Roger and Bob

November 19th, 2009: Cloudy,Windy, Rain and Hail, Water temperature 55* and clear.
Got out early and hung a lantern for bait. Caught all I needed in a few throws , went back to pick up my light and the top on my boat hit the bottom of the bridge, creating a slight tear over the rail support. Seems the lake rose over the hour I was there this morning. Picked the guys up at 6:30 and went fishing. Before I could get my spread out the board closest to the bank went off and Roger grabbed it, fought it well and we boated the fish. I continued to put the baits out till I had 10 boards, a bobber and a downline in the water. We hit a flat and 4 baits got real nervous but the fish would not hook up. After a couple hours of action Roger hooked up with a nice fish while the wind was blowing and a luck would have it my trolling motor decided to break. I worked on it for a few minutes, restored power but the steering was shot so I called my wife and asked her to bring me my spare TM. I steered by hand for the next 30 minutes until she arrived. We continued to work flats, humps and points with similar results, about a third of the hits we would get would actually hook up. Anthony was also out in his boat today and was having the same results until he called me on the radio and said "You better get prepared, I am getting pounded over here, with Hail!" Two minutes later it hit us and the storm was quite impressive. Wind and marble size hail rocked us for 15 minutes, thank God I had put the top on the boat this morning. Anthony called back and said that all the bait and fish had gone straight to the bottom of the lake. We could only imagine what that storm would have looked like from a fish's perspective, looking up and seeing and hearing the hail hit the water. Within 2 minutes the lake was white. We continued fishing until 12:30 , I was out of bait, we had gone through 35 baits so we decided to go catch more. Within 30 minutes I caught 28 more and set up in a different area. The leaves were so bad today from the lake rising and the water pulling the leaves off the bank every minute of the day I was constantly shaking leaves off my planner boards. We fished till we had all had enough and decided to call it a day, and what a day it was. Not only was the day very eventful, we were all in good company, had a lot of fun and the fishing was Great. The few mini fronts that blew through today stalled the fishing temporarily but it wasn't long before it would pick right back up. Roger is shown holding a nice Striper he wrestled in the boat. We caught and released some very nice Stripers today, the guys keeping a limit to take home.