3:15. Turns out we should have gone to breakfast because as it turned out we had 1st & 2nd place locked up 30 minutes into fishing for the day...... but you never know till you know.....
Water: 83, visibility of a 3-5'
Techniques: Alewifes on downlines (4), alewifes on 1/4 & 3/8 oz lightlines (4), alewife on lightline float (1) alewife or 6" gizzards on lightline planers (2)
We had our Club tourney on Saturday - had hoped to come up to the lake Thur night to catch bait late that evening so that they could "cure" and more importantly I could get some more sleep on Friday/Saturday - but it was not to be.... We went out after bait around 10:30 on Friday evening - had to throw the net three times to clear out all the non-alewife species - large gizzards, assorted sunfish and crappie - one throw of the net had, I don't lie, 50 crappie from 4" to just under 15" crappie... but once I cleared that stuff out the ales started to appear in the net and were of nice size.
After putting about 4 doz ales and 5 or 6, 6" gizzards in the tank we decided to go throw on the banks some with plugs to see if we could pick up an early start to the tourney (ran from 4pm on Fri to 4pm on Sat - if things would go our way we could sleep in Sat and not even worry about the bait..... Well, that was not to be - we did hear a few fish busting ales that were flipping on rip-rap, but never hooked up after fishing an hour or hour and a half. So we headed back towards the house - stopping at a light for "one more throw" to add a few more to the tank as backup for Nathan that was going to be out the next morning with a buddy and his son - that time one new throw yielded 4 dozen nice ales itself - tossed about 24 more in the tank and we headed to the dock.
We were on the water by 6 am, greeted by pretty much white-out conditions.
The plan was to fish my creek where we'd caught some the weekend before. I was a little worried as we were not marking many as we idled out, but as we got closer to the creek mouth we started to mark a few so we put out bait. Well, after checking a shallower point at the mouth of the creek we turned to pull along the bank and the screen lit up with a small pod of fish
Now we're talking.....The next 10 or 15 minutes are a little blurry - partly due to the lack of sleep and partly due to the frenzy that followed..... one hit a downrod and was on but came off as Mark started to reel it in. Shortly after a lightline bowed up and I landed the 1st for the tourney - one right at 28" - measured & photoed and decided to keep him as we were harvesting some for a Club fish-fry at the next meeting.
I think it was around then that we saw this on the fishfinder.... 1st one of these I've seen on the Roanoke since last Summer I believe....
I had a downline get hit and I brought a bit smaller fish than my 1st to the boat - this one about 25".
As I was working on getting the fish unhooked, measured and photoed a downline reached down to the water and Mark went to work on that fish - while doing so a lightline right next to him also hooked up. He got the 1st fish close to the boat, which was smaller and then focused on the 2nd - which was a better fish. Landed his 1st for the tourney - a fish which needed to see a chiropractor or something
- we released the downline fish which was small but kept his 27"Well, at that point after dealing with the triple we had several lines out of the water, more than half the rest tangled up in each other and no baits on whatever was left. Once we got things sorted back out we never could get back on the school, but there were still scattered fish so we stayed in the area working it and picked a few more up on lightlines - including another 27" for Mark.
We were treated to a nice sunrise as the fog burned off, but as the bite died off hard, we discussed calling it and getting some breakfast and a good nap before the check-in - or to keep fishing to see if we could at least upgrade my 25" and maybe one of his.
Well, we made the wrong call and decided to go looking for bigger fish - we were having a problem keeping bait alive - realized that once the baits got below about 20' they were dead in 5 min - looks like the thermocline has setup up on my end of the lake. We started working down the lake to try and get far enough down where it had not setup so that we could fish downlines and lightlines deeper since the fish were generally holding 20-30'. We checked out a few spots on the way down the lake - above and below the bridge - picked up a few smaller striper - the size seemed to keep diminishing as we went - and a few white perch.
Around 11 we decided it was time for some lunch so after a break we tried two more spots on the way back up the lake - finally picking up one more to give us some vindication in our stubbornness. Back at the dock around 2 or 2:30, had the boat put away by 2:45 and cleaned up and to the check-in about 3:15. Turns out we should have gone to breakfast because as it turned out we had 1st & 2nd place locked up 30 minutes into fishing for the day...... but you never know till you know.....