Post by 31Airborne on Mar 21, 2022 9:10:03 GMT -5
If you like fishing in chocolate milk, then Chesdin was the place for you this past weekend. The storms came thru as I was driving that way. Rain was coming down in buckets. Every creek, stream, and drain was overflowing with mud. I knew the lake would be wrecked.
Practice. I managed to get a half day in on THUR. The lower end of the lake was in fairly good shape. It had a stain on it but there was easily 2-3' of viz. Managed a few bites on plastics - main lake and secondary points all produced. FRI was a different story. The in-flow of mud from the recent storms had made its way into the lake. The main channel was easy to find. There was this easily discernible red wave of stuff streaming towards the dam. The feeder creeks and main lake coves/cuts were still fishable, but viz had dropped to a foot or less. FRI was a tuff day. We had no bites. I mean nothing. WTs dropped almost 5 degrees overnite. The combination of cold water and mud is never good. We knew it would get worse overnite (it did). Formulating a game plan for TX day was fairly easy: work points, brush piles, and docks hard; make lots of casts to targets; hope you hit a few on the head.
TX day. We drew #29 (out of 38), started off on a series of points we had managed a few bites on in practice. As we suspected, the entire lake had turned into a muddy mess. Viz was measured in inches everywhere. Backs of creeks were a bit better (by that I mean an inch or two better) than the main lake channel. We covered every target we addressed w/ many casts. The only fish we caught (~ 2 lbs) came off of a main lake concrete boat ramp ~mid lake. That was at 09:30. And that was it. And then the wind kicked up. We spent the rest of the day casting (fishing), fighting the wind, and talking about our next event (Anna).
Observations: 1) WTs ranged from 55* on THUR afternoon, to 50 on SAT morning, to 57 on SAT afternoon. 2) Water conditions were terrible. I mean it was about as nasty as I've ever seen. The further uplake you went, the dirtier it got. 3) I have absolutely no idea if the fish we caught was part of some pattern or more a case of a blind squirrel finding a nut. The fish we caught in practice were definitely relating to structure (points) and brush (on structure or docks).
It had been 20 years since I'd been on the Chez. Not sure I'll be in a hurry to go back. Yeah, I know it's full of trophy fish. Yeah, I know you have to run up into the swamp. But the nav charts don't include the river/swamp area and I'm not too keen on donating a LU to the cause. I'm good w/ the weather and the lake winning this day.
peace,
B
Practice. I managed to get a half day in on THUR. The lower end of the lake was in fairly good shape. It had a stain on it but there was easily 2-3' of viz. Managed a few bites on plastics - main lake and secondary points all produced. FRI was a different story. The in-flow of mud from the recent storms had made its way into the lake. The main channel was easy to find. There was this easily discernible red wave of stuff streaming towards the dam. The feeder creeks and main lake coves/cuts were still fishable, but viz had dropped to a foot or less. FRI was a tuff day. We had no bites. I mean nothing. WTs dropped almost 5 degrees overnite. The combination of cold water and mud is never good. We knew it would get worse overnite (it did). Formulating a game plan for TX day was fairly easy: work points, brush piles, and docks hard; make lots of casts to targets; hope you hit a few on the head.
TX day. We drew #29 (out of 38), started off on a series of points we had managed a few bites on in practice. As we suspected, the entire lake had turned into a muddy mess. Viz was measured in inches everywhere. Backs of creeks were a bit better (by that I mean an inch or two better) than the main lake channel. We covered every target we addressed w/ many casts. The only fish we caught (~ 2 lbs) came off of a main lake concrete boat ramp ~mid lake. That was at 09:30. And that was it. And then the wind kicked up. We spent the rest of the day casting (fishing), fighting the wind, and talking about our next event (Anna).
Observations: 1) WTs ranged from 55* on THUR afternoon, to 50 on SAT morning, to 57 on SAT afternoon. 2) Water conditions were terrible. I mean it was about as nasty as I've ever seen. The further uplake you went, the dirtier it got. 3) I have absolutely no idea if the fish we caught was part of some pattern or more a case of a blind squirrel finding a nut. The fish we caught in practice were definitely relating to structure (points) and brush (on structure or docks).
It had been 20 years since I'd been on the Chez. Not sure I'll be in a hurry to go back. Yeah, I know it's full of trophy fish. Yeah, I know you have to run up into the swamp. But the nav charts don't include the river/swamp area and I'm not too keen on donating a LU to the cause. I'm good w/ the weather and the lake winning this day.
peace,
B