FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

“SAVE OUR WATERS”

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The Wade Right Fishing Belt

Brought to you by

The Best Wading System on the  Planet.

After Mondays post I got this comment from Jeramie.

I was on the lake today as well! I hit the water around three and by 5:30 i had caught 20-30 bass all on crankbait. Ive never tried trolling but after reading your post i think im gonna try it. I ended up with a nice crappie and one of the biggest white bass ive caught on coleto. Keep up the good work on keeping me informed on coleto. Today was first time ive fished it in months

First thanks for the comment and kind words.  I love it when folks send them, it lets me know you are all are out there.  And what makes it even more interesting, the last couple of days as I am trolling it is running through my mind – crankbait.  And though I did not throw it any, just trolled, it will be first up tomorrow.  Clouds and big wind, should be perfect for crankbait so thanks for the tip.  So as I prepare this the night before I reminded – Sometimes when you are fishing listen to the little voice in your head, unless it is telling you to break your rods and jump in the lake when it is going badly.  Nice job on the bass.  Go to the top of the page and click on techniques, there is a new post on trolling for whites.  Good luck, and if you give it a go let us know.

Weather 

62/79.  Mostly cloudy, breezy, and very warm.  25% chance of rain.  Wind SSE 15 – 25 mph.

Lake Level

One Year Ago  98.28 msl!   Tuesday  94.22 msl.  Today  94.17 msl.  (Down over 4 feet since last year and the decline continues.)

Activity Periods

Major 10:34 am to 12:34 pm. Minor  2:28 pm to 3:28 pm.

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The new Knockin Tail Lures are coming soon.  

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Wind, wind, and more wind!

This was a big girl!  The watermelon red stick worm strikes again.

Can you say windy?  It was blowing pretty hard when I dropped the boat in the lake, and it continued to pick up until it achieved “my” critical mass.  But time I finally gave it up it was an easy 25 mph+ with higher gusts.  And coming from the SE there was not many places to get out of it, and most of those were not the “right” place.

Starting up lake fishing a crankbait parralell on channel banks it took me an hour to catch a bass, and it was not much.  The first one hit a DT10 Rapala crankbait.  The wind was pounding right up river and right on where I had been catching them.  So I kept after the crankbait as the wind blew me along until I was almost where they were biting so time to switch to trolling.  To make a long story short, 6 jumped on trolling.  And of those 6 not a one even made me want to get the camera out.  And they were just scattered at that.  So time for one more stretch of crankbait so switched to a 1.5 square bill which only produced one really small bass.

Then anther boat came up and basically fished the same stuff, who knows, maybe a reader.  If it was sorry about that but the wind clearly changed things.  They were just not there like they were Tuesday.  It only took an hour and a couple of passes to get sick of that so time for a change to the swim jig.  And of course caught a small one on my first cast, and then it took over an hour to get my next bite.  It was a little surprising that they were back in a cove, but with the water temp 63 up lake they could be anywhere.  Then as I passed a tree top I tossed the stick worm into it and wham, fish on.  And as you can see from the pic above it was a real one and turned a marginal day into a success.  Winter fishing is inconsistent at times, tough to figure out occasionally, but it does produce some big fish.

A nutria, or one big swimming rat!

After catching the good one I only had one more bite over the next hour, and with the wind howling at this point it was just no fun.  So at 1:00 I tapped out and headed to the ramp.  I was first out this morning and there were 2 boats taking out at the ramp when I got there.  The only other boat was fishing the hot water discharge, where several big strings have been caught lately, and is always an option on any power plant lake.  Other than the couple at the ramp I only saw 2 boats when I was fishing all 3 days this week.  Not sure if that is a function of the fishing or the new $17 entrance fee.  As you know I opposed it, but it looks like one side affect is I have had it to myself.

Looks like this wind will not quit and is expected to blow 30 mph again tomorrow and into Saturday.  There were small craft warnings on the coast, and will be again tomorrow,  rightly so.  It really was humping along today and when the hassle outweighed the fun time to call it a day.  So tomorrow will be a get my stuff together day, new line, check boxes, organize the boat and baits in preparations for another 3 or 4 day fishing next week.    The weather includes clouds and the possibility of some showers, and the wind will be ok.  But they are forecasting a record high in the low 80’s Wednesday.  This has been one crazy winter.  Have a good weekend and if you get out on the water be nice, be safe, and catch em’.  So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines