Post by mwardncsu on Jun 5, 2016 19:27:49 GMT -5
Weather: starting around 70, rising to low 80's by 11 am; overcast skies till late morning; light winds from NW
Water: 81, visibility of a few feet - lots of debris / trash in some of the areas we were fishing due to the lake being at full pond and stuff flushing off the banks
Techniques: 12-rod spread - Downlines w/ alewifes (2), Freeline planers with 10"+ gizzards (2), freeline planers with a 10" bluebacks or cured out money-maker gizzards (2), light-lined planer with larger ales or smaller moneymaker gizzards (2), light-lines with ales (3), free-line float with larger ale (1)
Cooler Tech: Diet Cokes, Gator-aides, Diet Dr. Pepper, Waters, Krispi-Kreme donuts, crackers
Sunday was the main event (for this weekend) - Tyler's "bachelor party" of sorts - all but one of the groomsmen in his wedding party were going out to fish the morning, then rendezvous with the remaining groomsman for lunch. I purged the bait from Fri/Sat with the exception of a 1/2 dozen gizzards and a few good looking ales,and emptied 90% of the water and reset the tank (more on this later) - and headed out in between thunderstorm lines about 10:30 Saturday night to reload on bait for Sunday AM. Stopped at a light close to home and on my first throw I got a dozen decent ales but the next throw drew a blank, so I moved on down the lake to the go-to light. First throw there yielded some, and I ping-ponged between two lights. A little while after 11 the bait started to move in thicker - though I was gilling a lot of baits even using a 5/8" mesh (made them mistake the night before of breaking out the 1/2" - that was a disaster......) the "shake and pick" cycles after a throw allowed the bait to re-collect under the light before the next throw.
I had around 36 good ales in the tank, but no big bluebacks yet - texted Tyler and asked him how many he thought we needed - he said 12 dozen
so... next throw I met his goal 
Maybe not quite but had more than plenty, cleaned out the net again and headed for the house, getting inside just before the next rain-bands arrived.
4 hours of sleep later and I was up and headed down to pick up the guys a bit after 5:30am. We were at our fishing spot about 6 am and I think we had fish in the boat by 6:15am Got two fairly quick off the bat - one on a light-line ale and the other on the freeline float
Things got slow so we doubled back over the area, pulled through way too much trash in the water - and then switched sides of the channel. I forget what came where but we worked that general area - both sides of the channel and picked up three more fish - all were roughly in the same 6-9 lb range - maybe topping out at 29" or so. Got one one a planer and one on the float line as I was letting it back out after re-baiting with a free bait - I was playing out the line and noticed the float pulling over at an odd angle so set the hook into it.
Flew the flag of a striper fisherman....
The Crew (minus me taking the pic...)
Around 9am things got slow again so we picked up and moved down-lake - checked one creek mouth but didn't see anything to keep up so we went on down some more - making another pull - had the big gizzards get swirled on several times but the fish would never commit to it. We wrapped up the day with a channel cat that slammed a light-lined alewife on a planer board while pulling across a flat - thought we might have had a nice striper at first based on where and the intensity that it hit the board.... but nope - a 4 or 5 lb channel cat.
The tank was getting skunky as the morning went on and we started to lose some ales - likely to do overcrowding, temps being a bit too warm - but also, I had not fully emptied the tank that was some ammonia hanging, and also kept a handful of the gizzards - seems that if you don't empty the tank 100% and refill - and toss ALL the bait, you're likely to get the ammonia back pretty strong as quick. I did use some Prime water treatment on the re-fill, but I'm not convinced it helps...... perhaps I should have been running some O2
We called it a morning around 11am and picked up Tyler's bother-in-law and then headed off-water to get Breakfast / Lunch (not Brunch as this was truly two meals in one at the buffet) - enjoyed the meal as a way to wrap up a great morning and set the stage for a great wedding weekend next weekend.
Water: 81, visibility of a few feet - lots of debris / trash in some of the areas we were fishing due to the lake being at full pond and stuff flushing off the banks
Techniques: 12-rod spread - Downlines w/ alewifes (2), Freeline planers with 10"+ gizzards (2), freeline planers with a 10" bluebacks or cured out money-maker gizzards (2), light-lined planer with larger ales or smaller moneymaker gizzards (2), light-lines with ales (3), free-line float with larger ale (1)
Cooler Tech: Diet Cokes, Gator-aides, Diet Dr. Pepper, Waters, Krispi-Kreme donuts, crackers
Sunday was the main event (for this weekend) - Tyler's "bachelor party" of sorts - all but one of the groomsmen in his wedding party were going out to fish the morning, then rendezvous with the remaining groomsman for lunch. I purged the bait from Fri/Sat with the exception of a 1/2 dozen gizzards and a few good looking ales,and emptied 90% of the water and reset the tank (more on this later) - and headed out in between thunderstorm lines about 10:30 Saturday night to reload on bait for Sunday AM. Stopped at a light close to home and on my first throw I got a dozen decent ales but the next throw drew a blank, so I moved on down the lake to the go-to light. First throw there yielded some, and I ping-ponged between two lights. A little while after 11 the bait started to move in thicker - though I was gilling a lot of baits even using a 5/8" mesh (made them mistake the night before of breaking out the 1/2" - that was a disaster......) the "shake and pick" cycles after a throw allowed the bait to re-collect under the light before the next throw.
I had around 36 good ales in the tank, but no big bluebacks yet - texted Tyler and asked him how many he thought we needed - he said 12 dozen
so... next throw I met his goal 
Maybe not quite but had more than plenty, cleaned out the net again and headed for the house, getting inside just before the next rain-bands arrived.4 hours of sleep later and I was up and headed down to pick up the guys a bit after 5:30am. We were at our fishing spot about 6 am and I think we had fish in the boat by 6:15am Got two fairly quick off the bat - one on a light-line ale and the other on the freeline float
Things got slow so we doubled back over the area, pulled through way too much trash in the water - and then switched sides of the channel. I forget what came where but we worked that general area - both sides of the channel and picked up three more fish - all were roughly in the same 6-9 lb range - maybe topping out at 29" or so. Got one one a planer and one on the float line as I was letting it back out after re-baiting with a free bait - I was playing out the line and noticed the float pulling over at an odd angle so set the hook into it.
Flew the flag of a striper fisherman....
The Crew (minus me taking the pic...)
Around 9am things got slow again so we picked up and moved down-lake - checked one creek mouth but didn't see anything to keep up so we went on down some more - making another pull - had the big gizzards get swirled on several times but the fish would never commit to it. We wrapped up the day with a channel cat that slammed a light-lined alewife on a planer board while pulling across a flat - thought we might have had a nice striper at first based on where and the intensity that it hit the board.... but nope - a 4 or 5 lb channel cat.
The tank was getting skunky as the morning went on and we started to lose some ales - likely to do overcrowding, temps being a bit too warm - but also, I had not fully emptied the tank that was some ammonia hanging, and also kept a handful of the gizzards - seems that if you don't empty the tank 100% and refill - and toss ALL the bait, you're likely to get the ammonia back pretty strong as quick. I did use some Prime water treatment on the re-fill, but I'm not convinced it helps...... perhaps I should have been running some O2
We called it a morning around 11am and picked up Tyler's bother-in-law and then headed off-water to get Breakfast / Lunch (not Brunch as this was truly two meals in one at the buffet) - enjoyed the meal as a way to wrap up a great morning and set the stage for a great wedding weekend next weekend.
