Well I did not make it out Saturday morning. Wife was out of town, kids, yada yada yada
Saturday afternoon I did try though in darn blowing wind. It was a bust! Three pull downs total with one gar being caught. Area #7 to start with and finished in the mouth of Bear Creek because I just could not take the blowing wind on the south side of the lake.
Sunday afternoon was better. Caught nothing on live bait, but had a good time with my 10 yr old daughter chasing the schooling striper around.
Most of the schooling took place in blocks Z3 and Z4. Caught three total. I was using red and white wobble head and a blue and white striper swiper. I found it really hard to get them hit the top water plugs. Is there a way to dress the plugs up better than stock off of the shelf. I had someone mention to me a while back about trailering a bucktail off the end. Does this help with the hook up ratio?
Sunday was dead calm on the water and we had a beautiful sunset. My little girl and had a great time, and she is such a little helper on the boat.
David, thanks for the report. When I can’t get to the lake I like to live vicariously through you guys!
For schooling fish I’ve had success trailing bucktails with ice flys or small flashy spoons (sometimes with feathers).By using a 3 way swivel and keeping the trailer length between 2’-3’ it still allows you to cast.
The majority of the time the fish gets caught on the spoon but I have had multiple hook ups.
I’ve never tried trailers on a top water plug but it seems that the same concept would work if what you are trailing with isn’t too heavy and kills the action. I would think a bucktail would be too heavy.
Our issue was that the Striper would kinda “smack” the lures (we were using Pencil Poppers and Zara Spooks) … repeatedly … if we had a hookup for every time they smacked the lure we’d been done quickly …
I will say this though it appeared that the smaller Striper were the ones doing all the smacking … bigger Striper would just crash and run …
I didn’t get the chance to before last weekend, but this week I’m replacing all the center trebles with Trokars and replacing the trailing treble with a single Trokar trailing hook … it seems to work well with offshore species like Mahi and Wahoo so I don’t see why it can’t work in Lake Murray …
Arrived at Z3 about 8:00 am and found a pack of 10 or more boats over the river channel. Looked like they had zeroed in on schooling fish. I road around a bit closer to the island and didn’t see much on the Lowrance.
About 8:30 I cruised near the pack and found fish in 40 feet over a 50 foot ledge just to the North of the river channel. By the time I baited up and started thumping, only a few boats were left from the pack.
I had my five and was cleaning up the bait tank at 9:30. I actually caught 6 fish. With four in the box and two rods out - both went off at the same time. Landed both and sent #6 back to grow up All were 19-20". Had one decent sized keeper on that wrapped around another line and spit the hook near the boat.
I called out on Channel 72 to see if anyone wanted my leftover bait - but the only reply came from the “Course Master” announcing the start of a spinnaker race up near Spence.
Had a blast being out on the water - saw a bald eagle fly over as I cut through between Spence Islands:sunglasses:
P.S. Richard says he will be at the dam every Saturday and Sunday until Thanksgiving - unless the weather gets too cold.
P.S.S Looks like the Big Pool turned over on Monday 9/30 - dissolved oxygen up from 0.0 and stabilized at ~4.0. Does anyone recall Murray turning over this early in the fall? I suspect we’ll have an extended surface bite this fall.
I’ve trailed a big bucktail with two 1/4 ouncers and caught three at a time before. You need fairly heavy line going to the trailers to keep them from tangling and to keep the line from breaking. For some reason the line seems to break off with light line. I guess the fish get some kind of leverage pulling against each other. It can be a quick way to get a limit. Once you hook one let that fish fight and the other baits will usually load up pretty quickly.
I would like to talk about this style of fishing at the next meeting on Oct 8th. Some examples of put together terminal tackle with plugs would help a lot of folks.
Shawn G: I know you are reading this…what do you think?
I think people are willing to discuss their tackle of choice at just about any meeting we have. I’ll try to introduce you to some people to help spark the conversation. As far as the formal program goes, we need to stick to a single topic. I tried a few “double” presentations earlier in the year and they seemed to drag on too long. People lost focus and began talking towards the end. It might a be a good topic to organize for next year? I’ll put it on the list. Thanks for the suggestion.
All were 19-20". Had one decent sized keeper on that wrapped around another line and spit the hook near the boat.