4/22 & 4/23 - Sometimes the fish win....
Apr 24, 2016 21:46:06 GMT -5
Brian, jb4sml, and 3 more like this
Post by mwardncsu on Apr 24, 2016 21:46:06 GMT -5
With Easter, the trip to TN at the end of March, the April tournament and a few other things I haven't fished on SML since March 19th - and I don't think my boat had been run since the 1st week in March. It was past due - so I came up on Thursday evening and headed out to catch some bait at the lights after dark under a full moon. Hit a few shallow lights looking for gizzards with no luck - after striking out a while doing that, around 11pm I hit up a well-known light to load up on some ales. My 1/2" net was 1st up, and while I caught a bunch of alewives, it also Christmas treed andI had to pick out baits for 10 minutes. Moved to a 5/8" mesh and plucked out a few nicer ones. A guy was on the docks catching some ales for cut-bait cat fishing, and he managed a few big gizzards and ales/bluebacks, so we traded those for a bunch of ales that gilled or didn't make the cut for my tank 
I headed on back towards the house, hitting several lights along the way, still without much luck - until the last one - loaded up on a couple of dozen big alewife/blueback (8-10")
4/22:
Weather: Overcast, light wind, thundershowers, then cloudy; temps in the 70's, light winds except during the storms; full moon
Water: 65-67, visibility of several feet
Techniques: Pulling gizzards & alewives on freelined planers & a few lightines / floats
I thought about fishing a few hours 1st thing in the morning ahead of the approaching front, but given I didn't get to bed until after 2am I wasn't moving at 5:30 or so in time to get out and make it worth the while in the AM. Tyler and I both took the afternoon off and we got out around 2 pm after I stopped to get some gas for the boat - its "long run" season so I went ahead and took the hit and put 60 gal in the boat.
At least it topped out the fuel gauge on my 80 gal tank....
After loading a dozen or so money-makers from the shed tank we hit up a shoal that has done well at the end of April / early May before and it had some fish on it - but small.... moved to another creek to fish a major point when we got a text from our buddy Nathan to say keep an eye on the skys as some nasty lightning was not too far away - we decided to run back to Tyler's place to sit out the weather then head back out. Fortunately it was only a 30 min rain delay...
We decided to go fish some spots we'd not fished before, but had been eyeing on Google Maps & the contour charts. Had a few nervous baits and chases - and Tyler landed a nice one on a money-maker gizzard... though of the wrong species... I know some guys would have liked to have this fish on the weekend during the Bass Pro / Huk Big Bass Classic - we didn't weigh it but likely was close to 6 lbs - was 21.5" long He did put one in the boat off a large alewife as well though - at 9 lbs
We moved on down-lake to fish some waters that used to be very productive in the day of old. Well, key word is "used to be" - nothing going on other than one chase that was likely that of a bass and crossing a very impressive bait-ball A little before dark we moved back up the lake to hit the creek we caught some fish in in order to throw the net a bit and get a handful of baits before we called it a day - then off to dinner and then home to get some sleep for the next morning......
4/23:
Weather: overcast to start then sun came out around 8am, the clouded back up around 11am, wind picking up by late morning to 5-10 from NW and then 10+ after 2pm
Water: 63-67, stained
Techniques: Pulling gizzards & large alewifes on freeline planers, then the same plus a lightlne, float line with varied bait and two downlines with small alewives
Back at it Saturday AM. Decided we were looking for a big-fish bite today and headed to different waters. With the Big Bass Classic going on with hourly weigh-ins and we knew there would be a lot of boat traffic on the lower and mid-end of the lake so we stayed on the upper end. We pulled all morning with not even a nervous bait. The bright spot of the morning was coming across a very big pile of big baits - loaded up at least a couple dozen in the tank and pulled these bigger baits back through where we had in the first part of the morning - with only one really reasonable chase. We did mark some fish on the bottom - probably should have anchored up and cut-bait....
After a lunch-break we pulled some other areas - we had a pull-back coming across a point but it was gone before it was there.... kept on pulling - after making a circle to retrieve a hung boat and get stuff sorted back out all of a sudden the furthest outside board took off -Tyler grabbed the rod and the fish tore off 200' or more of line in no time - he couldn't do anything with the fish as it came up and splashed around on the surface a couple of times - I started to turn the boat so we could chase him and then the line went slack
A serious fish, gone like that. Whatcha gonna do.... Tyler was sure it was high 20s, then I think he said 30 - believe it's up to a 50 lber today 
Saw this at lunch - should have gotten it for the condo... it's pretty accurate most days
We pulled on and on - unwilling to raise the flag of surrender - though we did raise a flag high......
Pulled another bank and mid-channel as we marked more fish than we had all day - had several come up and take a look at our downlines a few times - noticed one rod pulling a little funny and a swirl near the boat - turned out we had a 1-2 lb smallmouth hooked up
We moved back down the lake around 3pm or so and hit two more creeks trying to ditch the striper-skunk for the day, but it was nothing doing...... wrapped it up around 6:30 with our tail between our legs...... next time.....
I headed on back towards the house, hitting several lights along the way, still without much luck - until the last one - loaded up on a couple of dozen big alewife/blueback (8-10")4/22:
Weather: Overcast, light wind, thundershowers, then cloudy; temps in the 70's, light winds except during the storms; full moon
Water: 65-67, visibility of several feet
Techniques: Pulling gizzards & alewives on freelined planers & a few lightines / floats
I thought about fishing a few hours 1st thing in the morning ahead of the approaching front, but given I didn't get to bed until after 2am I wasn't moving at 5:30 or so in time to get out and make it worth the while in the AM. Tyler and I both took the afternoon off and we got out around 2 pm after I stopped to get some gas for the boat - its "long run" season so I went ahead and took the hit and put 60 gal in the boat.
At least it topped out the fuel gauge on my 80 gal tank....After loading a dozen or so money-makers from the shed tank we hit up a shoal that has done well at the end of April / early May before and it had some fish on it - but small.... moved to another creek to fish a major point when we got a text from our buddy Nathan to say keep an eye on the skys as some nasty lightning was not too far away - we decided to run back to Tyler's place to sit out the weather then head back out. Fortunately it was only a 30 min rain delay...
We decided to go fish some spots we'd not fished before, but had been eyeing on Google Maps & the contour charts. Had a few nervous baits and chases - and Tyler landed a nice one on a money-maker gizzard... though of the wrong species... I know some guys would have liked to have this fish on the weekend during the Bass Pro / Huk Big Bass Classic - we didn't weigh it but likely was close to 6 lbs - was 21.5" long He did put one in the boat off a large alewife as well though - at 9 lbs
We moved on down-lake to fish some waters that used to be very productive in the day of old. Well, key word is "used to be" - nothing going on other than one chase that was likely that of a bass and crossing a very impressive bait-ball A little before dark we moved back up the lake to hit the creek we caught some fish in in order to throw the net a bit and get a handful of baits before we called it a day - then off to dinner and then home to get some sleep for the next morning......
4/23:
Weather: overcast to start then sun came out around 8am, the clouded back up around 11am, wind picking up by late morning to 5-10 from NW and then 10+ after 2pm
Water: 63-67, stained
Techniques: Pulling gizzards & large alewifes on freeline planers, then the same plus a lightlne, float line with varied bait and two downlines with small alewives
Back at it Saturday AM. Decided we were looking for a big-fish bite today and headed to different waters. With the Big Bass Classic going on with hourly weigh-ins and we knew there would be a lot of boat traffic on the lower and mid-end of the lake so we stayed on the upper end. We pulled all morning with not even a nervous bait. The bright spot of the morning was coming across a very big pile of big baits - loaded up at least a couple dozen in the tank and pulled these bigger baits back through where we had in the first part of the morning - with only one really reasonable chase. We did mark some fish on the bottom - probably should have anchored up and cut-bait....
After a lunch-break we pulled some other areas - we had a pull-back coming across a point but it was gone before it was there.... kept on pulling - after making a circle to retrieve a hung boat and get stuff sorted back out all of a sudden the furthest outside board took off -Tyler grabbed the rod and the fish tore off 200' or more of line in no time - he couldn't do anything with the fish as it came up and splashed around on the surface a couple of times - I started to turn the boat so we could chase him and then the line went slack
A serious fish, gone like that. Whatcha gonna do.... Tyler was sure it was high 20s, then I think he said 30 - believe it's up to a 50 lber today 
Saw this at lunch - should have gotten it for the condo... it's pretty accurate most days
We pulled on and on - unwilling to raise the flag of surrender - though we did raise a flag high......
Pulled another bank and mid-channel as we marked more fish than we had all day - had several come up and take a look at our downlines a few times - noticed one rod pulling a little funny and a swirl near the boat - turned out we had a 1-2 lb smallmouth hooked up
We moved back down the lake around 3pm or so and hit two more creeks trying to ditch the striper-skunk for the day, but it was nothing doing...... wrapped it up around 6:30 with our tail between our legs...... next time.....
;D ;D 
