5-3 Report

[striperjohn]

Well I had a doctors appointment in Lynchburg Tuesday afternoon, so I decided my boat needed to go with me. I put in south of the bridge at daylight, not planning on bait fishing at all. I scouted around looking for breaking fish, birds etc. On Sunday we had some gulls help us out on some breaks, but not yesterday. I casted points while looking around, moving in and out of coves and places where I've seen breaks before. Binos scanning every little flash of water. Natta, zilch nuttin! I record just about every hour I'm on the water and after going over my SD card this morning, I didn't mark what I'd call a striper yesterday. Tons and tons of bait though.
What a difference a change in barometric pressure makes from day to day. At one point I thought I was in a water wasteland, I didn't see any wildlife movement at all in or around the water. Also the WT was 62 in places and up to 68 in the back of one cove.
Can you say SKUNK. Now I got to get back out this weekend and get that stink out of the boat. One of them days.
John

[mwardncsu]

Heard a similar report from Mon or Tue on the lower end.... well, actually that person said they were marking fish and could not buy a bite..... wondered if those fish had things other than eating on their mind

[lund2]

Great Report John. you cant catch em up all the time. Do you guys think that the fish have gone into full spawn mode if water temps are still as low as 62? additionally with all the rain we have gotten this week could that possibly lower water temps and push the move into spawn mode back a little bit? I plan to be coming up this weekend and i was kinda hoping to keep pulling big gizz on planers, but from the reports it sounds like i may have to switch it up.

[striperjohn]

Hey lund2, these fish never all go into spawn at the same time. I would use big gizzards intermixed with money makers, peanuts and alewives if you can. I've had days in this time period(now until mid June) when all they'd hit was a 5 inch alewive.  You might still be able to bang the banks, but the fish are moving around quick now.
   Even if spawn is on they will feed sometime during the day. There's so much bait in the lower lake that I believe the topwater bite this year may be the best in years.
After the spawn these are the skittish fish I've ever seen. You run over a school that is at 25 feet below the boat and you can watch them scatter away from the boat. So then you need to put your boards out about 1/2 times again wider then normal as well as floats and freelines. I use planers up into mid June or until you start marking them down at 50ft plus. But that's just me, I hate fishing downlines.
Gator, I was headed out the driveway and my boat yelled out "hey if you're headed toward the lake, I wanna go!".

[mwardncsu]

Yeah - I did not mean to imply they all turn off at once - but it can be hit and miss - one pile of fish could be "off" when they are chowing down in another pile. And like John says - mix that bait up as you just don't know now.

Hoping to find some of that breaking action....

On the water temps - keep in mind that readings from near the dam can be skewed greatly by the pump-back up out of Leesville - I've seen 10+ degree temperature differences near the island at the dam than just a few hundred yards away. But it's getting time - by the next full moon in a couple of weeks it should be happening pretty solid....

[smlfishing]

Is there any tactics when you run a mix of baits? The reason I asked was this was what we did and you can only pull as fast as the smallest bait. This gave the larger ones more room to make a mess. Should you shorten the line on, add some weight or spread the distant between boards out more?

[striperjohn]

Well you can pull all size gizzards pretty fast, but a fast turn at 1.5mph may kill an alewive. For now I would run big gizzs on bank, with a moneymaker and alewives outside. Mix freelines and floats up. You might get to a point where you shift all lines to what they are hitting.