Post by R22 on Apr 9, 2018 8:42:26 GMT -5
I traveled to the lake on Thursday afternoon in an effort to some quality baits add to the home tank. I kept telling myself that bigger bait will not always be this easy and I better get it while I can. In a couple of hours I was able to transfer 60 nice baits from an overloaded SBT to the home tank. It's a good thing I did as a couple of good friends that were catching bait on Friday afternoon and evening reported lots of trouble finding anything that resembled quality bait.
I had planned to fish on Saturday but the weather forecast seemed a little more miserable than I wanted so I stayed at the house and was able to get some much needed yard work completed. As it turned out, I think Saturday's weather was less challenging than I anticipated and likely turned out to be good fishing day.
Sunday April 8th
AT - 29 degrees with gradual warming through the day - breezy, sometimes windy - Bluebird Skies.
WT - 52-55
Technique - Free lined and light lined planers with gizzards ranging from 8-13 inches.
A friend and I headed out at 6:30. The plan was to get a couple of fish to the boat with the early bite. We decided to try a spot that typically delivers a couple of modest fish - not today. We spend the next several hours in and out of creeks, on flats, on primary and secondary points. We were trying to find water that was a little warmer. We did find 55 degrees but it was in the back of shallow creek in direct sunlight.
In the first eight hours of fishing, we had only two decent chases. The second finally came around 2:30 as the pressure began to fall slightly. I commented that I was seeing more bait on the screen than we had seen all morning. During our second chase, we had a little boil on a bank side board and about 100 yards later an inside board buried and we were able to manage a nice fat fish at 32 inches and just under 16 lbs. We began the day talking about several fish and end the day grateful that we had the opportunity to catch one.
I wanted to get back to the house and watch The Masters but we spent the next two hours in search of bait. Most of what we had seen throughout the day was 25-40 feet deep but even that didn't seem to be decent bait. We tried two creeks that had recently been very reliable but it looked like a desert on the screen. The screen remained blank most of the time. We threw blind in a couple feet of water but came up with an empty net each time. We marked a decent school 20-40 feet away on sidescan and turned to take a closer look and it was gone, no where to be found. This was the case more than once. Based on what I saw on Sunday, it seems that bait has moved, shallower or deeper, temporary or permanent, I don't know. The smaller bait is schooling but even it seems to be moving more quickly and moving greater distances once disturbed. We added 6 baits to the home tank. All were pretty modest in the 8 inch range.