A day of Practice

Cloudy and warm, Water Temperature 74* uplake, 78* midlake and 81* at the dam.

I have not been on the water lately [ earthquakes, aftershocks, hurricanes and tropical storms, etc] so I got out on the water this morning at 3am to check the lake out and to locate bait and fish for my next clients. I looked for bait the first part of the morning and also went all the way up lake to see the condition of the water. The left side is muddy above Christopher but fishable below Holliday Mill bridge. The other side is not as muddy, very fishable from Henry's down. Coolest water was 74* on both sides. I looked till 10 then decided to fish a little so I ran some areas that I thought would hold some nice fish. I had no interest in fishing for punks so I stayed away from scholling fish. The first area I pulled I had 4 hook ups in about 300 yards and after a guy in a Bass boat cut me off I pulled my baits in, caught some more bait and relocated to a similar pattern. I only put out 8 lines because I was by myself and I thought I could handle the action but I ended up busting my butt trying to keep up with the fish. Once I caught a fish I did not rebait because I did not want to hurt the pattern I was on. After catching 5 Stripers over a 200 yard area I got my remaining lines in and moved again. Had to try the same pattern a couple miles away from the last place and yup, same deal, caught more Stripers and an eleven pound Catfish. By now it was after 1 o'clock so I emptied my bait tank and went home. I released all the Stripers I caught and all of them swam away fine. I only put a couple of the pictures up to show the varied conditions of the fish. A third of the fish were very healthy [mainly the fish over 25"], a third had a sore on their sides and the remaining third had concave bellies, obvious they had not been feeding. Overall I think all the rain has helped the lake lowering the water temperature somewhat but replenishing the oxygen that it so badly needed.