FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

“SAVE OUR WATERS”

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The Wade Right Fishing Belt

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Out early to beat the heat.

Just cracking daylight when I dropped the boat in the water,  The water temp today was 88 – 89 degrees over the whole lake and the water color is great, including up lake.  So up lake to start and it turned out to be a fishy day.

Weather

78/96.  Partly sunny and humid with a 50% chance of afternoon showers.  Wind SSW 9 – 15 mph.

Lake Level

Tuesday  93.79 msl.   Today   93.78 msl.

Solunar Period

Major  10:55 am to 12:55 pm.

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The Knockin Tail is the perfect trailer for the swim jig.  They smack it!  

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It does not get any prettier than that!

My best bite of the day was interesting,  The perfect pitch to the perfect piece of cover.  It sinks right in the middle of the tangle and when it gets to the bottom in 4′ of water the line jumps 6″, I set the hook and game on.  It is a titanic struggle trying to pull that big fish out of the pile.  Visions of a big bass are running through my head and then…..

I catch one on lures every once in while, in this case the beaver style plastic.  This one will not be adding to the population.

The morning started off with a nice one about 4lbs smashing a buzzbait, he came straight at the boat and it was an easy boat flip – right over the boat and back in the water on the other side and off he came.  Not the best start but it happens.  As soon as the sun started peaking out switched to the swim jig, caught a couple of smalls and then on one bank missed several.  So turned around and pitched the mag finesse worm and it was game on for a while.

Had several like this first thing, and lost more than I boated.

They were really shallow and any piece of wood bigger than your arm seemed to have a fish on it.  One thing that often lets you know that there are a few fish on the bank is when it hits the water and one grabs it and just takes off.  A little competition.  On one spot boated 4 or 5 and missed several.  Seems like right now if you find some there are more.

It was pretty consistent until around 10:00 on the plastics and since a tilapia made the boat time to do a little trolling and add to the number of species.  It took me about an hour to find them but finally did.  Not sure where the white bass have gone, but the catfish were smacking the crankbait.

Ended up putting 4 catfish in the boat.  Should have kept a few.

One thing that is interesting is I just did not see tons of shad schools while trolling.  I covered quite a bit of water before finding the area, and everything was there.  They were liking a shad colored crankbait that ran about 10 foot.  One thing about the catfish, they smack it, but it was not all catfish.

I caught one bigger crappie but the camera battery died.

It is interesting how trolling gets a bad name.  It is efficient, and allows you to cover water, then hopefully get them cornered, and put the hurt on them.  Probably an easy 10 jumped on once I got them, and the area, figured out.  There were scattered shad but no big schools, but see a few fish on the down scan and here came a bite.  Great way to end the day. and also a good way to put a few on the dinner table if you are so inclined.

The fishing was good today, they definitely wanted plastic pitched to cover, I think now that the water has stabilized they have started to return a little shallower.  But if you were not on your toes they were not holding on to it all that well, feel a bite and set the hook or they were gone.  But the action was consistent this morning early, and when I headed back down lake to troll I left them biting.  Any time you can catch the short side of 20 and back on the trailer by noon is a good day in my book.

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On the travel front of course we had to cancel our trip to Africa.  We were so excited about seeing the gorillas and spending 4 days on the Zambezi River catching tiger fish, which just happens to be one of the great places in Africa to see leopard.  That would round our seeing the big 5 as we have seen the rest.  And one cool thing about the place we will stay is they do walking safaris, which sounds awesome.  Still haven’t made up my mind on the dugout canoe trip in a river with tons of crocs and big hippos.  So that one is re-scheduled for next year, hope to God things are quiet a year from now.

But there is a trip coming soon, as in a short couple of weeks.  Will be staying right outside of Yellowstone for a couple of days of photos and animal watching.  Grizzly bears and wolves being the main quarry.  One day will be a float/and or walk and wade, depending on the water level.  We will be hiring a guide as we are still rank amateurs with the fly fishing thing, but we are willing.  So time to get the stuff out and do a little organization.

And if things go well will be heading to Colorado sometime in September or October for a week or two.  Have found lots of water to fish that I have not even made a dent in around Pagosa.  There is something cool about standing in a mountain stream with only the sound of rushing water and not a soul in sight.

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We be getting a couple of new toys which means time to give the bay a serious work out.  Will fill you in after a couple of days on the water.  Of course now have a blinking trailer light on one side so this weekend time to get that fixed.  If it is not one thing it is another when you own a boat.  With that comes the responsibility of keeping things working, especially trailer lights and boat running lights for the safety of others.  But will back at it next week.  Keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines