Post by mwardncsu on Aug 25, 2013 20:59:30 GMT -5
Weather: Mostly sunny, slight breeze, upper 50's rising to low 70's by late morning
Water: 77, visibilty of 3-5'
Techniques: Alewives on Downlines (4) and lightlines - 1/4 & 3/8 oz (4)
My Mom and Dad came up to the lake this weekend so we could celebrate my Mom's birthday. So, what better way to celebrate Mom than for Dad, Matthew & I to head out fishing on Saturday AM (hey, her birthday was not until Sunday).
An almost full moon was rising early and going to be up all night and into the morning, so I was a little concerned about bait. I headed out about 10 pm hoping the bait would move on in before the moon got high and scattered them. I hit my go-to lights and it was slim pickings. The 8', 3/8, 1.5 lb/ft net was sinking too slow to get any ales that may be around that were of size worth putting in the tank, and the bait that had moved on in was small and kept gilling in my 1/2" net. Was slow pickings, getting just a few every handful of throws and having to pick out a dozen small ones of of the 1/2" net each time.
I did catch a nice 6ish lb flathead....
Finally around 11:30 or midnight they started to thicken up a bit at one of the deeper lights - one of our guide buddies was at that light while I had run to another and he was getting OK numbers with a 10', 1/2" 1.5 lb/ft net. Once he had his fill I hung around and threw till I finally had 2-3 doz in the tank then started back towards the house. Hit one light near home about 1am and the 1st throw had several decent ones - threw again and got 2 dozen jumbo ales - jackpot! Then went and threw on the light at my dock, which should not hold any bait in late August, and sure enough it had a good amount of bait on it at 1:30a. Go figure - should have just taken a nap and stayed home - you never know..... One of our other buddies went out early (4am-ish) and said he had to throw a lot to get his fill..... at least when I was throwing I was the only one out there other than the one guide buddy I ran into.
Through the course of the night I probably caught a dozen, newly stocked stripers - little 2"-3" fellas. Should have put a coin or something in this pic for perspective.
So, got cleaned up and in bed at 2:30a with a 5:30a wake-up call. We were on the water about 6:30 and to our fishing spot a little before 7.
Headed down the lake towards a spot and ran up on a couple of our guide buddies and another friend. Marked a few scattered fish so we put out the bait.
Was not too long and we had a bite - Dad had honors and pulled in what was going to representative of the day
Matt got the next one...
We never found the big, blackout school but did manage to run across small pods of fish frequently enough to where we caught 8, lost 2 near the boat and had probably another 4 or so strikes that did not hook up. We worked a couple of spots in the general area for several hours - working transition depths hear some underwater humps and islands. What started as three boats quickly turned into a dozen or more in the general area.
Somewhere along the way we had a hang-up and as I was clearing it, a bunch of line came up - then a u-rig on one side of the line and then when I keep pulling the line, a rod & reel was attached to the other end - looked like it had not been in the water very long at all - the foam grip was not very wet and not swollen and other than a little fogging in the window of the line counter, it seemed fine. I've dropped my own rod in the lake before but 1st time I've caught one
Matt and Dad did most of the catching, but they did let me catch one
I'm teaching Matt on how to make those little ones look as big as possible
Lightlines were the ticket today - I think we caught maybe two fish on downlines, but the rest, including the missed strikes, came on the lightlines. Fish were 30'-40' over a varying range of depths.
We quit just after 10 am to head back to the girls - The biggest two were a whopping 24" & 25" - the rest were in the 18"-22" range - we were definitely fishing in the pre-school section today, but it was good to have Dad and Matt both out and catching some fish!
Water: 77, visibilty of 3-5'
Techniques: Alewives on Downlines (4) and lightlines - 1/4 & 3/8 oz (4)
My Mom and Dad came up to the lake this weekend so we could celebrate my Mom's birthday. So, what better way to celebrate Mom than for Dad, Matthew & I to head out fishing on Saturday AM (hey, her birthday was not until Sunday).
An almost full moon was rising early and going to be up all night and into the morning, so I was a little concerned about bait. I headed out about 10 pm hoping the bait would move on in before the moon got high and scattered them. I hit my go-to lights and it was slim pickings. The 8', 3/8, 1.5 lb/ft net was sinking too slow to get any ales that may be around that were of size worth putting in the tank, and the bait that had moved on in was small and kept gilling in my 1/2" net. Was slow pickings, getting just a few every handful of throws and having to pick out a dozen small ones of of the 1/2" net each time.
I did catch a nice 6ish lb flathead....
Finally around 11:30 or midnight they started to thicken up a bit at one of the deeper lights - one of our guide buddies was at that light while I had run to another and he was getting OK numbers with a 10', 1/2" 1.5 lb/ft net. Once he had his fill I hung around and threw till I finally had 2-3 doz in the tank then started back towards the house. Hit one light near home about 1am and the 1st throw had several decent ones - threw again and got 2 dozen jumbo ales - jackpot! Then went and threw on the light at my dock, which should not hold any bait in late August, and sure enough it had a good amount of bait on it at 1:30a. Go figure - should have just taken a nap and stayed home - you never know..... One of our other buddies went out early (4am-ish) and said he had to throw a lot to get his fill..... at least when I was throwing I was the only one out there other than the one guide buddy I ran into.
Through the course of the night I probably caught a dozen, newly stocked stripers - little 2"-3" fellas. Should have put a coin or something in this pic for perspective.
So, got cleaned up and in bed at 2:30a with a 5:30a wake-up call. We were on the water about 6:30 and to our fishing spot a little before 7.
Headed down the lake towards a spot and ran up on a couple of our guide buddies and another friend. Marked a few scattered fish so we put out the bait.
Was not too long and we had a bite - Dad had honors and pulled in what was going to representative of the day
Matt got the next one...
We never found the big, blackout school but did manage to run across small pods of fish frequently enough to where we caught 8, lost 2 near the boat and had probably another 4 or so strikes that did not hook up. We worked a couple of spots in the general area for several hours - working transition depths hear some underwater humps and islands. What started as three boats quickly turned into a dozen or more in the general area.
Somewhere along the way we had a hang-up and as I was clearing it, a bunch of line came up - then a u-rig on one side of the line and then when I keep pulling the line, a rod & reel was attached to the other end - looked like it had not been in the water very long at all - the foam grip was not very wet and not swollen and other than a little fogging in the window of the line counter, it seemed fine. I've dropped my own rod in the lake before but 1st time I've caught one
Matt and Dad did most of the catching, but they did let me catch one
I'm teaching Matt on how to make those little ones look as big as possible
Lightlines were the ticket today - I think we caught maybe two fish on downlines, but the rest, including the missed strikes, came on the lightlines. Fish were 30'-40' over a varying range of depths.
We quit just after 10 am to head back to the girls - The biggest two were a whopping 24" & 25" - the rest were in the 18"-22" range - we were definitely fishing in the pre-school section today, but it was good to have Dad and Matt both out and catching some fish!
