shinbob
10-18-2014, 09:43 AM
Arrived at 6:30 to find the longest lineup of boats I can remember seeing on a regular weekday. The parking lot was fairly well loaded, with nearly all of them fishing boats. As I was getting prepped, some folks drove up to me and asked me if I was "Bob". Nope, sorry, wrong red Crestliner! Saw them on the water later with him, looked like they were having a good time.
Launched and headed out to my usual smallie site, but it was all quiet there. Air temp first thing in the AM was a chilly 45 degrees, and water temps were solidly 68 degrees all day. Saw a few sporadic boils here and there, single fish mostly, nothing to get excited about. Motored over to my secondary spot, saw a few more boils in shallow water and casted out to them. Turns out they were smallmouth boils, looks like a wolfpack of them were cruising that spot, blowing up here and there. Caught a few of these:
http://i.imgur.com/schEHVD.jpg
As always, lots of fun on flylined plastics on light spinning gear. These guys were particularly fun as they were in such shallow water, they would create a wake as they stalked my lure. Reminded me of redfish in Florida. Really gets the heart pumping to see that!
As I cruised up that shoreline, I saw the biggest school of baitfish I think I've ever seen in freshwater. It was literally a tornado of little fish swirling around, the school was easily wider than my boat is long. Broke out the shad net, but it was hard to get a good line on them. Definitely could have used an assistant. Managed to pick up a few stragglers, darn -- silversides. I'm not sure if they were all silversides, do silverside schools mix with shad schools?
Went around the lake looking for more action. Apparently there must have been at least some boils, saw this fleet bouncing around from spot to spot:
http://i.imgur.com/QnCJqOS.jpg
Around 10:30 the beautifully calm morning gave way to some winds out of the south. Time to troll for stripers. As Cutbait mentioned in his post, the action as definitely died down as compared to the past few months. Although his idea of a slow day (double limits!) is definitely different than mine!
Would meter a small school, pick up a single fish out of that school, but it was gone by the time I unhooked and was able to loop back. Was able to get 6 stripers total, kept 4 (which was my goal anyway for dinner, so I guess I can't complain), all were the usual 2-ish lb schoolies.
Saw the water dropping helos make a few pickups and drops. First time I saw it, was worried that there was a brush fire nearby, but saw it dump the load on the lake and realized they were practicing:
http://i.imgur.com/l7WQyB3.jpg
Question for the experts: in many spots I saw schools of fish suspended at 80-100 feet, in deep water of nearly 200 feet. Are they stripers? If so, are there any good techniques to get them to bite? I tried dropping down to them a leadhead/fluke combo, but couldn't get anything to take it. And this just may be my fishfinder, but it also marks fish at 200-240 feet, right on the bottom, but that can't be fish that deep, right? I assume it's something on the bottom that is reflecting the sonar?
Launched and headed out to my usual smallie site, but it was all quiet there. Air temp first thing in the AM was a chilly 45 degrees, and water temps were solidly 68 degrees all day. Saw a few sporadic boils here and there, single fish mostly, nothing to get excited about. Motored over to my secondary spot, saw a few more boils in shallow water and casted out to them. Turns out they were smallmouth boils, looks like a wolfpack of them were cruising that spot, blowing up here and there. Caught a few of these:
http://i.imgur.com/schEHVD.jpg
As always, lots of fun on flylined plastics on light spinning gear. These guys were particularly fun as they were in such shallow water, they would create a wake as they stalked my lure. Reminded me of redfish in Florida. Really gets the heart pumping to see that!
As I cruised up that shoreline, I saw the biggest school of baitfish I think I've ever seen in freshwater. It was literally a tornado of little fish swirling around, the school was easily wider than my boat is long. Broke out the shad net, but it was hard to get a good line on them. Definitely could have used an assistant. Managed to pick up a few stragglers, darn -- silversides. I'm not sure if they were all silversides, do silverside schools mix with shad schools?
Went around the lake looking for more action. Apparently there must have been at least some boils, saw this fleet bouncing around from spot to spot:
http://i.imgur.com/QnCJqOS.jpg
Around 10:30 the beautifully calm morning gave way to some winds out of the south. Time to troll for stripers. As Cutbait mentioned in his post, the action as definitely died down as compared to the past few months. Although his idea of a slow day (double limits!) is definitely different than mine!
Would meter a small school, pick up a single fish out of that school, but it was gone by the time I unhooked and was able to loop back. Was able to get 6 stripers total, kept 4 (which was my goal anyway for dinner, so I guess I can't complain), all were the usual 2-ish lb schoolies.
Saw the water dropping helos make a few pickups and drops. First time I saw it, was worried that there was a brush fire nearby, but saw it dump the load on the lake and realized they were practicing:
http://i.imgur.com/l7WQyB3.jpg
Question for the experts: in many spots I saw schools of fish suspended at 80-100 feet, in deep water of nearly 200 feet. Are they stripers? If so, are there any good techniques to get them to bite? I tried dropping down to them a leadhead/fluke combo, but couldn't get anything to take it. And this just may be my fishfinder, but it also marks fish at 200-240 feet, right on the bottom, but that can't be fish that deep, right? I assume it's something on the bottom that is reflecting the sonar?