Greg and Ed Whitlock

January 14th, 2010: Sunny and the warmest day of the year so far, Water Temperature 43* and Clear.
Anthony got out early this morning and hung lights for bait, caught his bait and when I pulled up in the boat he threw a few times and I was on my way with a tank of bait. He and I had crews loaded on our boats before daylight and were setting planner boards out at the crack of Dawn. I wanted to get out a dozen boards and a bobber before the action started but got interrupted by a couple Stripers. We were fortunate enough to have everything ready by the time I hit the area where I thought the Stripers would be feeding. Anthony was rushing to do the same thing and he followed me in about 500 yards behind me. Next thing we knew planner boards were getting smashed, people were skating around the boat [the deck had some ice on it], I was netting fish and trying to keep up baiting hooks while Ed and Greg reeled the fish in and took the fish off the lines. For the first hour of the morning poor Greg did nothing but reel fish after fish in, his dad having to take occasional breaks. We looked up at Anthonys boat a few times, it looked like a bunch of worker bees working a hive, they were scurrying around the boat like us not having a moment to catch up with getting lines out. We both made 2 passes over the area and then as quickly as it started the action slowed. Right when the Stripers quit biting we noticed a acre of bait rise to the surface and start pipping, both Anthony and I knew it was over for a while, and it was. We went from 25 hits an hour down to 5 or 6. Didn't matter much, we had already kept the fish we wanted to take home and had been releasing Stripers for over an hour. Anthony and I checked out a few other areas , caught and released some more Stripers and got off the water early before too many jump fisherman got out. I had already been harassed by a guy in a pontoon boat, he had a half a mile to go around me and trolled right up on me while we were fighting a fish with his big motor. I had to yell at him to avoid my planner boards, and he knew my boat, how I fished, the amount of lines that I run and deliberately wanted to either cut me off or spook the fish I was on. I had been working the area for an hour with no other boats nearby. This is not the first time he has done this, but hopefully the last. A little courteously goes a long way, but people like him go through life never "getting it"!......I lost count how many Stripers we caught this morning but we know we released the four largest ones and about a dozen other Stripers to fight again. Still can't get over how pretty it was on the water today.