Post by mwardncsu on Oct 13, 2013 21:08:06 GMT -5
Weather: Overcast except for about 30-45 min when the sun tried to break through mid-afternoon, and some periods of drizzle/mist throughout the day. Temps in the low 60's rising to low 70s, minimal to no winds.
Water: 65-69, visibility around 3'
Techniques: AM - big alewives on lightlines, downlines & lightlined planer boards. PM - big gizzards on freelined planer boards, and then a little bait pitching to close out the day
Tyler and I planned to hit the water on Sunday morning - since I had 1 decent shad in the bait tank, we figured we'd just load up early on some "peanut" gizzards and then later get some bigger ones after the sun came up. However, after a trip to the theater with the family to see "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2", I got the bug up my butt to take a ride to fuel up the boat and hit a few lights for some alewives. The 1st light I went to had some guys crappie fishing so I went on to my next go-to light - and loaded up with about 4 dozen nice ales in 4 or 5 throws.
We headed down to the boat a little after 6:30 and rolled on out in search of breaking fish. As I left my creek we passed over this....
Between all this bait and the fish breaking the night before, it should have been a sign to hang close, but we headed on up to check another near-by spot for breaking fish.
Cloud cover like this was exactly what we were hoping to see, and see ALL day!
We looked around a number of spots till a little after 7pm, passing through about 20 boats in a 1/4 square mile. We slid on a little further up and were marking consistent fish so we decided to go ahead and put out some bait.
It was not long before we had our 1st fish on a light line. Not much of a looker, but the 1st one of the day always gets its photo taken - just in case
We circled this area for about 2 hours, and picked up a number of nice striper and a bonus largemouth.
The action slowed around 8:30 but we kept pulling the stretch, marking fewer and fewer fish. Around 10:30 we decided to go try and catch some big bait, but 1st a late breakfast / early brunch was in order..... Tyler showed me up with an omelet AND 2 pancakes this morning
After we refueled, we started chasing big bait. Before long, we had our 20 lber for the day......
Not sure if this qualifies for a citation, but it was a heck of a carp.
You know when your 10' 1.5 lb/ft net starts swimming off on its own, that it's something special
We managed to load up on 10 or 12 nice gizzards, but at the cost of my fairly new 10', 5/8" net that hung up on two stumps / logs in one throw - leaving a nice gaping whole once we finally got it free...
only to be followed by being impailed on another stump on the very next throw which pretty much did the net in - though we did manage to get 4 or 5 shad in the boat from the last throw, even if it did destroy the net... 
We took our costly shad and put them out on 4 boards to see what we could do. We had lots of chases, boils, tugs and even a few spectacular blow-ups and shad jumping out of the water, but could not get the fish to commit. Just as we were wrapping up the day and starting to put away some gear, we finally picked up one on the board.
While Tyler brought his in, I had one finally take off with a planer on my side.
We saw another fish swirling on one of the other boards, so Tyler went and pitched a bait over towards where we saw the swirl. I though he was pulling one of his classic "I got one" while reeling in a planer when I remembered he didn't have a planer board..... he had hooked up on a pitched bait.
Then, while I cleaned the boat up a bit more to get ready to head out, he tossed another out one there and when I look up, the rod is bent again
Pretty darn good way to end the day...... we almost ran up on some busting fish on the way home but were a little late to the party, and I had to go (as we watched them come back up across the channel)....... a terrible tease but can't really complain!
Water: 65-69, visibility around 3'
Techniques: AM - big alewives on lightlines, downlines & lightlined planer boards. PM - big gizzards on freelined planer boards, and then a little bait pitching to close out the day
Tyler and I planned to hit the water on Sunday morning - since I had 1 decent shad in the bait tank, we figured we'd just load up early on some "peanut" gizzards and then later get some bigger ones after the sun came up. However, after a trip to the theater with the family to see "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2", I got the bug up my butt to take a ride to fuel up the boat and hit a few lights for some alewives. The 1st light I went to had some guys crappie fishing so I went on to my next go-to light - and loaded up with about 4 dozen nice ales in 4 or 5 throws.
We headed down to the boat a little after 6:30 and rolled on out in search of breaking fish. As I left my creek we passed over this....
Between all this bait and the fish breaking the night before, it should have been a sign to hang close, but we headed on up to check another near-by spot for breaking fish.
Cloud cover like this was exactly what we were hoping to see, and see ALL day!
We looked around a number of spots till a little after 7pm, passing through about 20 boats in a 1/4 square mile. We slid on a little further up and were marking consistent fish so we decided to go ahead and put out some bait.
It was not long before we had our 1st fish on a light line. Not much of a looker, but the 1st one of the day always gets its photo taken - just in case
We circled this area for about 2 hours, and picked up a number of nice striper and a bonus largemouth.
The action slowed around 8:30 but we kept pulling the stretch, marking fewer and fewer fish. Around 10:30 we decided to go try and catch some big bait, but 1st a late breakfast / early brunch was in order..... Tyler showed me up with an omelet AND 2 pancakes this morning
After we refueled, we started chasing big bait. Before long, we had our 20 lber for the day......
Not sure if this qualifies for a citation, but it was a heck of a carp.
You know when your 10' 1.5 lb/ft net starts swimming off on its own, that it's something special We managed to load up on 10 or 12 nice gizzards, but at the cost of my fairly new 10', 5/8" net that hung up on two stumps / logs in one throw - leaving a nice gaping whole once we finally got it free...
only to be followed by being impailed on another stump on the very next throw which pretty much did the net in - though we did manage to get 4 or 5 shad in the boat from the last throw, even if it did destroy the net... 
We took our costly shad and put them out on 4 boards to see what we could do. We had lots of chases, boils, tugs and even a few spectacular blow-ups and shad jumping out of the water, but could not get the fish to commit. Just as we were wrapping up the day and starting to put away some gear, we finally picked up one on the board.
While Tyler brought his in, I had one finally take off with a planer on my side.
We saw another fish swirling on one of the other boards, so Tyler went and pitched a bait over towards where we saw the swirl. I though he was pulling one of his classic "I got one" while reeling in a planer when I remembered he didn't have a planer board..... he had hooked up on a pitched bait.
Then, while I cleaned the boat up a bit more to get ready to head out, he tossed another out one there and when I look up, the rod is bent again Pretty darn good way to end the day...... we almost ran up on some busting fish on the way home but were a little late to the party, and I had to go (as we watched them come back up across the channel)....... a terrible tease but can't really complain!
