Post by mwardncsu on Oct 19, 2014 20:14:29 GMT -5
Weather: started in the upper 50's, rose to upper 60's and dropped into low 50's after the sun set. Partly cloudy in AM - cleared up and then clouded back up some in evening. Windy - gusts over 30 at times - pretty much sustained 10- 18.
Water: Decent visibility given a bunch of rain early/mid week. Temps from 64-67.
Techniques: Alewives on downlines, lightlines and freelined planers - big gizzards on free line planers - worked creek mouths, inside the creeks & main-channel points trying to stay out of the wind
My brother-in-law and a friend of his wanted to come out to SML to try their hand at some stripers. The couple of previous times my brother-in-law had been out with me we had the boys and they kids did all the reeling, so he wanted to reel one in by himself for a change His friend has fished a fair bit for striper in the Chesapeake, but never for fresh-water stripers. Always "love" the pressure of getting to play guide...... The plan was for them to get there about mid-day and we fish Sat evening and Sunday morning.
I headed out Friday evening to try and get bait. Tyler had gone out a bit earlier from his end of the lake to catch some bait for Saturday AM as we were going to scout and fish the morning on his rig - he found it tough to get ales and only found one big shad. I hit a lucky light and got 6 big shad and some big ales on the 1st through - but then things got tougher - hit several lights and after running around for an hour or more I finally got a net that produced 30+ big baits - at least we had some ales to start the evening with if nothing else.
While I was running down the lake I caught a glimpse of something white fly by just off the port side of the boat.... I pulled back the throttle and turned around to investigate...
Now these folks with their No Wake buoys are getting way out of hand if they think the middle of the channel of no-wake.... "ATONs - Aids to Navigation" my ass..... More like "HATN' - HAzzards To Navigation"
Anybody need a slightly used No Wake buoy - looks like some other boat had hit it as there is a prop cut in the bottom section where there is some concrete - probably didn't do well to that prop.... I pulled it and took it for a ride before it got someone else. No rope attached...
Tyler, Nathan and I headed out Saturday about 7am on Tyler's rig - and scouted some areas where Tyler was on breaking fish on Friday night (away from where others were on breaking fish on Friday evening....)
Didn't see them come up to break nor marked much so we moved on up the lake a bit - setup in the mouth of a creek and found some fish.... we ended up picking up two fish here - Nathan & Tyler each got one to the boat - both off light line ales.
The fish disappeared and the bite died and the wind picked up, so we quit about 10 or so and went looking for big bait - and then dropped off Tyler's boat and got some lunch at Sal's Italian Buffet and a bit of a rest break watching a little college football at my place. My brother-in-law and his friend got there about 2 and we headed out on my rig a little before 3pm to try and net some more big bait. Found some schooled up a little better in the spots we looked before lunch and we were off to fish.
Along the afternoon the wind just kept building...... we decided we needed to find some spots that were somewhat protected from a NW wind
We decided to try and get things started with these guys in a big way off the bat - put out a spread of big gizzards - and maybe one ale on a free line planer - go big or go home..... Maybe the approaching front hit just right but we had some great action for 30 or 45 min - we should have had 8 or so fish to the boat but missed the hook-ups on 5 or more - landed several nice fish and had a number of other blow-ups and chases. The fish went 14 - 18 lbs; 34"-37" - all RELEASED! Tyler landed the citation - it was the 3rd fish and the two guys would not take the rod from him when he tried multiple times to hand it off...... their loss
After making one pass and circling back with good action, the next pass back yielded no results and the sun was starting to set so we packed up in and headed back to the dock - and then on to get some Mexican for dinner to recharge the batteries for the next morning....... being much relieved that the monkey was off my back of putting them on some nice fish for their 1st freshwater stripers. Thanks to Tyler for throwing the net during the afternoon and Nathan for coming along and acting as a "mate" while fighting the wind with boards......
Oh - and time for the Soapbox - For the boat with NC registration that landed a large fish in this class on Friday and when asked by one of the guides why you put it in the cooler responded - "we've never seen one this big in North Carolina" - and honestly to everyone else as well - please release these big fish - so you and others can catch them again...... sorry to be preachy - just hate seeing NC folks giving the rest of us NC boys a bad rap.... and more importantly hate to see our big SML fish hitting the cooler...... I have no problem with harvesting a few fish to enjoy eating - and we did on Sunday when targeting some smaller class of fish - but keep it to those under 30" and let the big ones go!
Water: Decent visibility given a bunch of rain early/mid week. Temps from 64-67.
Techniques: Alewives on downlines, lightlines and freelined planers - big gizzards on free line planers - worked creek mouths, inside the creeks & main-channel points trying to stay out of the wind
My brother-in-law and a friend of his wanted to come out to SML to try their hand at some stripers. The couple of previous times my brother-in-law had been out with me we had the boys and they kids did all the reeling, so he wanted to reel one in by himself for a change His friend has fished a fair bit for striper in the Chesapeake, but never for fresh-water stripers. Always "love" the pressure of getting to play guide...... The plan was for them to get there about mid-day and we fish Sat evening and Sunday morning.
I headed out Friday evening to try and get bait. Tyler had gone out a bit earlier from his end of the lake to catch some bait for Saturday AM as we were going to scout and fish the morning on his rig - he found it tough to get ales and only found one big shad. I hit a lucky light and got 6 big shad and some big ales on the 1st through - but then things got tougher - hit several lights and after running around for an hour or more I finally got a net that produced 30+ big baits - at least we had some ales to start the evening with if nothing else.
While I was running down the lake I caught a glimpse of something white fly by just off the port side of the boat.... I pulled back the throttle and turned around to investigate...
Now these folks with their No Wake buoys are getting way out of hand if they think the middle of the channel of no-wake.... "ATONs - Aids to Navigation" my ass..... More like "HATN' - HAzzards To Navigation"
Anybody need a slightly used No Wake buoy - looks like some other boat had hit it as there is a prop cut in the bottom section where there is some concrete - probably didn't do well to that prop.... I pulled it and took it for a ride before it got someone else. No rope attached...
Tyler, Nathan and I headed out Saturday about 7am on Tyler's rig - and scouted some areas where Tyler was on breaking fish on Friday night (away from where others were on breaking fish on Friday evening....)
Didn't see them come up to break nor marked much so we moved on up the lake a bit - setup in the mouth of a creek and found some fish.... we ended up picking up two fish here - Nathan & Tyler each got one to the boat - both off light line ales.
The fish disappeared and the bite died and the wind picked up, so we quit about 10 or so and went looking for big bait - and then dropped off Tyler's boat and got some lunch at Sal's Italian Buffet and a bit of a rest break watching a little college football at my place. My brother-in-law and his friend got there about 2 and we headed out on my rig a little before 3pm to try and net some more big bait. Found some schooled up a little better in the spots we looked before lunch and we were off to fish.
Along the afternoon the wind just kept building...... we decided we needed to find some spots that were somewhat protected from a NW wind
We decided to try and get things started with these guys in a big way off the bat - put out a spread of big gizzards - and maybe one ale on a free line planer - go big or go home..... Maybe the approaching front hit just right but we had some great action for 30 or 45 min - we should have had 8 or so fish to the boat but missed the hook-ups on 5 or more - landed several nice fish and had a number of other blow-ups and chases. The fish went 14 - 18 lbs; 34"-37" - all RELEASED! Tyler landed the citation - it was the 3rd fish and the two guys would not take the rod from him when he tried multiple times to hand it off...... their loss
After making one pass and circling back with good action, the next pass back yielded no results and the sun was starting to set so we packed up in and headed back to the dock - and then on to get some Mexican for dinner to recharge the batteries for the next morning....... being much relieved that the monkey was off my back of putting them on some nice fish for their 1st freshwater stripers. Thanks to Tyler for throwing the net during the afternoon and Nathan for coming along and acting as a "mate" while fighting the wind with boards......
Oh - and time for the Soapbox - For the boat with NC registration that landed a large fish in this class on Friday and when asked by one of the guides why you put it in the cooler responded - "we've never seen one this big in North Carolina" - and honestly to everyone else as well - please release these big fish - so you and others can catch them again...... sorry to be preachy - just hate seeing NC folks giving the rest of us NC boys a bad rap.... and more importantly hate to see our big SML fish hitting the cooler...... I have no problem with harvesting a few fish to enjoy eating - and we did on Sunday when targeting some smaller class of fish - but keep it to those under 30" and let the big ones go!