Post by mwardncsu on Dec 29, 2016 21:04:12 GMT -5
Weather: see pic below..... but the summary is COLD!
Water: 46-49, visibility of a few feet most places
Techniques: dollar-bill sized gizzards on free-line planers - put out a light-line & light-line float - had one hit on the float without hook-up and that was it. Mid-afternoon we netted some large to mongo gizzards and pulled those with no love - all action today came on the dollar-bills
Weather Capture for the day..... can you see when the cold front arrived...
Not shown was some light rain to start the morning and a few sprinkles off and on till noon or so.
Had the opportunity to jump on today with Mitchell and his son Haven - Mitchell and his dad fished with me last year at this same time so I jumped on with him this time when he came up to SML for a few days. We hit the water before dawn and netted some dollar-bills in the creek where he was staying. Unfortunately his almost brand-new net found a tree or something in the depths and while we got the net back after cleating it off, it broke 4 braile lines - so we went and got one of my nets and checked a few other creeks for some other bait, without much success. We headed up the lake, dodging some debris and pulled a stretch that was good to me a week ago, but today we got no action on the dollar-bills - StripedYam pulled that stretch pretty much right behind us with some larger bait and I think he said he picked up one through there - so sometimes size does matter
We headed back down the lake and checked out one creek but it was so full of trash we waived off - headed to another creek where I'd caught fish the week before and Mitchell and his son and friends caught fish the day before - we setup to start pulling and after a while of working it we finally got the skunk off the boat - once that happened we had some pretty steady action - with a couple of doubles - catching 6 striper and a largemouth.
We pretty much fished ourselves out of bait so we headed further back into the creek to net up some more bait - putting a couple of large gizzard and one mongo in the tank along with other dozen or so dollar-bills. Around 3pm we headed back to the stretch where we'd been catching and put out the big baits in hopes of putting Haven on an even bigger fish... no luck - had a swirl on the big bait but no other action.
About 4 we moved on to another creek to pull an enticing bank - after hanging the mongo in a two blow-downs, and going and retrieving the precious bait again and again, we finally got down to the target stretch - and we had a swirl as we had to make a quick circle-back and then that was it. Tried one more stretch of bank in the same creek with no action and called it a day as darkness set in.
Looking at the weather chart, the bite seems to have died for us about the same time as the pressure starting rising again - just like last week for me. Biggest today was right around 30" and probably 12-13 lbs - smallest in the 25" range - blast for Haven being about the same as his 1st & personal best striper he caught the day before. Mitchell and Haven are braving the winds & temps again in the morning - I'll be sleeping in
Water: 46-49, visibility of a few feet most places
Techniques: dollar-bill sized gizzards on free-line planers - put out a light-line & light-line float - had one hit on the float without hook-up and that was it. Mid-afternoon we netted some large to mongo gizzards and pulled those with no love - all action today came on the dollar-bills
Weather Capture for the day..... can you see when the cold front arrived...
Not shown was some light rain to start the morning and a few sprinkles off and on till noon or so.Had the opportunity to jump on today with Mitchell and his son Haven - Mitchell and his dad fished with me last year at this same time so I jumped on with him this time when he came up to SML for a few days. We hit the water before dawn and netted some dollar-bills in the creek where he was staying. Unfortunately his almost brand-new net found a tree or something in the depths and while we got the net back after cleating it off, it broke 4 braile lines - so we went and got one of my nets and checked a few other creeks for some other bait, without much success. We headed up the lake, dodging some debris and pulled a stretch that was good to me a week ago, but today we got no action on the dollar-bills - StripedYam pulled that stretch pretty much right behind us with some larger bait and I think he said he picked up one through there - so sometimes size does matter
We headed back down the lake and checked out one creek but it was so full of trash we waived off - headed to another creek where I'd caught fish the week before and Mitchell and his son and friends caught fish the day before - we setup to start pulling and after a while of working it we finally got the skunk off the boat - once that happened we had some pretty steady action - with a couple of doubles - catching 6 striper and a largemouth.
We pretty much fished ourselves out of bait so we headed further back into the creek to net up some more bait - putting a couple of large gizzard and one mongo in the tank along with other dozen or so dollar-bills. Around 3pm we headed back to the stretch where we'd been catching and put out the big baits in hopes of putting Haven on an even bigger fish... no luck - had a swirl on the big bait but no other action.
About 4 we moved on to another creek to pull an enticing bank - after hanging the mongo in a two blow-downs, and going and retrieving the precious bait again and again, we finally got down to the target stretch - and we had a swirl as we had to make a quick circle-back and then that was it. Tried one more stretch of bank in the same creek with no action and called it a day as darkness set in.
Looking at the weather chart, the bite seems to have died for us about the same time as the pressure starting rising again - just like last week for me. Biggest today was right around 30" and probably 12-13 lbs - smallest in the 25" range - blast for Haven being about the same as his 1st & personal best striper he caught the day before. Mitchell and Haven are braving the winds & temps again in the morning - I'll be sleeping in
