08.17.14 Silverwood troll

I needed to test the Trophy out after doing my annual service (oil, lower unit, impeller) and wanted to test out the new 4 blade stainless prop before heading up to the Loop for Labor Day, so what better way to do that than hit up the Wood for some striper meat?
Started off in Miller as usual, and didn't have any marks for the first hour. There was another boat trolling the same area, only they were laying hate to the smaller schoolie models on what appeared to be toplined crankbaits (never saw or asked what they were using). Having my usual arsenal of scrounger flukes on the downrig setup, I began to question if that was going to work. I usually always nail at least one in Millers right away, so what's going on? I made another pass close to the buoy line, and WHAM! SPLASH! Holy hell this is no schoolie! I could hardly gain any line! A few minutes later, I found out why:


Didn't get a weight, just a quick pic and let 'er swim.
Looking at my notes from last year, I decided to head to Chamise in search of the striped kind. After another hour of nothing, passing the inlet, I notice I have a few groupies circling me about 100' back. Seagulls. Hmmmm this has happened to me before. Sure enough, it was a 12" schoolie who I'd been dragging around for God knows how long was floating on the surface. Too little to release the clip! I set the tension a bit lighter, circled around and it was game on. I got 6 of em in about an hour, and 4 of them all came 5 minutes apart when passing over the same hump. About 10:00, it was getting hot, the skiiers were getting thicker and the motor proved it was in good shape, so I called it a day, leaving them biting. Oh the other guys trolling (had a dog and a small kid reeling in fish left and right) had been putting on a school back in Chamise, and had 25 by about 9:30 and were still destroying them on every pass. They admitted to having moss problems on their lures, which I didn't really have a problem with on the DR's. I did see a few just cruising a couple feet below the surface in 100' of water, so it made sense that they were on a shallow bite.
I ran a quick lap and headed in. Switching from the 3 blade aluminum to the 4 blade stainless didn't affect the troll speed a bit, but I did gain about 4-5 MPH at the top end, which is nice.

Nice report. I was out there on Sunday as well. I was meaning to post but just been busy so I'll piggyback being it was the same day and all. Me and a buddy hit the water at 6 and bee lined it for the inlet. He's never been on the striper bite so I figured it would be a sure thing. His first was a 6lb cat and from there on out it was wide open schoolies - 1-2lbs and fortunately nothing smaller. We were near limit by the time our families arrived (9:30ish).

Shuffled the fam over to a beach and then took our sons over to give them a shot. They each caught a few and my 6yo hooked into another cat.

http://youtu.be/OvpZr6fSkhg

All anchovies and c-rigged on light line.

Good times were had by all!

On another note, we usually do Silverwood on weekdays only but my buddy doesn't have near the flexibility that I have with my job. I have seen stupid water goers many many times but I can honestly say never in my life have I seen so many in one place at one time. The first was a guy and his two kids in a rental boat who motored up to the inlet right next to this BEAUTIFUL ocean going vessel that had to be worth a mint. Out of nowhere he jus plows the CRAP out of the big boat with his little metal rental. Let's just say that if his kids weren't with him he probably would've had his ***** handed to him. Rental guy swung her around and started motoring our way and I had to politely :Big Grin: "suggest" that he go somewhere else.

Tied for dummy of the day was the person driving an absolutely GINORMOUS pontoon pulling kids on a towable. We watched in awe as he pulled his kids directly into one of those HUGE white anchored buoys at the inlet. Then he proceeded to turn around, totally clear of the buoy line, only to pull them right back into the buoy line again then stop, as they drifted way past the buoys into the inlet area. He then took off and drove the wrong way all over the lake. :Smash:

I'll spare you all the jets skis at the launch stories (yes plural just from Sunday). Needless to say we'll not likely be back on the summer weekends again.

Otherwise, fishing was great!!! :Beer Toast: