11/16/14 - Pretty Good Day - Could've Been Better
Nov 16, 2014 21:35:48 GMT -5
greenmonster and widgeon3 like this
Post by mwardncsu on Nov 16, 2014 21:35:48 GMT -5
Weather: Started in the low 40's, rising way up into the mid/upper 40's. Mostly overcast with one or two outbreaks of something called the sun. A slight breeze came up early afternoon - not sure which direction as it seemed to keep changing
Water: 52-54, visibility of a few feet - amazing what a couple of nights in the teens and upper 20's can do to the surface temps in a week.
Techniques: Pulled money-maker to mongo gizzards on free-line planers (6), and had dollar-bill sized shad on a downlines (2)
Time Fished: 8:30a-11:00a; 1:00p-3:45p
Tyler and Nathan fished on Saturday and had about 25 or so shad in the tank that they had caught just before dusk and the plan was to head out on Sunday AM on Tyler's rig - unfortunately his trolling motor crapped out on him - it will only turn one direction now - I think he's got a bad control board - so we rode his boat with the shad up to my slip, transferred the bait to my tank and we headed on the rest of the way up the Roanoke arm in my boat.
Nathan was supposed to meet us about 7:45, but that turned into almost 8:30, so we were a little later starting than planned, but I don't think any of us really cared given the cold starting temps.
We put the bait out and pulled them along the channel - marking quite a number of scattered fish down deep in the 25-40' range - but they did not want to come up and play with our downlined gizzards - nor put in the extra effort to go after the freelined shad. We pulled the shad along the bank and got some action - think like we got 4 or so to the boat that were 29" - 33" and 9-13 lbs, and lost a couple - one of which Tyler either had a foul-hooked fish or a real stud - but it managed to take him into a tree and get off
Around 11:30 we stopped to throw for some more shad - marked tons of it deep in the channel - and managed to net enough to add to the tank to finish the afternoon....
Took a lunch break and got back out there a little before 1pm, pulling a different stretch of the channel. We found some good action through that stretch with some great, explosive, boil boiling planer board strikes (a number caught on video - to be compiled later
. Also had a couple break our hearts here as well - as we were making a turn to double back along one stretch both outside boards got smoked.... and both came loose. One absolutely crushed our biggest bait - a 13" mongo.... It slammed the board but when Nathan grabbed the rod it had dropped it - he fed it some line and it came back and slammed it again - but when he set the hook as the rod loaded up it went slack - finding the line cut above the swivel... 
After loosing those two fish in the turn, we passed over a massive school of fish - thought it was a huge cloud of bait at first - until the downlines bent over to the water and we doubled up....
Sure felt like a late December or January day out there - and we saw a number of sea gulls starting to show up and prepare to do their thing. We quit about 3:45, ended up the day with 8 or 9 fish mostly in the 29" - 33" range and one that would have gone just under the slot - and several instances of broken dreams.......
Water: 52-54, visibility of a few feet - amazing what a couple of nights in the teens and upper 20's can do to the surface temps in a week.
Techniques: Pulled money-maker to mongo gizzards on free-line planers (6), and had dollar-bill sized shad on a downlines (2)
Time Fished: 8:30a-11:00a; 1:00p-3:45p
Tyler and Nathan fished on Saturday and had about 25 or so shad in the tank that they had caught just before dusk and the plan was to head out on Sunday AM on Tyler's rig - unfortunately his trolling motor crapped out on him - it will only turn one direction now - I think he's got a bad control board - so we rode his boat with the shad up to my slip, transferred the bait to my tank and we headed on the rest of the way up the Roanoke arm in my boat.
Nathan was supposed to meet us about 7:45, but that turned into almost 8:30, so we were a little later starting than planned, but I don't think any of us really cared given the cold starting temps.
We put the bait out and pulled them along the channel - marking quite a number of scattered fish down deep in the 25-40' range - but they did not want to come up and play with our downlined gizzards - nor put in the extra effort to go after the freelined shad. We pulled the shad along the bank and got some action - think like we got 4 or so to the boat that were 29" - 33" and 9-13 lbs, and lost a couple - one of which Tyler either had a foul-hooked fish or a real stud - but it managed to take him into a tree and get off
Around 11:30 we stopped to throw for some more shad - marked tons of it deep in the channel - and managed to net enough to add to the tank to finish the afternoon....
Took a lunch break and got back out there a little before 1pm, pulling a different stretch of the channel. We found some good action through that stretch with some great, explosive, boil boiling planer board strikes (a number caught on video - to be compiled later
. Also had a couple break our hearts here as well - as we were making a turn to double back along one stretch both outside boards got smoked.... and both came loose. One absolutely crushed our biggest bait - a 13" mongo.... It slammed the board but when Nathan grabbed the rod it had dropped it - he fed it some line and it came back and slammed it again - but when he set the hook as the rod loaded up it went slack - finding the line cut above the swivel... 
After loosing those two fish in the turn, we passed over a massive school of fish - thought it was a huge cloud of bait at first - until the downlines bent over to the water and we doubled up....
Sure felt like a late December or January day out there - and we saw a number of sea gulls starting to show up and prepare to do their thing. We quit about 3:45, ended up the day with 8 or 9 fish mostly in the 29" - 33" range and one that would have gone just under the slot - and several instances of broken dreams.......
