The wife wanted to have a family weekend camping. I suggested a cabin on Murray and she bit. She asked, “Are all you going to do is fish?” I replied, “honey, I’ll have to eat and sleep too.” She may regret her decision later. Any spots or methods on fire now?
Any help is appreciated and if I see ya this weekend, we’ll swap beers and lies. Thanks
Old Key West
Black 200
seems like people are having some success around Spence Islands…I know that will be where we start Saturday morning. I personally usually troll just because I enjoy it, but people are doing well on down lines with live herring right now it seems…
Our procession will probably be, and also because we put in at Shull Island, is backside of Spence in the channel, front side in the channel, head to the dam, then check areas in between…
Thanks, we’ll be on Dreher Island in one of the Park cabins. I’m really looking forward to a good time on the lake and putting the kids on some fish.
What he said is right on. Run downrods anywhere from 15’ to 40’ and see what does best. If you are fishing all weekend, try some other places in the main channel. I have not had much time to fish so I have not done any exploring. I have been wondering how the channel is by bomb island or the big gap but have not tried.
Sounds like the fish are deep. Do they come up at nite or does the surface stay too warm? I’m planning some nite fishing if it can be productive cause it looks like it’s going to be a HOT weekend. Temps in the mid 90’s makes evening, nite, and morning my preferable time to fish. In the heat of the day I’ll take the wife and kids island bopping, swimming, and such. By the way, what VHF channels are used by fishermen?
You are in luck, because this weekend from 2pm to 7pm Sunday there is a reggae concert on Bomb Island, and a bunch of boats will raft up and they will play music out over the water…should be fun. Me and my buddies are going to fish early morning, then pick up some lady friends around noon and switch off the fishing gear to the beer gear.
I think Midlands Striper Club uses channel 72. Last weekend we saw ALOT of fish suspended at 80’, but most of them seemed pretty inactive as we were tickling their heads with bucktails without many bites.
On that subject Steely, were you marking fish suspended that shallow? We were only showing fish at 60-80, but did get a bite at that 30’ line or so. We were marking the baitfish relatively deep also (this is last saturday morning).
I’ll be in a yellow pioneer with t-top.
Last saturday the surface temp was 80F and there were actually fish schooling on top in the evening. Most fish were down 80 to 100 feet but those ones would not hit. I threw out a free line and caught my first fish on it. Then I brought the rest of my lines up from 15 to 25 feet and started catching fish. I went out the saturday before (June 9th) and the surface temp was 87F and there was no surface activity and the fish were hitting around 30 to 50 feet down.
Nice rig. Sounds like it’s going to be a good time. I don’t have any good shots of my boat like that, but here’s what the front of mine will look like from some shots on Norman. We’ll say “Hey”
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Old Key West
Black 200
I usually pull two down and one on top down the middle. Probably going to pull one down at 30’, one down 5’ above the ones we are marking deep, and then a stretch 20 down the middle…to start with, then we’ll see…do you think it would be best to pull all of them 15’ to 40’? i just always think of pulling one right above the lurkers heads cause you never know if they’ll bite.
Yous guys are killing me with those fine lookin botes. I’m stayin home with my little bass tracker. It dont mix well with Murray weekends. I think I would start at Spence and work my way to Bomb Island, maybe Ballentine as well. Hope yall catch um. Throw a free line out and a couple down at 40’.
Magna
Magna, that’s funny cause my little bote has to get away from BIG fast cigs and formulas driven by guys with small</font id=“size1”>“brains”. Weekend Norman forcast, "confused 2-3 footers accompanied by multiple speeding boogies that are not sure of where they are going or what a NO WAKE ZONE is.
This is my weekend Norman bote.
Seriously, it’s no fun in a little bote w/2kids in a lake of fools. I appreciated all the info and hope to use it soon. I’ll post some pics of the adventure.
Old Key West
Black 200
Naa, I dont mean killin me that way. It’s just wiping the drowl off my keyboard. I used to play on the weekend with a 20’ skiboat. It was very comfortable. I fish with a guy that has a 27’ Grady WA W/ twin 200 yami’s. Maybe one day I’ll get a CC. There’s cool. Maybe an old boat with new 4 stroke power. Property taxes here in Lexington are a killer. I dont know how people afford all those high dollar boats. Insurance, taxes and gas alone are horrible.
Magna
I hear ya. Here’s a bright note. I bought that ole grady for $11K in 91. Fished it for 16 years and just sold it for $10K. I picked up the 88 20’ Key West/200optmi/5hp kicker for $9K. It had been in a guys garage for the last 3 years and his wife wanted it out. The boats I buy require a little TLC, but I don’t have to worry about putting the first scratch in the gelcoat, or beaching it when the kids want to play on an island, or when someone drops a 1oz lead on the deck. BTY how much weight are you using on the downrods? nevermind, I’m just going to hook up and come down there right now and experiment. I can’t catch anything on this computer. See ya out there.
Old Key West
Black 200
I got the Pioneer used for a pretty good deal. I am young, single, and have a company truck, so it is not a financial stretch. I WANT the Pioneer 197, though…ha…now THAT is a stretch. I better do it before i am married, too…
What a great time this weekend. Here’s the two best from Sat morning. My son’s largest striper to date 28.5" and you would have though that my daugher caught king kong from here excitement.
The biggest we could manage on Sun is this 22"
We checked out the fest on Bomb. Me tinks dares a country song bout the RNYC. Jeff Foxworth could get a entire shows worth of material from the crew here. We fit right in.
Thanks again for the help out there. We fished up and down the lake catching most of our fish between the dam and Spence, but the big one came from the river channel in front of Derher Island State Park.
I also got chance to take a cool pick of the boat w/family.
Old Key West
Black 200
glad you had a good time - didn’t stay at bomb island all that long, as one of the girls on my boat started getting sick from all the boat fumes and did a little chumming over the side. So we took them tubing and that made them happy.
We were skunked on Saturday unfortunately…glad you got a couple.
Sounds like a great weekend. I just sold our 20’ Fourwinns last year. Boy, we really miss it. We miss just floating around in the middle of the lake, swimming off the back. My next boat will be a center console.
magna
Magna, check out the Pioneer 197s. beautiful.