Post by R22 on Apr 15, 2015 14:18:38 GMT -5
Dates - Saturday, April 12th and Sunday, April 13th
Water Temperatures - Ranged from upper 50s to the mid 60s
Wind - Saturday was terrible and Sunday was bad enough, but compared to Saturday it was just a breeze.
Visibility - 3-5 feet in the channel and nearly zero in the creeks.
Techniques - 3-4 planers, one downline (at times) and an occasional redi-rig float off the back.
There had been a fair amount of talk lately where nice fish were being lost for various reasons. On Thursday, I had a work appointment with SeaJay and I made the mistake of saying that I had not experienced losing fish once I had them hooked. JINX.
I got to the lake late on Friday afternoon and went in search of bait for Saturday and Sunday. I ended up throwing the net for about three hours. During the workout I probably saw six or seven boats come and go in the same creek. I am unsure how much impact that boat traffic along with nets flying everywhere might have had on bait, however, most of us had no difficulty finding peanuts. The larger baits were few and far between. I managed about six baits larger than 8 inches, all found in about 20 feet of water. I threw several times at my light on Friday evening and although I netted another gazillion alewives, only a handful were of decent size.
Saturday - April 11th
I headed up river and scouted around for about a half hour before I decided that next to catching a few fish, avoiding the wind was now a primary objective. I wasn't sure how long I might be fishing on Saturday, one because of the wind and secondly because I wanted to go to my grandson's soccer game. After poking around in the channel, I decided to lay claim to an available creek. Two weeks prior, I caught all my fish on alewives so I placed a spread of a 5 inch alewife, one of my larger gizzards and a peanut on boards with another alewife on a downline on the channel side of the boat. My first pass through the creek had baits jumping and a pull down of the peanut but no hook up. The second time around I landed a small fish about 27 inches long. My third time around is when I hit my jinx. The bankside board that had my alewife was hit hard. While I battled what appeared to be a very nice fish, the downline took off. I was fishing alone, but from that point and for the next minute or two, it was nothing but chaos. Knowing that I had a decent fish on the board, I tried to maneuver that fish around the downline and to the opposite side of the boat. The fish would have nothing to do with my logic and the two became tangled. The fish that was on the downline got off and the fish caught on the planer board snapped the line just above the swivel. With a total of about 8 loops through the same creek I managed to boat three fish and lost three. The three fish I landed were 27, 29 and 33 inches. Although I cannot attest to the size of the fish I lost, I can say that two of them were fighters. The first two hookups came on alewives, all three of my catches and the other one I lost came on larger peanuts.
There were a lot of boats. After checking another large creek close by and not finding a parking place, I bailed out at 10 am to head to the soccer game. I fished a total of 3 hours.
On Saturday night, I cut and retied everything.
Sunday - April 12th
Depending on your location, the wind was still an issue but much better on Sunday. I went back to Saturday's creek but found very little activity. At the mouth of that creek I did find a few fish and managed to boat two while losing two for no good reason. They seemed to be solidly hooked and about 20 feet from the boat came my jinx......gone. I decided to troll the bank of the main channel against the wind. Things were pretty uneventful until around 11 am. I am not sure if it was the time or the location but I hit a stretch where I hooked up seven more times in about a quarter mile stretch and ended up landing four more fish. Again, on Sunday all fish came on peanuts, nothing on alewives and nothing on the larger gizzards. Catches ranged from 25-31 inches. I was planning on heading in to watch The Masters during the afternoon so I finally quit at 1 pm after boating my last two fish. It was a double that ended up tangling all four lines beyond recognition. Even after I cut the lines, it took me 45 minutes to untangle the mess.
I fished just over 6 hours on Sunday and spent the afternoon retied everything again.
I spoke to SeaJay on Monday, he laughed, said he knew I might be jinxing myself when I made my Thursday comment about not losing many fish. Lesson learned.
Water Temperatures - Ranged from upper 50s to the mid 60s
Wind - Saturday was terrible and Sunday was bad enough, but compared to Saturday it was just a breeze.
Visibility - 3-5 feet in the channel and nearly zero in the creeks.
Techniques - 3-4 planers, one downline (at times) and an occasional redi-rig float off the back.
There had been a fair amount of talk lately where nice fish were being lost for various reasons. On Thursday, I had a work appointment with SeaJay and I made the mistake of saying that I had not experienced losing fish once I had them hooked. JINX.
I got to the lake late on Friday afternoon and went in search of bait for Saturday and Sunday. I ended up throwing the net for about three hours. During the workout I probably saw six or seven boats come and go in the same creek. I am unsure how much impact that boat traffic along with nets flying everywhere might have had on bait, however, most of us had no difficulty finding peanuts. The larger baits were few and far between. I managed about six baits larger than 8 inches, all found in about 20 feet of water. I threw several times at my light on Friday evening and although I netted another gazillion alewives, only a handful were of decent size.
Saturday - April 11th
I headed up river and scouted around for about a half hour before I decided that next to catching a few fish, avoiding the wind was now a primary objective. I wasn't sure how long I might be fishing on Saturday, one because of the wind and secondly because I wanted to go to my grandson's soccer game. After poking around in the channel, I decided to lay claim to an available creek. Two weeks prior, I caught all my fish on alewives so I placed a spread of a 5 inch alewife, one of my larger gizzards and a peanut on boards with another alewife on a downline on the channel side of the boat. My first pass through the creek had baits jumping and a pull down of the peanut but no hook up. The second time around I landed a small fish about 27 inches long. My third time around is when I hit my jinx. The bankside board that had my alewife was hit hard. While I battled what appeared to be a very nice fish, the downline took off. I was fishing alone, but from that point and for the next minute or two, it was nothing but chaos. Knowing that I had a decent fish on the board, I tried to maneuver that fish around the downline and to the opposite side of the boat. The fish would have nothing to do with my logic and the two became tangled. The fish that was on the downline got off and the fish caught on the planer board snapped the line just above the swivel. With a total of about 8 loops through the same creek I managed to boat three fish and lost three. The three fish I landed were 27, 29 and 33 inches. Although I cannot attest to the size of the fish I lost, I can say that two of them were fighters. The first two hookups came on alewives, all three of my catches and the other one I lost came on larger peanuts.
There were a lot of boats. After checking another large creek close by and not finding a parking place, I bailed out at 10 am to head to the soccer game. I fished a total of 3 hours.
On Saturday night, I cut and retied everything.
Sunday - April 12th
Depending on your location, the wind was still an issue but much better on Sunday. I went back to Saturday's creek but found very little activity. At the mouth of that creek I did find a few fish and managed to boat two while losing two for no good reason. They seemed to be solidly hooked and about 20 feet from the boat came my jinx......gone. I decided to troll the bank of the main channel against the wind. Things were pretty uneventful until around 11 am. I am not sure if it was the time or the location but I hit a stretch where I hooked up seven more times in about a quarter mile stretch and ended up landing four more fish. Again, on Sunday all fish came on peanuts, nothing on alewives and nothing on the larger gizzards. Catches ranged from 25-31 inches. I was planning on heading in to watch The Masters during the afternoon so I finally quit at 1 pm after boating my last two fish. It was a double that ended up tangling all four lines beyond recognition. Even after I cut the lines, it took me 45 minutes to untangle the mess.
I fished just over 6 hours on Sunday and spent the afternoon retied everything again.
I spoke to SeaJay on Monday, he laughed, said he knew I might be jinxing myself when I made my Thursday comment about not losing many fish. Lesson learned.
