Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Berk Ellis and Brian Mohr


Sept 30th, 2008: Cloudy and Pleasant, Water Temp 72* and Clear.
Been away on vacation for a couple of weeks and wanted to go find some fish for my clients this week so I called a good client up and invited him and his friend Berk to go out with me today. He jumped on the offer and they met me at the marina a little after 6 and we went to catch bait. I checked a couple of places seeing a little bait but kept looking till I found what I wanted. Made 5 or 6 casts and caught 40 nice baits. The water temp has dropped 7 or 8* since I was out last so I decided to pull some very shallow flats, points and banks. I set up in an area and made a 1 mile pull, only to almost boat a turd-roller. We made a move to another area and I put out 10 boards and 6 downlines, covering 80 yards wide from top to bottom. Bert broke the ice with a nice Striper soon after we got set up so I decided to pull another mile to see what would happen. We got into some fish finally and put a half dozen fish in the cooler but ran out of bait so we went to catch more. No worries though, I was only 1/4 mile from where I located bait earlier, made 1 cast and put 40 in the tank, made another cast and we were set for the rest of the day for bait. We hit another area for awhile with no success so I decided to duplicate the same pattern that worked earlier and started catching Stripers again. This time the fish were Nailing the baits, some hits were so hard the fish would break the line on the hookup or bury the rod in the water. Poor Berk, he was having issues touching the line and fish getting off and also having problems getting the rod out of the rod holder when a fish would get on, but once I gently explained to him the proper way to avoid those problems he got a little better. Today we had 25 fish on, boated 15 fish, Brian taking a few home to eat.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Monty Walker with Angela and Jack Olinick

Sept 15th, 2008: Sunny and Warm, Water Temp 81* and Clear.
Picked clients up at High Point before daylight and went and caught bait. Caught over 40 very nice baits and set up in the mouth of a creek and pulled boards over the points and flats there, the only strike we got was Angela's Bass. After an hour of no fish I went looking for some fish to work with downlines, saw a bunch of schools of Stripers, mostly smaller fish. We worked 3 different schools with no luck. I then found some larger fish and pulled boards and downlines through and over them, still no hits. Monty caught a Bass on a point then we moved. We then went almost to the back of a creek and worked downlines and boards from the bank out to 25 feet deep, still nothing. We fished for 7 hours today, never getting so much as a strike from a Striper! I tucked my tail and went home to forget the day. Best thing about the day were my clients, they were understanding of the poor fishing and I invited them back to try again when the fish are more cooperative for half price.



Friday, September 12, 2008

Ken Wilson and Linda Ayers


Sept 19th, 2008: Cloudy and cool, Water temp 79* and Clear.
Got on the water at 4:30 and went to catch bait. That was my first mistake of the day. I went to where I had been catching bait but saw very little, lost 1 net and tore another. [A $200 morning]
Caught only 8 or 10 baits by the time I picked my clients up at their dock at 6:30 and went to catch more. I hit the areas that bait has been but it wasn't. Around 8 I went to a midlake cove and saw and threw for bait there but Stripers were all around the bait which made it even harder to catch. By now I had about 18, I moved about 100 yards out and tried to put downlines out but there were too many Stripers in the area. Clients were catching them casting and on the downlines as fast as we could get them out. I never had more than 3 out when we were on the school without them going down. Talk about confusion, my clients did not know what hit them! We boated 10 in 10 minutes then I had to go catch bait. To make a long story short, bait collection sucked today, I must have looked and thrown for 5 hours today, the guys caught plenty of Stripers to take home.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

John and Frank Guillard


Sept. 9th, 2008: Cloudy and rain, Water temp 80* and Clear.
Got a late start this morning, didn't leave the marina till 6:30 and it was already getting light. Went to a flat to catch bait but it was too light for it to be balled up well so I headed for another favorite place to catch bait. I came around the corner and saw a couple of acres of Stripers busting so I set up on them, only with artificial. As fate would have it, there were huge fish under the breaking fish and we didn't have any bait to put on them . We all picked up lures and hooked up 9 times in about 10 minutes , the larger fish hitting Spooks. I left the school and flew to get bait, threw about 5 times and put 36 nice baits in the tank, and went back to where we left the fish but could not find them. We fished shallow and deep without catching any more for a couple hours. We found some nicer schools later on in the day, fishing them with boards and downlines but the front must have turned them off somewhat, we would see hundreds of big arches on the screen, put baits in their faces and nothing. Then for some reason right before it started to rain the fish turned on and we had 8 fish hit within 10 minutes, I turned back around and hit the area time and time again, still seeing the fish but they would not bite. Today we caught 15 Stripers and 4 Cats, the guys only keeping a few for dinner and releasing all the others to fight again.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Gene Crudo and Gary


Sept. 3rd, 2008: Sunny and Hot, Water Temp 85* and Clear.
Picked the guys up at 6 and went and caught bait. Set up working 5 to 25 foot flats with boards and downlines. Pulled for 2 hours with no luck so we threw those baits away and went and caught more. Saw a couple of fish break over 30 foot of water so I set up with downlines once I saw fish on the depth finder. Worked that area for an hour, seeing nice stripers but only boating a couple, although Gene did have a very nice one on for awhile , but it got into a braided line and snapped off. Set up on numerous other groups of Stripers, running boards and downlines, seeing plenty of fish but they were not hungry today.