Chip Bragg and I met up at Larry Koon about 6:45, and we headed out to check out the Big and Little Gaps.
After a quick baptism in Chip’s boat, must be a rite of passage in his boat, we arrived at the Big Gap and threw out a spread of 6 planer boards and a floater in the rear. The bite was slow and the fish were small. Lots of suspended fish, so we punted after an hour and half. We pulled in at the Little Gap and got around the back of the island in the lee. Marked lots of bait and biomass, but still had lots of shorts. We were on straight up down rods by this time. Managed to pulled a 5-6 lber off the bottom in about 50 ft of water.
Just like Fogman mentioned in his earlier reports, most of the better fish are down at 45-50 ft.
Got tired of that and messed around in Crystal Lake some…same ole…same ole. Scattered and suspended fish…not much interest.
Trip got very interesting again when Chip showed me just how shallow his boat could run. I was impressed with his fine boating skills…hey we’ve all been there…enough said about. (Had to do it man…big grin)
Ending up the day back in front of the Little Gap…towards the river channel…just in front of the dead trees sticking up.
It was here that I got to show off my fine offshore fishing skills in the 1 foot chop. Chip and I had a fine time bumping bottom for striper, and using up the rest of our bait…including the dead ones.
We would drop our baits to the bottom, and just sit there watching the electronics, waiting for stripers to come through. Once we saw them on the screen, we would jig the bait up and down to attract them. We pulled out about 3 keepers doing that and a lot of shorts. The trick to this is to never put the rod in a holder. It was pretty cool to use the dead bait just like a spoon.
Thanks again to Chip Bragg for having me it was fun, and I hope all that red mud came off the skeg.
So…now you know…where not to go!
David Padgett
“Take 2”
191 Mako
