1/1/15, 1/3/15 & 1/4/15 - Who Needs the Bay?
Jan 4, 2015 21:59:19 GMT -5
CorneliaGale, jb4sml, and 2 more like this
Post by mwardncsu on Jan 4, 2015 21:59:19 GMT -5
Weather: Sat - temps in the 40's most of the day, light rain/mist most of the day, no winds to very light & variable; Sunday - All over the place - started off in the low 40's, overcast and no winds. Some light rain / mist on and off all morning (actually much of the day). Winds came up around 10 mph or more from the S/SW around 10am and temps quickly rose into the 60s. Winds increased through the afternoon with gusts towards 20
Water: 46-47 degrees, visibility of a few feet
Techniques: Saturday - big bait on free line planer boards, big gizzard on a free line float, alewives & "peanut" on downlines & light lines, casting & jigging flukes; Sunday - big bait on free line planers, bank-side, only
Charlie / ArchEnemy had invited me to go with him to the Bay right after Christmas, but I came down with a stomach bug on Christmas morning which took me out for a few days and then weather and other conflicts made it tough for us to figure out how to get there - so I invited him to come on out to SML and fish with me for a couple of day so that we could at least get our striped fix. Based on the results of our two days, Charlie is welcome aboard any time
We had an awesome couple of days of fishing - hang on......
I loaded up the bait tank on New Years Day afternoon with too many gizzards - and by Sat AM my tank was going skunky, so I had to keep doing water changes.
On my way back from catching bait I ran across some birds working so stopped not far from another boat and quickly jigged up a 6 lber - then headed along my way
[
We started Saturday by running down the lake below the bridge a bit looking for birds - with no real results at 1st - we checked a few creeks that seemed barren - we did mark a few scattered fish and put out bait for a couple of hours and got 1 small fish.
We moved across the channel and started to head back up lake when Charlie spotted some birds working in a cove - sure enough there were some scattered pods of fish roaming around. I got one jigging and then we put out bait and ended up picking up 2 more on downlines. One was a deep fish at 50' and it had barotrauma from the rapid accent and would not go back - fortunately it was a 24" fish so we kept it, eventually giving it to Bigun and his crew (or at least in my imagination it was Bigun
) and they then regifted it, along with a few others, to another crew that was out fishing (or so my imagination told me )
We decided it was time to stop playing with the schoolies and put the big bait to work on a "Tour de Creeks" Headed to a mid-lake creek above the bridge and put out a spread - and soon enough I had a 16 lber on the end of the line and to the boat.
We picked up one other fish on the way out of that creek, then moved on to another creek
Charlie got on the board with big bait and I picked up one in there as well....
Moved to yet another creek that had done well for me in Dec/Jan last year, and sure enough the fish were there again this year.... A fair bit of nervous bait and action in the creek - I picked up one....
Then we had one that made the trip special..... A fish slammed a board and wrapped up the other two boards in the process - and then headed straight into a blow-down. Charlie worked the rod with the fish while I managed to finally get one of the other lines untangled, but we still had another all wrapped up and were afraid it was going to cut the line with the fish. By that time the fish had wrapped himself firmly in the submerged tree - Charlie thought he still felt a head shake or two, so I used the trolling motor to get the boat right up on top of the tree and I grabbed the line and hand-lined it up and in - expecting to just finally pull up a limb - but I also felt a bit of a shake - then all of a sudden this monster surfaced right at the tree / boat and I quickly netted it - barely in my net. We got it up on the boat and weighed - 21 lbs on my Bogas (which Charlie is convinced weigh too light...) - but this fish was 41" - the longest fish ever on my boat, Charlie's new personal best and of course a citation by a long ways.... A few photos, measurement and we babied that fish for a successful release. A beautiful sight!
Hard to top that, and it was around 4pm so we decided to go and catch some fresh bait for Sunday. Found the bait and put around 24 baits in the tank - including a few monster mongos - 15" beauties.
We called it at that point - enjoying a celebratory dinner & drinks at Cancun with 8 fish with a 21, 18 & 16 lber for the day.
Tyler joined us for Sunda. We spent the 1st 30 minutes idling around looking for birds - but by 7:30 the birds were just starting to go into search mode and we were itching to drag some baits - so we headed back to the creek where Charlie's 41" came from to get the day going.
Did not take long and Tyler had a 12 lber to start the day
We had some action in there, and maybe caught another - can't remember now - but we ended up moving to another creek to add to the list we caught fish in this trip... We setup and deployed one of the 15" beauties - and it drew the attention of a fish, drawing it out to hit another bait. Kept working the creek and Charlie picked up another as well.
The pattern had seemed to be that we would get one or two fish per creek - and then need to move on - so we did - moved on up the lake some more into another creek and setup - and very quickly got into some action - including our 1st double of the day
Unlike the previous creeks, this one paid off with more than one or two fish - though the fish were a slightly smaller class - most of these going 29"-31"
We were near bait, so we decided to top off the tank with a few more big baits.... and then get back at it....
Headed back to our 1st creek of the day to find the wind blowing strong. We pushed through and fought the wind, barely keeping the boat pointed in the right direction and moving forward - but did so well enough to pick up some more fish... getting our 2nd double of the day
We moved to a section of the creek that was somewhat shielded from the wind, and found a little better class of fish...
We called it a day around 3:30 with 15 fish to the boat, 1 break-off, 3 that came unbuttoned on the way to the boat and a couple of missed hook-ups. Smallest fish today was 29" with a good number in the 29"-31" / 8 - 12 lbs range, several in the 33"-34" range and 13-14 lbs, and the biggest at 35" / 16 lbs. Charlie - seems you were not on the rod on as many of these as you should have been - sorry about that, you've got to be quick to the jump when fishing around Tyler Of course, you got the 41"er so I don't feel too bad This was one of those reports that goes to show the question "where'd you catch them" is not one that needs a specific answer. We targeted creeks and caught fish in every creek we pulled bait, working up the lake from a bit below the bridge on up - if we had more time we'd have kept trying new creeks just to see when we might strike out in one.
Great couple of days fishing with a new friend and old one - heck, who needs the Bay
Water: 46-47 degrees, visibility of a few feet
Techniques: Saturday - big bait on free line planer boards, big gizzard on a free line float, alewives & "peanut" on downlines & light lines, casting & jigging flukes; Sunday - big bait on free line planers, bank-side, only
Charlie / ArchEnemy had invited me to go with him to the Bay right after Christmas, but I came down with a stomach bug on Christmas morning which took me out for a few days and then weather and other conflicts made it tough for us to figure out how to get there - so I invited him to come on out to SML and fish with me for a couple of day so that we could at least get our striped fix. Based on the results of our two days, Charlie is welcome aboard any time
We had an awesome couple of days of fishing - hang on......I loaded up the bait tank on New Years Day afternoon with too many gizzards - and by Sat AM my tank was going skunky, so I had to keep doing water changes.
On my way back from catching bait I ran across some birds working so stopped not far from another boat and quickly jigged up a 6 lber - then headed along my way
[
We started Saturday by running down the lake below the bridge a bit looking for birds - with no real results at 1st - we checked a few creeks that seemed barren - we did mark a few scattered fish and put out bait for a couple of hours and got 1 small fish.
We moved across the channel and started to head back up lake when Charlie spotted some birds working in a cove - sure enough there were some scattered pods of fish roaming around. I got one jigging and then we put out bait and ended up picking up 2 more on downlines. One was a deep fish at 50' and it had barotrauma from the rapid accent and would not go back - fortunately it was a 24" fish so we kept it, eventually giving it to Bigun and his crew (or at least in my imagination it was Bigun
) and they then regifted it, along with a few others, to another crew that was out fishing (or so my imagination told me )We decided it was time to stop playing with the schoolies and put the big bait to work on a "Tour de Creeks" Headed to a mid-lake creek above the bridge and put out a spread - and soon enough I had a 16 lber on the end of the line and to the boat.
We picked up one other fish on the way out of that creek, then moved on to another creek
Charlie got on the board with big bait and I picked up one in there as well....
Moved to yet another creek that had done well for me in Dec/Jan last year, and sure enough the fish were there again this year.... A fair bit of nervous bait and action in the creek - I picked up one....
Then we had one that made the trip special..... A fish slammed a board and wrapped up the other two boards in the process - and then headed straight into a blow-down. Charlie worked the rod with the fish while I managed to finally get one of the other lines untangled, but we still had another all wrapped up and were afraid it was going to cut the line with the fish. By that time the fish had wrapped himself firmly in the submerged tree - Charlie thought he still felt a head shake or two, so I used the trolling motor to get the boat right up on top of the tree and I grabbed the line and hand-lined it up and in - expecting to just finally pull up a limb - but I also felt a bit of a shake - then all of a sudden this monster surfaced right at the tree / boat and I quickly netted it - barely in my net. We got it up on the boat and weighed - 21 lbs on my Bogas (which Charlie is convinced weigh too light...) - but this fish was 41" - the longest fish ever on my boat, Charlie's new personal best and of course a citation by a long ways....
A few photos, measurement and we babied that fish for a successful release. A beautiful sight!Hard to top that, and it was around 4pm so we decided to go and catch some fresh bait for Sunday. Found the bait and put around 24 baits in the tank - including a few monster mongos - 15" beauties.
We called it at that point - enjoying a celebratory dinner & drinks at Cancun with 8 fish with a 21, 18 & 16 lber for the day.
Tyler joined us for Sunda. We spent the 1st 30 minutes idling around looking for birds - but by 7:30 the birds were just starting to go into search mode and we were itching to drag some baits - so we headed back to the creek where Charlie's 41" came from to get the day going.
Did not take long and Tyler had a 12 lber to start the day
We had some action in there, and maybe caught another - can't remember now - but we ended up moving to another creek to add to the list we caught fish in this trip... We setup and deployed one of the 15" beauties - and it drew the attention of a fish, drawing it out to hit another bait. Kept working the creek and Charlie picked up another as well.
The pattern had seemed to be that we would get one or two fish per creek - and then need to move on - so we did - moved on up the lake some more into another creek and setup - and very quickly got into some action - including our 1st double of the day
Unlike the previous creeks, this one paid off with more than one or two fish - though the fish were a slightly smaller class - most of these going 29"-31"
We were near bait, so we decided to top off the tank with a few more big baits.... and then get back at it....
Headed back to our 1st creek of the day to find the wind blowing strong. We pushed through and fought the wind, barely keeping the boat pointed in the right direction and moving forward - but did so well enough to pick up some more fish... getting our 2nd double of the day
We moved to a section of the creek that was somewhat shielded from the wind, and found a little better class of fish...
We called it a day around 3:30 with 15 fish to the boat, 1 break-off, 3 that came unbuttoned on the way to the boat and a couple of missed hook-ups. Smallest fish today was 29" with a good number in the 29"-31" / 8 - 12 lbs range, several in the 33"-34" range and 13-14 lbs, and the biggest at 35" / 16 lbs. Charlie - seems you were not on the rod on as many of these as you should have been - sorry about that, you've got to be quick to the jump when fishing around Tyler
Of course, you got the 41"er so I don't feel too bad This was one of those reports that goes to show the question "where'd you catch them" is not one that needs a specific answer. We targeted creeks and caught fish in every creek we pulled bait, working up the lake from a bit below the bridge on up - if we had more time we'd have kept trying new creeks just to see when we might strike out in one.Great couple of days fishing with a new friend and old one - heck, who needs the Bay
