Trusting in the accuracy of the weather report for Monday, we chose to skip Sunday School and work the areas we’ve been recently fishing. So got on the water a little later. Water is looking better and mostly 54 degrees though in some spots it was over 57. Pulling planers, floats, and downrods. Saw an occasional fish, but that was about it. One nice black bass, one striper that was barely long enough and one missed strike. Another fisherman reported to the folks at LHM that he had only caught two and remarked that something was wrong. The day was beautiful and very pleasant. Took off lots of clothing and Patti wound up in shorts.
So what happened to the fish? Did the forthcoming weather change just drive them all away or have some other impact? Anybody have any luck catching or locating them? Not looking for anybody’s honey hole, but just what type of water one found them in. Pride takes a back seat to learning.
That cold front thurs/fri dropped water temps in most areas pushing fish out of areas like you have been fishing. Water temps spiked this weekend. Fish don’t like the up/down temps. They want a slow change or a consistent change. Just my .02…
We had I belive 12 on saturday. 7-8 keeps including 2 9# and a 8#…All 3 on 10"+ gizzards. (Big bait bite is here). Sunday think we had 14 with I think was 8 keeps with 8# caught on a big bait. Only had had 1 to fish with sunday…we fished an area down lake but with temps only changing a couple degrees through the weekend…
Majority of fish coming in deeper open water 30/60’ on PB/FL no downrod bite for us… fish are starting to transition and may get tough for some without covering alot of ground…Think we covered 5-7 miles with the TM each day.
“All fisherman lie. And if they say otherwise, then they’re lying”
Thanks for the ■■■■■■■■, Murraymaker. As I feel like I just got sent back to the 1st grade, not sure if I feel any better or not. It makes sense that if the fish are not where you are, they’re somewhere else. I sensed I was in the wrong place but blindly adhered to my chosen plan. Hopefully I won’t make that mistake too many more times. So the big baits are back working. Still think that March and April are great times for getting quality fish if you can track them down. Was Lawcrusher with you or does he have his own success story?
Fished the mid lake area with the kids for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon. Few bites but still fun. Caught a few fish. All on Planner boards 30-45 fow. Used shad. Temp 52F the area we fished. Here a couple of pics.
Sportsman Heritage 229 CC
Yamaha 200 HP
Tidewater 170 CC
Yamaha 115 HP
Yes yelling at the same one… but my yelling worked…ha… But he did or that group that hangs around there got one on saturday…i an usually fend off one but when they start chirping and calling in reinforcements I i usually lose a big bait or 2. They seem to be a little braver in 2’s and 3’s. .
“All fisherman lie. And if they say otherwise, then they’re lying”
Michael, I decided to try Ballentine Saturday based on your recent reports. The pulling was very slow for us. The only place we had any success pulling was around Suzie Ibert, and that was fish of 21 and 22 inches with 10 to 12 shorts. The 8 pounder Spoon caught was foul hooked on a CC amongst the perch in 53 feet of water. I also missed several good strikes on downrods while spoon jerkin. We had alot of tail-stripped misses on planers-- probably small fish. Downlake this time of year, I do think the stripers are more sensitive to fronts and temperature changes than uplake. No science. It’s just an opinion based on my experiences.
It’s like grandpa used to say about the perch " I’ll take them any way I can get them". Sometimes I think stripers want to hit the bait before they eat it. Maybe trying to stun it. Or they just strike when the spoon is in motion, miss it but still get hooked. One of the best times I ever had was when I foul hooked a flathead about an inch from the tail. Thought I had a monster striper for about 10 minutes. That thing really made some long fast runs.
Had 8 nice fish in the boat by 8:30 pulling boards and freelines…only boated 2 more the rest of the day. Dont know what happened but it was like someone flipped a switch. Thought it wouldve been a much better day with water temps warming up.
After putting around avoiding all the trees, limbs, and trash in the water all Saturday and Sunday morning (Really? You want to go 70 mph in your $30,000 boat with all this stuff in the water? Go for it bass boat dude. Hope you don’t end up on the evening news.), the fishing was looking pretty futile in the Little River and uplake of the River Bend. That all changed Sunday afternoon when we finally found action with the best fish being a nice 31", 8.5 pounder. We caught all our fish on planer boards and shiners. L2 for those with a MSC club map.
I have never seen an old map but I think it was numbered like what shipwreck is talking about. All new maps have the alpha/numeric grid pattern…just so you don’t worry about it too much. L2 is a very common and popular spot from Nov - mar and I am sure you fish there a good bit already shipwreck
“All fisherman lie. And if they say otherwise, then they’re lying”
