11/18/16 & 11/19/16 - The Lake Giveth...the Lake Taketh Away
Nov 20, 2016 20:51:03 GMT -5
seajay likes this
Post by mwardncsu on Nov 20, 2016 20:51:03 GMT -5
Weather: Fri - mostly sunny, light & variable, temps in the 70's; Saturday - 40's to start, light winds from W, then slacking off, then turning into a full on gale at 11:15 - mostly sunny until the front approached
Water: 51-62, visibility of a few feet
Techniques: Fri - silver dollar / dollar bill gizzards on free-line & light-line planers and a float Sat - large to mongo gizzards on freeline gizzards and silver-dollars on light-lines & downlines
Came up to the lake on Thursday night and headed out to try and net some big gizzards - worked from 9:30 till almost 1 am and covered a lot of water throwing in several creeks and places along the main channel - netting only silver dollars & dollar bills. I found the bait deep again but in much smaller pods that were not net-able. Put around 30 baits in the tank and headed back to the house. Headed back out around 11am on Friday to try again in several spots, hoping they had schooled up- worked it for a couple of hours, took a couple of calls and worked it another hour or so and yielded only a few large baits - the deep bait was in small pods still and think the big bait had moved back shallow but I just could not manage to get a net on them. Our buddy Chad was going to jump on with my buddy Mark & I on Saturday AM and I ran into him as he was wrapping up a short Fri afternoon trip so he offloaded a half-dozen larger baits he had managed into.
Around 4 or so I decided to fish the rest of the evening - hit one creek and put out a spread before I realized the leaves in the creek were more hassle than it was worth, so I moved on down to the creek I'd fished the previous Saturday evening with some good action and put out a spread of the smaller baits - saving the big boys for Saturday AM. Much different action than the week before - I had a few swirls and one good tug on a board and one missed hook-up but that was it until right at dark. I had given up for the day and was reeling in the baits - was pulling in my middle bank-side board when I heard a cinder block being chucked into the water at my bank-side board and that board buried and the reel started screaming. I got the rod in my hand back in a holder and grabbed the rod that was peeling drag and felt the fight of a nice fish. Had it for 30 seconds or so until it just went limp - shook the hook I guess...... Lady Lake was ensuring I was humbled after two nice fish the Sunday before I guess. I packed it in for the night and headed to the house.
My buddy Mark and I headed out about 7am or so, with Chad bailing on us due to some other direction from home
We knew we had limited time to fish for the morning as a strong cold front was on it's way with winds 20 mph+ to arrive around 11am. We headed up and fished the area I caught the 21 lber the week before but found it dead to the world - we finally had one tug and a miss and after nothing when we doubled back we picked up and moved to pull another spot on the main channel further down the lake.
Had one hit and another missed hook-up in that stretch - I'd just tugged on the board to clear some leaves off the board when it got hammered - but the hook turned into the bait and no hook-up as a result
We moved on down to the creek I'd fished the night before hoping things would be different this morning - but again, nothing happening - did have a swirl, and we had one more missed hook-up late in the morning. Right on schedule about 11:15 the winds went from dead still to 20+ mph with gusts to 30. What was a fishable creek was suddenly covered up in leaves. We knew the day was done so we packed it in and rode down the lake to meet up with Nathan who had found a dead cranking & electronics battery on his boat that morning - turned out a plus for him as he had to stay close to his dock and just run his trolling motor and he managed to get some bait and catch one and miss several putting his buddy on a person best in the 33" or so range. We found he had a VERY dead electronics battery that may have been parallel to his cranking batt which prevented that from working. Got his rig going again and then we headed to grab some lunch before calling it a day.
I figured it was a long-shot to have a great day with the short time we had to fish and Lady Lake keeping me in my place after the week before.... was hoping Mark might bring some luck for himself however. Oh well - that's fishing and we had a good time out there and will be back at it soon enough.
No fish pics this trip - but enjoy some Saturday Night Shad!
Water: 51-62, visibility of a few feet
Techniques: Fri - silver dollar / dollar bill gizzards on free-line & light-line planers and a float Sat - large to mongo gizzards on freeline gizzards and silver-dollars on light-lines & downlines
Came up to the lake on Thursday night and headed out to try and net some big gizzards - worked from 9:30 till almost 1 am and covered a lot of water throwing in several creeks and places along the main channel - netting only silver dollars & dollar bills. I found the bait deep again but in much smaller pods that were not net-able. Put around 30 baits in the tank and headed back to the house. Headed back out around 11am on Friday to try again in several spots, hoping they had schooled up- worked it for a couple of hours, took a couple of calls and worked it another hour or so and yielded only a few large baits - the deep bait was in small pods still and think the big bait had moved back shallow but I just could not manage to get a net on them. Our buddy Chad was going to jump on with my buddy Mark & I on Saturday AM and I ran into him as he was wrapping up a short Fri afternoon trip so he offloaded a half-dozen larger baits he had managed into.
Around 4 or so I decided to fish the rest of the evening - hit one creek and put out a spread before I realized the leaves in the creek were more hassle than it was worth, so I moved on down to the creek I'd fished the previous Saturday evening with some good action and put out a spread of the smaller baits - saving the big boys for Saturday AM. Much different action than the week before - I had a few swirls and one good tug on a board and one missed hook-up but that was it until right at dark. I had given up for the day and was reeling in the baits - was pulling in my middle bank-side board when I heard a cinder block being chucked into the water at my bank-side board and that board buried and the reel started screaming. I got the rod in my hand back in a holder and grabbed the rod that was peeling drag and felt the fight of a nice fish. Had it for 30 seconds or so until it just went limp - shook the hook I guess...... Lady Lake was ensuring I was humbled after two nice fish the Sunday before I guess. I packed it in for the night and headed to the house.
My buddy Mark and I headed out about 7am or so, with Chad bailing on us due to some other direction from home
We knew we had limited time to fish for the morning as a strong cold front was on it's way with winds 20 mph+ to arrive around 11am. We headed up and fished the area I caught the 21 lber the week before but found it dead to the world - we finally had one tug and a miss and after nothing when we doubled back we picked up and moved to pull another spot on the main channel further down the lake. Had one hit and another missed hook-up in that stretch - I'd just tugged on the board to clear some leaves off the board when it got hammered - but the hook turned into the bait and no hook-up as a result
We moved on down to the creek I'd fished the night before hoping things would be different this morning - but again, nothing happening - did have a swirl, and we had one more missed hook-up late in the morning. Right on schedule about 11:15 the winds went from dead still to 20+ mph with gusts to 30. What was a fishable creek was suddenly covered up in leaves. We knew the day was done so we packed it in and rode down the lake to meet up with Nathan who had found a dead cranking & electronics battery on his boat that morning - turned out a plus for him as he had to stay close to his dock and just run his trolling motor and he managed to get some bait and catch one and miss several putting his buddy on a person best in the 33" or so range. We found he had a VERY dead electronics battery that may have been parallel to his cranking batt which prevented that from working. Got his rig going again and then we headed to grab some lunch before calling it a day.
I figured it was a long-shot to have a great day with the short time we had to fish and Lady Lake keeping me in my place after the week before.... was hoping Mark might bring some luck for himself however. Oh well - that's fishing and we had a good time out there and will be back at it soon enough.
No fish pics this trip - but enjoy some Saturday Night Shad!
