Earl Mielke

Friday, March 21st, 2008: Sunny and pleasant, Water Temp 51* uplake and stained, 55* midlake and clear. Picked up 2 other clients this morning and went to catch bait. As Doug was stepping onto the boat he said "Picked the wrong morning to go fishing with the full moon shinning bright last night didn't I" . I confirmed his fears and told him that usually the fish feed hard during a night as bright as it was but not to worry, the Stripers would feed just as well this afternoon. Then he muttered " well, we have to come off the water at 11am this morning because my son had other plans for the afternoon". That being said put the pressure on me and set the tone for a interesting day. We caught bait and set up way uplake in 5 feet of water and deployed 10 planner boards and a bobber and worked our way back downlake hoping the fish in the stained water did not feed as much last night. We kept getting hits but the fish were hitting the Herring in the tails not being interested in eating them, just killing the baits. 11 o'clock came fast and I took the guys back to the marina . They took home a Striper, a couple of Bass and a couple of nice Crappie. While I was running back to the marina I called a friend who lives on the lake and invited him to fish this afternoon since I already had bait and I thought the fish would feed. I picked him up about noon and headed for deep water. I had a friend who was also fishing today who had been working shallow water with freelines that had not put a fish in the boat , He and I not doing well shallow forced me to try deep. I found lots of schools of bait deep with a few fish nearby so we set out downlines and worked the areas. The move payed off , the Stripers feeding better and better as the afternoon progressed. We ended up having about 40 strikes this afternoon, keeping a few Stripers to take home , and Earl releasing a couple Hogs to be caught again. Sorry Doug and Dillon had to leave early this morning!