Dan and Danny Gibson

9

September 30th, 2009: Cloudy and Beautiful, Water Temperature 72 to 75*.
Picked the guys up at 6 at High Point and went to catch bait. 3 hours later we finally had enough so we went fishing. Started pulling boards over 5 to 20 foot flats with no luck so I moved deeper with still no hits. Finally got boiled over 10 foot of water then hooked up over 5 foot. Pulled another hour shallow with no luck. I was getting bummed out with the lack of action till we hit an area and boated a fish and lost another. The wind was up today and I hit the area 9 times, every time pulling with the wind we would take a hit and against the wind nothing. It was a long day but The Dan's were happy with the outcome and enjoyed the great weather. A few leaves are starting to turn on the lake and with the nice temperatures it looks like it will be a beautiful fall. Can't wait for bait to get easier and for these fish to turn on. Should be anytime now!

Chris, Dan, Troy and Brian

September 26th, 2009: Cloudy and Cool, Water Temperature Dropped to 75* and Clear.
Met the guys at 5:15 and went to catch bait. Threw for a couple hours then went fishing. Set up pulling a stretch of water, 5 to 30 feet deep, where we caught fish earlier in the week. After 3 hours and only 1 fish we moved to another area and set out our spread of 10 planner boards, a bobber and 2 downlines. Fished till about 2 o'clock and only got a couple more hits. Fishing has been tough the last couple of days. Hopefully the rain and cooler weather will put some oxygen back in the lake and straighten these Stripers out. I had warned the guys yesterday that if I had to bet the farm that we would be lucky to catch 4 or 5 Stripers at most today, and we caught 4. Didn't seem to mater to much to the crew, they are a great bunch of guys, we all had a good time and I hope they will go out again so I can show them what the lake will produce.

Paul, Dave, Bob and Ron

September 24th, 2009: Sunny and Hot,Water temperature rose to 83* and Clear.

Picked the guys up and went and caught 24 Gizzards and 24 Herring and put out a spread of 9 boards, a bobber and a couple downlines. I was excited having bait early and being able to fish without much boat traffic. The guys were pumped and we were ready. We pulled our spread for 3 hours without a strike! My friend Anthony was also out and I kept calling him today to see if he was doing any better but he was not. By 1:30m we were still strikeless but shortly there after a bait got nervous and a Striper pulled a planner board across the water about 15 yards, Paul grabbed the rod but 3 jet skis had just buzzed us and he tripped on the wakes and when he grabbed the rod he trapped the line between the rod and the fish got off. I made a circle and headed back to the spot all the while everyone was giving him grief for missing the fish. We hit the spot and he redeemed himself by boating the first Striper of the day, at 2 o'clock! He got more grief when he had to put on his "MAN GLOVES" to hold the fish. We hung the bottom 3 or 4 times today and Bob wanted some action so he would fight the bottom for a while then hand me the rod to break it free. Dave was up and a board tilted sideways for about 60 yards so I told him to reel it in, it was a 9 pound Turd Roller, it never even wiggled till it saw the boat. Soon after we had a similar hit and Ron reeled in this Bass. How long do you thing the Bass is? I had him hold it all the way out, it might have been 8 inches at best. Bob is pictured holding a citation Crappie, he had never caught one that large before, and still hasn't. I caught it in the net and tossed it to him to catch so he could say he had caught one that big, but he fumbled and dropped it. That's it, 4 strikes all day, no fish but a lot of fun. All fish were released except for the Striper, Paul wanted to take it home and feed his family, they are going to have a feast tonight!

Jeanne

September 23rd, 2009: Sunny and warm, Water temperature 78* and clear.

Finally got my new Lowrance HDS8 yesterday, installed it and went out playing today. I spent about 6 hours on the big motor learning the features and playing with different screens. After I got completely dialed in I called my wife and invited her out for a couple hours, went and caught bait and met her at the dock a little after 12. I told her we were going to fish someplace that I haven't fished to try to locate some fish for my clients the rest of the week. I put out 15 lines and pulled a 2 mile stretch , working from 2 foot of water out to 45 foot. We had 7 hook-ups and all the fish were about the same size, not bad for the heat of the day. Jeanne is pictured holding a couple of the fish she caught, We released all the fish, hopefully they will live to fight another day.

Joey and Patty

September 18th, 2009: Cloudy and Pleasant, Water Temperature 76* and Clear.

Left the marina at 5:45 and headed to where I caught bait yesterday. Someone had already beat me to the spot but it did not matter, there was no bait there or anywhere within 500 yards of the place. To make a Long story short, we looked and threw for the next 4 hours and only caught 8 baits! At 10 I needed a break so we put the baits out in a bay and pulled it for 45 minutes, boating 2. The sun was trying to peek out so we got the baits in and went looking for more bait. At 2:15 we had caught only a dozen more so we went to where I found fish yesterday and put our spread out. We worked the area for a couple hours and boated 5 more Stripers. Since bait was so hard and I felt so bad about the limited time we fished I stayed out longer than normal and didn't come in till 4:30. Joey and Patty were happy and thrilled with the day but I surely was pretty bummed out. I actually threw for bait for 7 hours today, ruined 1 net and tore the braille lines on a brand new net. I knew we could catch nice fish but we could not find bait anywhere. We limped in to the marina , my gas needle was almost a quarter inch past empty! My gas tank holds 25 gallons and I put 26 gallons in it at the end of the day.

On a brighter note, when I got home my wife Jeanne came running out of the house with some great news, she had just heard from her Doctors that her Biopsy on her Lymph Glands came back negative! All of our prayers have been answered, for the time being she is cancer free!

Many thanks to everyone who has prayed for her and helped up through this ordeal.

Ben and Allen

September 17th, 2009: Cloudy and cool, Water Temperature 77* and Clear.

I have been off the water for a few weeks, my wife was diagnosed with Melanoma recently so I decided to take some time off to spend with her. We have been busy with numerous test and she finally was able to have her operation on the 9th and is recovering now. We are still waiting for results from a biopsy and praying we will get some good news soon. I would like to thank all of you who have missed my posts and emailed me inquiring about me not fishing lately.Your thoughts and prayers were very welcome.

I wanted to get out today and locate some bait and fish for my clients tomorrow so I met my friends Bob and Allen at the marina before light and started cruising the lake. I checked most of the creeks and coves for fish and bait and ran all the way uplake to check for bait. By 9:15 I had still not caught any bait so we made a long run back down lake and pounded an area where we knew we could catch bait and by 10 we were ready to fish. We had seen some Stripers earlier below Hunters so we set up a spread of 9 boards, a bobber and 5 downlines and pulled about a mile exploring different depths. After more than an hour we had nothing to show for our efforts so I made a move. We ran to the back of a creek and put out the spread again and after another hour we had had a few boils but no hook-ups. Then we hit a stretch of water and everything on the shallow side went off. We continued to check out other areas catching fish on the same pattern. The east wind probably did not help much today but I am confident about fishing tomorrow. The guys only wanted to keep 3 fish so they kept the first 3 they caught but had to keep one additional one because it was hooked deep and probably would not live. We took pictures of 2 of the larger fish and released them along with numerous others.