7-23 stubborn fish

[johnr]

Wx 70s - 80s clear and calm
Water - 80-82 and clear
5:40 -10:30 am
Jigs only

Fished a lower BW creek. Sat in schools all morning, from pods of fish to blackouts. NOT. A. BITE.

Flukes of all colors and sizes. Jigging spoons and flutter spoons. Bucktails. Jigging raps. Vertical jigging, dead sticking, and casting. Single rodding. Double rodding. Livescope. No livescope.

I think the problem is that my jigheads don’t have eyes….

I found fish by side scanning the edge of the main creek channel anywhere it curved or had sharp breaks. Watching the map the whole time. The fish were 75% relating to the timber either on top of the channel edge or on the slope down to the channel. They were never far from the edge. The other 25% were on bare channel lips or in the channel. I never found much if the boat was in less than 50-60’. 50-80’ seemed like the preferred area with the fish at 25-50’.

The fish were back in the creek to start but everything I marked was heading out the creek. Once the sun hit the water, they were gone. Moved about 1/2 mile out towards the main lake and found them again in a sunken set of sharp channel bends, still relating to the same stuff. That’s where I left them at 10:30. Huge schools gathered on the timber, just not eating. Chasing, following, swarming.

Maybe tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.

[31Airborne]

Jigheads don't have eyes - I love it. Can I use that one?

Dood, at least you got out. Hope the rec boat traffic let you enjoy it a bit.

[johnr]

Sure can!!

Was glad to be out, learned a bunch.

PS, I painted eyes on a bunch of jigheads for tomorrow. 🙃

[johnr]

Same story this morning, except different results.

Got a few, lost a few, missed a few.

I’m crediting the new eyes.






Good example of a bad summer jigging cadence ^^. Who knew??!

[herringbone]

Cool screen shots. My dad would rarely fish any type of jig that didn’t have eyes on the heads. Crappie, striper, etc. He would either paint, or go to the craft section at Walmart and buy little sticky dots.

[mwardncsu]

[chrisw]

John, thanks for the report and especially the screenshots. So the rumors of striper schools in SML are not a myth!

And of course, "the eyes have it".

[drag4striper]

No myth. They exist, but don't always bite. 😆 lol

[johnr]

They do exist…

[johnr]

They’re still being stubborn…

I got into several busting schools this morning, HUGE schools. A couple of them measured in acres. The busting action lasted 20-30 mins total. Then they went down and disappeared for a while.

Seems like they made a bee-line towards the main channel. Found them stacked on the channel edges out near the creek mouth. Chasing, slapping and pulling the flukes off, just not getting the hook. I’ll never understand how they get away with that.

Might have to get out of bed at livebait:30 next trip.

[herringbone]

Were you able to entice the busting fish or was they finicky too?

[johnr]

I got some of them but for as many casts I made into the slashings, I’d call them finicky. They were chasing clouds of 1-2” shad. I was using 6” flukes, so not exactly matching the hatch.

[herringbone]

Not quite, 😂. Had that happen to my buddy a few years ago at Buggs where he was throwing a 6” lake fork swim bait, I had a 3” paddle tail. I caught one every cast and he was getting frustrated. I mentioned it to him after I caught 10 or so, 😂.

[johnr]

Reckon I need to get another rod on deck then… Got a bunch of 2-4” paddle tails that could using.