Post by mwardncsu on Feb 22, 2016 13:56:46 GMT -5
Weather: 60's, mostly overcast except for a 30 min window when the sun came out. Sprinkling to light rain off and on for much of the afternoon
Water: 42-45, visibility ranged from mocha frappichino to green tea
Techniques: Throwing the net on insane amounts of big shad for most of the late morning / early afternoon, re-tieing rigs while waiting out the rain, then dragging big shad on freelines behind boards on the bank, and 1 light-line float in barren creeks for 2 hours at the end of the day.
February is the time to load up on big shad - and with the new 500 gal tank up and running, it was time to put it to the test and get her filled up - and given Sat & Sun were going to be in the 60's this opportunity could not be wasted. Planned to fish Sunday afternoon after two days of warming & sun on the banks would get a chance to heat some water on the flats.... of course no one told me till the last minute it was going to be cloudy all weekend and rain some on Sunday
Had planned to catch bait Saturday, but a stop at a buddy's to help him move some furniture as I headed up to the lake took longer than planned, so I just pushed that to Sunday. Then I had a slow start to Sunday - getting up around 9am and getting my freshly re-spooled Tekotas on some new Ugly Stik's that I got for Christmas and then hauled everything back down to the boat, to head out with a primary shad catching mission.
Got to the target creek and was not disappointed.
First net was full of dollar-bill shad.... into the tank most of them went....
Moved deeper into the creek in search of bigger baits.... found them....
Surprisingly I was catching 10 or less a throw - which was actually fine so that they did not crush themselves on the way up and into the tank. Got around 40 into the SBT-II and make a run back to the shed tank to unload..... the rain started so I just hung out and retied all my rigs to get them ready to fish, and when it slacked off I made a 2nd bait run.....
Stuffed about waht I thought was 60 baits (which turned out to be more) in the tank this time - and then back to the shed to unload 40 and kept 30 to fish (thought it was 20.... can't count)
Cold shock....
Happy baits once in the shed tank with a bit warmer water...
Tyler met me a little after 3 and we went to take some of the baits for a swim in a different creek to let them stretch their legs..... Not long after we started we had some active baits and had one board jerk back but let go of a money-maker sized bait. About that same time the light-line on the float buried over.... to find it had just hung up on something
We pulled that creek alllllllllll the way to the back with no more action, so we moved over to a sister creek and started mid-way out - and ping-ponged back and forth form the sides hitting various points...... again all the way to the back.....
Nothing..... well, other than some nice views....
Fog rolled in as the sun set - made for a fun ride back up the lake to my dock, even with the radar going....
Wasn't really expecting to catch anything on big bait when the sun never came out, but still had to try - especially when Kurt & Gator started texting pics of some fish mid-day. The day was a success with 80 shad added to the tank...... March will be here soon - until then we'll be catching gizzards
Water: 42-45, visibility ranged from mocha frappichino to green tea
Techniques: Throwing the net on insane amounts of big shad for most of the late morning / early afternoon, re-tieing rigs while waiting out the rain, then dragging big shad on freelines behind boards on the bank, and 1 light-line float in barren creeks for 2 hours at the end of the day.
February is the time to load up on big shad - and with the new 500 gal tank up and running, it was time to put it to the test and get her filled up - and given Sat & Sun were going to be in the 60's this opportunity could not be wasted. Planned to fish Sunday afternoon after two days of warming & sun on the banks would get a chance to heat some water on the flats.... of course no one told me till the last minute it was going to be cloudy all weekend and rain some on Sunday
Had planned to catch bait Saturday, but a stop at a buddy's to help him move some furniture as I headed up to the lake took longer than planned, so I just pushed that to Sunday. Then I had a slow start to Sunday - getting up around 9am and getting my freshly re-spooled Tekotas on some new Ugly Stik's that I got for Christmas and then hauled everything back down to the boat, to head out with a primary shad catching mission.
Got to the target creek and was not disappointed.
First net was full of dollar-bill shad.... into the tank most of them went....
Moved deeper into the creek in search of bigger baits.... found them....
Surprisingly I was catching 10 or less a throw - which was actually fine so that they did not crush themselves on the way up and into the tank. Got around 40 into the SBT-II and make a run back to the shed tank to unload..... the rain started so I just hung out and retied all my rigs to get them ready to fish, and when it slacked off I made a 2nd bait run.....
Stuffed about waht I thought was 60 baits (which turned out to be more) in the tank this time - and then back to the shed to unload 40 and kept 30 to fish (thought it was 20.... can't count)
Cold shock....
Happy baits once in the shed tank with a bit warmer water...
Tyler met me a little after 3 and we went to take some of the baits for a swim in a different creek to let them stretch their legs..... Not long after we started we had some active baits and had one board jerk back but let go of a money-maker sized bait. About that same time the light-line on the float buried over.... to find it had just hung up on something
We pulled that creek alllllllllll the way to the back with no more action, so we moved over to a sister creek and started mid-way out - and ping-ponged back and forth form the sides hitting various points...... again all the way to the back.....
Nothing..... well, other than some nice views....
Fog rolled in as the sun set - made for a fun ride back up the lake to my dock, even with the radar going....
Wasn't really expecting to catch anything on big bait when the sun never came out, but still had to try - especially when Kurt & Gator started texting pics of some fish mid-day. The day was a success with 80 shad added to the tank...... March will be here soon - until then we'll be catching gizzards
