FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

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There comes a time when a person needs to get out of his warm and fuzzy spot, and mine is now.  So first I was thinking the bay, then the lake, and with clouds and a 60% chance of rain the fishing prospects looked good.  As the afternoon wore on Fayette kept creeping in my little brain.  But with the weather I was not sure I wanted to make the drive if it was gonna get ugly.  I got up at 4:00, looked at the radar and made the decision, heck with it, I am going to Fayette so I  hit the road.  (Sorry no notice Rusty, but trust me after today it will not be that long before I am back.)  Best decision I have made in a while!

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Weather

91/74  Cloudy with 20% chance of rain.  Wind SE 5 – 10 mph.

Solunar Time

8:25 am to 10:25 am.   (This is probably the most right on the money I have ever seen.)

Get inhaled!  

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First a little on Fayette.  While it has been well over a year, I have a pattern that works on Fayette, rain or shine, hot or cold.  For fish catching, Fayette is one of the best lakes in the country.  Along with being a slot lake, which adds plenty of nice fish, it has great grass beds, usually in the 3 – 8′ range.  Shad are plentiful, which sets up the fishing.  And when they are in those beds it can be really good.  Today I found 2 of them that were loaded.  It was a beat down.

Cranking and yanking, it was game on.

There was only one boat on the lake this morning when I put in at daylight.  He asked if I had fished it lately, no, and he said it really sucked the other day.  There was a light breeze so I headed to my favorite long bank which almost always has fish on it somewhere.  For the first hour and a half it was fishing in empty water.  Today I stuck with alternating a 6x crankbait and a blue and chrome jerkbait, occasionally tossing in the stick worm.  Which is basically what I do there no matter time of year.

Those big girls love that jerkbait.  Tip the grass and hold on!

Then it finally dawned on me, a no brainer early morning on Fayette, the big points.  I went to the first one and stayed out in about 8′ of water.  The good thing about both the jerk bait and the crankbait, besides Fayette bass love them, is they find the grass.  Once you find a deeper bed it only takes a minute to determine if they are there, and today boy were they.

Like big fish will do, you would barely feel them, but they were there.

They were on a main lake point in a grass bed that was from 2 – 5′ deep with a good drop close.  What made that place so hot, the wind was lightly blowing around the point, creating a little current and there was plenty of bait.  Not only did I catch a real freakin’ wad, I broke 2 off (10lb. line is not quite heavy enough in the grass beds.) and lost several other really nice fish.  For an hour and a half it was crazy.

Keep switching and they kept cooperating.

It was simply a matter of working the  whole area with one bait them another.  The crankbait they wanted slow, and then slower.  Of course a 6x was diving right down and I could feel the grass, and that was exactly what a bite felt like, really soft.  It only took a second to figure out the difference and I started jacking them up.  Then the jerkbait, fairly erratically, basically a jerk/jerk, pause, jerk, and then do it over again.  The goal was to jerk it right down the edge of the grass.  A couple of them whacked it or slack lined it, which never really happened on the crankbait.  After just smacking them they began to slow up.  Not surprising with me tossing them right back in.

There are a couple more nice ones but you get the picture, and there were also some smalls today.

It has been a while since I had a run like this.  It was solid fish after solid fish.  The second place was exactly like the first but it was getting later.  Maybe 5 or 6 off it, on both baits.  At this point it is around 11:00 and I have been catching them for 2 1/2 hours.  And then it stopped, and I mean I could not buy a bite.  Then a front blew in, the wind picked up, and it started sprinkling.  So I hit one more place without a bite and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.  When it goes like that it makes up for every other tough day.

Fayette fatties are the most shad eating fish I have ever fished for.  Since the first trip there jerking Rapala crankbaits until today, Fayette fish eat shad and live in grass.  It is not that hard, but like all places I am sure it has it’s bad days, I just never have seen one.  When you are suffering a case of boredom, in my place same old same old, it is time to make a little change, and today I did exactly that.  I fished really well, the fish cooperated, and it was good for the soul.  Catching that many fish will do that.

And the solunar time today, it was so right on it is hard to ignore.  I did not have a bite first thing in the morning until it began.  During the period they were having at it, then as the period ended so did the bite.  If I have learned one thing about the solunar tables, just because it is a major period doesn’t mean you are going to whack them, but most of the time when you get on a frantic bite it is right in the period.  While the time to fish is on the tides, moon, solunar period, clouds, and on and on, most of us fish when we can but it interesting to follow it.

Unfortunately life is going to get in the way of the fishing for a couple of days.  I will be thinking about where next, and not the usual suspects.  Every once in a while change is a good thing, and who knows, maybe the next place will be as good as the last place.  If one thing can be said about fishermen, there is always hope.  So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines