We put in around 8:30 and rode up lake from the dam. Stopped in a cove where we saw some birds working while looking for signs of perch on the bottom. We never could get any fish to bite as the school was moving a lot and the bait was very scattered. We moved around with the TM and finally found some interesting looking marks and dropped the spoons. After a few minutes, I hooked into my first striper on a spoon in 45’ of water, a 17" short. That got my blood flowing and got the skunk off, but nothing came after that.
We moved around a lot, stopping to fish anytime we marked stuff just off the bottom. Finally ran in Striperskiff and they got into some and called us over. We graciously accepted the offer and trolled over and spot-locked next to them. They weren’t bighting very well and would barely tap the spoon when they did, but when you jerked it you would just feel the weight. We managed about 7 good perch and my first largemouth on the spoon as well in about 60’ of water.
We moved on after about an hour and stopped on a few good marks, finally getting on some more in 80’, but only managing 2 more good ones. Ended up with 9 perch and one largemouth to clean. This was the first time I figured we actually needed a venting tool, because as we pulled up perch, their stomach would erupt out of their mouth and everything they had eaten would come out when they got to the top. I was going to put some of the smaller ones on freelines for the stripers, but they had no chance of doing anything but floating on the surface until a seagull picked it off.
So to sum it all up, there was a whole lot of jerkin’ and not a whole lot of perch! I guess they just didn’t want to eat yesterday.
Anyway, had a good time and caught some fish. Thanks to striperskiff and his crew for helping us out.
We started in some open water, but the wind was really blowin so we hid back in Beards Cr, which is where we ran into Tigerfin. That one spot, in 60’, was the only one we caught any at. Soon as we stopped, we caught a couple and thought we were gonna clobba dem, but it just turned out to be a real slow pick before it totally petered out and we moved on.
Only wound up getting 12, but all in all it was a fun day on the water. Definitely will be trying that again.
'07 198 DLX Carolina Skiff
FS90 Suzuki
Forgot I had taken this pic. Thought it was odd to have him spit up a crawfish after being caught in 60’.
I went over to Johns Creek on 2/7 and set up in 55 ft of water. I kept bringing up largemouths with a 1/2 oz silver flex it spoon. After about an hour I moved into 70 ft of water near Wessinger and started bringing the perch up. I caught about 10 in 30 minutes then I hooked into something (possibly a catfish by the way it pulled) and it snapped the spoon off. After that all I had was a 1 oz silver spoon. I caught 4 more and called it a day. I just ordered a couple more spoons so that doesn’t happen again.
Tigerfin, Don’t be discouraged with a slow day. All of us have had them too. For whatever reason, probably the cold water temp., the perch don’t seem to feed every day. Keep fishing the spoons and sooner or later you will have a day when the perch are “on the feed”. On that day you might not get to jerk the spoon very often because they will eat it as soon as, or before, it hits the bottom. My best advice for a slow day is to keep moving around trying different areas to give yourself a chance to find a school of hungry perch. That or try minnows or red worms. Perch will eat almost anything including small pieces of cutbait. In the past I’ve caught them with all of the above and as deep as 85’ in Murray near Shull island.
Don’t worry about me, spoon, I’ve seen much worse days than that. I was pretty happy with everything given the conditions and me being a first timer and all. I kind of felt sorry for striperskiff’s anchor puller…
Don’t worry about me, spoon, I’ve seen much worse days than that. I was pretty happy with everything given the conditions and me being a first timer and all. I kind of felt sorry for striperskiff’s anchor puller…
'06 Mckee Craft
184 Marathon
DF140 Suzuki
Funny you mention that. I was just looking yesterday and found the I-Pilot upgrade for my Riptide SP AP for $381 with free shipping and no tax. I’m going to go ahead and get it.
