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Post by mississipi on Jul 3, 2015 14:31:41 GMT -5
Launched at Penhook about 4 am. Put out a light and in 15 min an unbelieveable amount of bait all around the boat. 1 throw, all the bait you could want. a lot of small bait but some good size ones mixed in. Pulled 2 planer boards and 2 freelines. Caught 5 fish with the best being about 28 in. about 9 am idled around looking for a school to maybe jig too but couldn't locate anything. Fish still seem to be scattered but we did mark what appeared to be a school while we were livebait fishing 30 ft deep in 80 ft of water. Seems to me the fish were schooled up this time last year and they might be now but we just didn't find them. Again, love those circle hooks but we did have 3 or 4 fish just bury the rod only to come off. Thinking it might have been small fish or they just wasn't real aggressive.
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Post by mwardncsu on Jul 3, 2015 14:54:42 GMT -5
Good morning. Thanks for posting!
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Gator
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Post by Gator on Jul 4, 2015 5:40:58 GMT -5
Nice job!! They were definitely schooled up last year this time. Looked back at my logs and had a stellar day last year with my Son on this same day. We were fishing BR
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Post by getlinewet on Jul 4, 2015 10:05:47 GMT -5
Gator:
Any thoughts on why they haven't schooled up? Seems like I haven't run into a school in 2 months. Nothing but scattered fish. As I recall, we were banging away at them at BR this time last year too.
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Post by striperjohn on Jul 4, 2015 11:23:04 GMT -5
If water temps remain fairly cool at 15-20 feet (which folks have been reporting) the thermocline will be somewhere around that level. Bait will also be near or at the thermocline (more O2)and spread out more, thus the fish will have a much larger region to search. When it gets hotter the bait will go lower in the water column and the fish will school up going after the larger schools of bait. We've seen this about every 4-5 years since the late 70s. Even though the surface temps are hot, with the rain cooling it down the heat hasn't reached the lower levels of the water column yet.
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Post by mississipi on Jul 4, 2015 12:45:11 GMT -5
Thanks striperjohn but I don't quite understand what you are saying. Are you saying the thermocline will be deeper as it gets hotter and the bait will go deeper forcing the fish to school up?
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Post by striperjohn on Jul 4, 2015 14:20:41 GMT -5
Looking at my past years logs. When the water does not heat up at depth which forces the bait deeper, they spread out more and thus the fish do the same. The bait stay where the water suits them the fish follow. When the top of the water column gets in the 80s and then that moves down into the 20-25 ft range the bait move further down as well. The bait seem to school up into bigger schools then and in certain places. The fish do the same. That has not happened yet. The rains have kept the water cooler.
Just what I interpret my past logs.
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Post by mwardncsu on Jul 4, 2015 17:36:18 GMT -5
They are starting to school up...... this is from today. Have seen others from the past 2 weeks similar.  However, I'm not disagreeing with StriperJohn - I think a lot of the fish are still somewhat shallow (15'-20') and have not gotten together in the large schools - or those larger schools have not made their way back up the Roanoke from the lower Blackwater side yet..... I was marking an increasingly defined thermocline above Indian Creek today at around 25-30' |
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Gator
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Post by Gator on Jul 5, 2015 8:21:40 GMT -5
I was lucky enough to be able to slip out for a few on Saturday and marked something similar to mwards screen shot. Getlinewet, I was BR and the bite was good. Jigging style
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