12/21 & 12/22 - Pre-Christmas Fishing
Dec 22, 2016 22:36:44 GMT -5
jb4sml, Live Bait JunkEE, and 1 more like this
Post by mwardncsu on Dec 22, 2016 22:36:44 GMT -5
Weather: Mostly sunny, temps starting in upper 30's rising towards 50 then dropping as evening set in - wind picked up about 8:30 and built throughout the afternoon with gusts to 20 from the N/NW
Water: 45-50, visibility of a few feet
Techniques: Dollar-bill & large to mongo gizzards on freeline planer boards - and a dollar-bill on a light-line. Some jigging with a 3/4 oz jig-head and fluke late morning
I had originally planned to come up and fish Wed - Fri this week, but some things on the work-front created a change in plans and I did not get up to the lake until late afternoon on Wednesday. I planned to head out and chase birds till dark and then go catch bait. Chased some birds with a bunch of boats, marked a few but didn't connect with any (and honestly didn't do a lot of jigging on them). Headed into a creek to look for bait and found some good piles and started throwing - loaded around 24 or so dollar-bill gizzards in the tank and caught several slab crappie that were very tempting to turn into a sammich - and was looking for some bigger ones when I found them - was pretty easy as it turned out - was in the right place at the right time when they came through - via Yam, Kurt & Anthony that were coming off the water and had 6 or so large gizzards left over that they bucketed over
Thanks Guys! So, I called it an evening and headed back to the house.
Chad met me about 7am and we were on the water by 7:20 or so - popped around a few minutes looking for some bird action but I had big bait in the tank so off we went to drag them along a bank that has been good in December. We didn't have baits out 5 minutes and Chad had a fish on and as he got it close to the boat another board went down and we had a double..... his turned out smaller than mine
so he left his in the rod holder while helping to net my fish which ended up going 36.5" and 18 lbs - what would be the biggest of the day. We didn't get a pic of his as it took some doing to get the hook loose and we wanted to get it back in the water - but it was around 30". We doubled and tripled back on that stretch and picked up 4 fish total, missing two or three more.
Seems someone's been "ripping lips"
As the wind picked up the bite died there, so we headed back down the lake and found the fleet hanging around on what apparently had been a big school of fish - we were late to the party but tried to jig a while without hooking up. We pulled a near-by creek with no love and then moved on down a bit more and spotted a good pile of fish but the wind was blowing so hard we couldn't control the boat enough to jig on them.
Bait or Fish???
Chad had to take off about 11:30, so I went on a "tour-de-creeks" afterwards. I pulled at least 5 different creeks - hooking up with a nice fish in one creek before it pulled the hook
and then pulling several barren waste-lands. Tried a main-channel point mid-afternoon but the gale winds made that a real pain and nothing showed - so I worked my way back up the lake again, looking for some sheltered creeks or areas to pull into the evening. I tucked back into once creek and setup for a pull - a short while into the pull I saw the bait flash and then the board dove..... Brought a 35.25" / just under 15 lb fish to the boat but apparently that was the only one in the back of that creek....
Headed back to where we started the day catching, but it was also a waste-land, so I worked my way back closer to home and tried the back of my last creek of the day..... put out the biggest bait I had which I'd been saving all day - quickly enough it was confirmed there were fish there when the big bait got a quick tug and release.... worked that stretch three or so times until I could no longer see the boards - and until those dink fish finally yanked on the bait so many times it pulled off....
The sun had set so it was time to go... packed things away and headed back home to NC for the Holidays...... 5 fish to the boat with chances at another 4 or 5 at least - hopefully I'll get one more shot at 2016 after Christmas.....
Water: 45-50, visibility of a few feet
Techniques: Dollar-bill & large to mongo gizzards on freeline planer boards - and a dollar-bill on a light-line. Some jigging with a 3/4 oz jig-head and fluke late morning
I had originally planned to come up and fish Wed - Fri this week, but some things on the work-front created a change in plans and I did not get up to the lake until late afternoon on Wednesday. I planned to head out and chase birds till dark and then go catch bait. Chased some birds with a bunch of boats, marked a few but didn't connect with any (and honestly didn't do a lot of jigging on them). Headed into a creek to look for bait and found some good piles and started throwing - loaded around 24 or so dollar-bill gizzards in the tank and caught several slab crappie that were very tempting to turn into a sammich - and was looking for some bigger ones when I found them - was pretty easy as it turned out - was in the right place at the right time when they came through - via Yam, Kurt & Anthony that were coming off the water and had 6 or so large gizzards left over that they bucketed over
Thanks Guys! So, I called it an evening and headed back to the house.Chad met me about 7am and we were on the water by 7:20 or so - popped around a few minutes looking for some bird action but I had big bait in the tank so off we went to drag them along a bank that has been good in December. We didn't have baits out 5 minutes and Chad had a fish on and as he got it close to the boat another board went down and we had a double..... his turned out smaller than mine
so he left his in the rod holder while helping to net my fish which ended up going 36.5" and 18 lbs - what would be the biggest of the day. We didn't get a pic of his as it took some doing to get the hook loose and we wanted to get it back in the water - but it was around 30". We doubled and tripled back on that stretch and picked up 4 fish total, missing two or three more. Seems someone's been "ripping lips"
As the wind picked up the bite died there, so we headed back down the lake and found the fleet hanging around on what apparently had been a big school of fish - we were late to the party but tried to jig a while without hooking up. We pulled a near-by creek with no love and then moved on down a bit more and spotted a good pile of fish but the wind was blowing so hard we couldn't control the boat enough to jig on them.
Bait or Fish???
Chad had to take off about 11:30, so I went on a "tour-de-creeks" afterwards. I pulled at least 5 different creeks - hooking up with a nice fish in one creek before it pulled the hook
and then pulling several barren waste-lands. Tried a main-channel point mid-afternoon but the gale winds made that a real pain and nothing showed - so I worked my way back up the lake again, looking for some sheltered creeks or areas to pull into the evening. I tucked back into once creek and setup for a pull - a short while into the pull I saw the bait flash and then the board dove..... Brought a 35.25" / just under 15 lb fish to the boat but apparently that was the only one in the back of that creek....Headed back to where we started the day catching, but it was also a waste-land, so I worked my way back closer to home and tried the back of my last creek of the day..... put out the biggest bait I had which I'd been saving all day - quickly enough it was confirmed there were fish there when the big bait got a quick tug and release.... worked that stretch three or so times until I could no longer see the boards - and until those dink fish finally yanked on the bait so many times it pulled off....
The sun had set so it was time to go... packed things away and headed back home to NC for the Holidays...... 5 fish to the boat with chances at another 4 or 5 at least - hopefully I'll get one more shot at 2016 after Christmas.....
