11/14/15 - Great Start to the Morning
Nov 15, 2015 14:09:39 GMT -5
tommyfishes, seajay, and 5 more like this
Post by mwardncsu on Nov 15, 2015 14:09:39 GMT -5
Weather: Clear skies, windy - 10-15 with gust to 20 from NW, temps starting in mid 40's rising to 50's
Water: 54-59, visibility of several feet
Techniques: pulling money-maker to 14" gizzard shad on free-line planers along the banks - had a few boards on the deep side but no action on them
Had made plans to fish Saturday with our buddy Nathan, his son, his girlfriend Rae and her daughter Rowan- using some bait Nathan had tucked away over the last few weeks..... Nathan woke up not feeling well so I rolled on out solo to a nice sunrise, and then a stop to pick up the bait - about a dozen gizzards in the small dollar-bill to money-maker size. Planned to fish them in they morning till it warmed up enough to go catch some more - and hopefully find some bigger ones. The wind had been howling all night and was still blowing strong - but the weather forecast promised the wind was to lay down around 8 am.....
I passed three or four striper boats heading up the lake as I went to go pick up the bait - so decided I would do the opposite and fish some mid-lake creeks away from the crowd (though there was not a huge crowd today I don't think being opening of rifle season). There was one other boat in the creek I decided to fish and it looked like the were pulling downlines more in the middle of the creek - so I headed on a bit further back and deployed 3 boards with gizzards bank-side and two on the channel side and pulled across big shallow flat point where Tyler and I won a tournament last April. The boat was in 6-10' of water about 50-70' of the bank with baits even shallower. About 1/2 across the point I had a boil on the inside planer - which was a dollar-bill sized shad. One swipe and the fish grabbed the bait and I grabbed the rod. Figured it wasn't a big fish with the bait, and at first it id not seem like much - but then the fish took off towards towards deeper water peeling drag - was several hundred feet behind the boat peeling drag before I knew what happened..... The fish came up to the surface and rolled way back there and I could tell it was a decent fish..... it seemed to more or less swim straight to the boat - but not before getting into the channel side planer lines as it came towards the boat.....
It was a nice fish but I was a bit surprised when I saw it was over 18 lbs on the Bogas and went 37.25" on the tape - a Citation! My first since April.
Heck of a start to the day - about 5 minutes in - thought then that I should just pack up and head back to the dock for the day. Nathan, you should have come on with the crew
I pulled the back of the creek for a while without any action - maybe one swirl - then pulled another part of the creek and missed one on a point and had one more swirl.
Around that time as the morning warmed up, Nathan texted to say he was feeling better and they could come jump on - so I met them mid-lake and we went on a bait run. Found around a dozen or so baits - most larger than what we had and started to fish a bank up the lake. We had some action - but it would be one nice serious swirl, or some swipe and gone.... don't know what was up with these fish but they wanted to play and not seriously eat. Did get one to actually try and eat a big bait - but it just short-struck the bait and didn't hook up.
We took a break around 1 or 1:30 to stop and pick up some lunch and decided to head back down lake to fish a creek I thought would be protected from the wind. On the way down we were in a stretch of main channel that seemed protected and I had a feeling so I circled back and we put out baits. Again we had several swirls and swipes with nothing else. We did put put our biggest bait - at least 14" if not bigger - equipped with a stinger due to the size of the bait.
We were towards the end of the stretch I was going to pull - and we had passed a few fish that showed but did not eat - but instead of turning around I decided to turn back around I kept pulling. As we came across the back side of a small point we had a big boil on the big bait and a fish run off with the planer board. I grabbed the rod and it felt like I good fish - almost could not hand the rod to Nathan's son Ethan..... but gave it over to him. He did a good job bringing the fish to the boat - and what I thought was going to be another pig turned into a 9 lb fish
As I was reviving & releasing the fish with my boga's, I went to adjust my grip at the same time the fish jerked and it ran off with my 30 Lb Boga's in its mouth
I was starting to think about adding a set of 60 lb Bogas to my Christmas List - I had 8" or so piece of swim noodle on the Bogas so I was hopeful, but worried it would not surface for a while with a dead fish..... however about a minute later Nathan spotted the noodle just under the surface 15' behind the boat- the fish trying to swim deep but fighting the noodle - we we were able to net it again, retrieve the Boga's and send the fish back on it's way.....
We tried hard in one more creek to get Rowan on a fish.... again - we were on fish - a few swirls and a missed hook-up - made three passes on that stretch but we just could not make it happen..... called it a day around 4pm to go and deposit the newly caught bait back in the tank - two fish for the day.... curse of the early morning Citation I guess..... Great morning - I just wish the afternoon could have produced some fish for the kids..... should have gone and netted some peanuts and pulled light-lines deeper in the channel probably as well to pick up some smaller fish
Water: 54-59, visibility of several feet
Techniques: pulling money-maker to 14" gizzard shad on free-line planers along the banks - had a few boards on the deep side but no action on them
Had made plans to fish Saturday with our buddy Nathan, his son, his girlfriend Rae and her daughter Rowan- using some bait Nathan had tucked away over the last few weeks..... Nathan woke up not feeling well so I rolled on out solo to a nice sunrise, and then a stop to pick up the bait - about a dozen gizzards in the small dollar-bill to money-maker size. Planned to fish them in they morning till it warmed up enough to go catch some more - and hopefully find some bigger ones. The wind had been howling all night and was still blowing strong - but the weather forecast promised the wind was to lay down around 8 am.....
I passed three or four striper boats heading up the lake as I went to go pick up the bait - so decided I would do the opposite and fish some mid-lake creeks away from the crowd (though there was not a huge crowd today I don't think being opening of rifle season). There was one other boat in the creek I decided to fish and it looked like the were pulling downlines more in the middle of the creek - so I headed on a bit further back and deployed 3 boards with gizzards bank-side and two on the channel side and pulled across big shallow flat point where Tyler and I won a tournament last April. The boat was in 6-10' of water about 50-70' of the bank with baits even shallower. About 1/2 across the point I had a boil on the inside planer - which was a dollar-bill sized shad. One swipe and the fish grabbed the bait and I grabbed the rod. Figured it wasn't a big fish with the bait, and at first it id not seem like much - but then the fish took off towards towards deeper water peeling drag - was several hundred feet behind the boat peeling drag before I knew what happened..... The fish came up to the surface and rolled way back there and I could tell it was a decent fish..... it seemed to more or less swim straight to the boat - but not before getting into the channel side planer lines as it came towards the boat.....
It was a nice fish but I was a bit surprised when I saw it was over 18 lbs on the Bogas and went 37.25" on the tape - a Citation! My first since April.
Heck of a start to the day - about 5 minutes in - thought then that I should just pack up and head back to the dock for the day. Nathan, you should have come on with the crew
I pulled the back of the creek for a while without any action - maybe one swirl - then pulled another part of the creek and missed one on a point and had one more swirl. Around that time as the morning warmed up, Nathan texted to say he was feeling better and they could come jump on - so I met them mid-lake and we went on a bait run. Found around a dozen or so baits - most larger than what we had and started to fish a bank up the lake. We had some action - but it would be one nice serious swirl, or some swipe and gone.... don't know what was up with these fish but they wanted to play and not seriously eat. Did get one to actually try and eat a big bait - but it just short-struck the bait and didn't hook up.
We took a break around 1 or 1:30 to stop and pick up some lunch and decided to head back down lake to fish a creek I thought would be protected from the wind. On the way down we were in a stretch of main channel that seemed protected and I had a feeling so I circled back and we put out baits. Again we had several swirls and swipes with nothing else. We did put put our biggest bait - at least 14" if not bigger - equipped with a stinger due to the size of the bait.
We were towards the end of the stretch I was going to pull - and we had passed a few fish that showed but did not eat - but instead of turning around I decided to turn back around I kept pulling. As we came across the back side of a small point we had a big boil on the big bait and a fish run off with the planer board. I grabbed the rod and it felt like I good fish - almost could not hand the rod to Nathan's son Ethan..... but gave it over to him. He did a good job bringing the fish to the boat - and what I thought was going to be another pig turned into a 9 lb fish
As I was reviving & releasing the fish with my boga's, I went to adjust my grip at the same time the fish jerked and it ran off with my 30 Lb Boga's in its mouth
I was starting to think about adding a set of 60 lb Bogas to my Christmas List - I had 8" or so piece of swim noodle on the Bogas so I was hopeful, but worried it would not surface for a while with a dead fish..... however about a minute later Nathan spotted the noodle just under the surface 15' behind the boat- the fish trying to swim deep but fighting the noodle - we we were able to net it again, retrieve the Boga's and send the fish back on it's way.....
We tried hard in one more creek to get Rowan on a fish.... again - we were on fish - a few swirls and a missed hook-up - made three passes on that stretch but we just could not make it happen..... called it a day around 4pm to go and deposit the newly caught bait back in the tank - two fish for the day.... curse of the early morning Citation I guess..... Great morning - I just wish the afternoon could have produced some fish for the kids..... should have gone and netted some peanuts and pulled light-lines deeper in the channel probably as well to pick up some smaller fish
no way I'm going to poke fun at Nathan...... last time I was out, had the remote in one hand and a shad in the other.... ment to throw the shad in the tank.... 
That thing was a fatty. I saw it floating as I pulled by and circled back - pulled one side of the line and found the perch - though at first it was hooked as bait