Fairtax4me

Ever have a day when you feel like something is telling you to just stay at home and NOT go fishing? Either you feel like the fishing might be whack, or you just want to catch some fish but quickly realize things just are NOT going to go in your favor? I had TWO of those days last week. Last Thursday it was hot here. Our first week this year with full on summer time 90+ degree temps. I got off work a little late and wanted to jump in the river and do some wading and catch some smallmouth to cool off and relax a bit. About 6:30 i'm in the water and start fishing. Within 5 casts I snag on something and break off. I mean instantly break off, my knot broke like it was glass. Re-tie. Coupe casts later there's a bite, and some drag pull. Line goes slack and I reel in a broken hook. I'm using an ULTRALITE, How does that even happen!?? Re-tie... Stuck again. At least get the lure back this time. A few casts later another bite. Decent fish, shakes off about 5 seconds later. Next cast, another fish, drag pulls for a half second then line goes slack. Broke off AGAIN at my knot. The same knot I've been tying for YEARS now because it doesn't "just break". At this point the universe is telling me something right? I go probably 15 minutes without a bite, and then I cast into a calm pocket behind a rock. Feel a thump and set the hook almost immediately. Drag starts screaming and I see an almost 4lb smallmouth go airborn right after! Sweet, maybe this trip actually paid off! Fight the fish through current and have to chase it down stream almost 100 yards then finally get it close enough to lip it and I notice it's bleeding... BAD bleeding. I grab it and find my hook buried in the crutch of it's gills at the base of it's tongue. I get the hook out as quick as I can and then tried to release the fish and it just went belly up immediately. Grab it and hold it upright in the edge of a current stream to try to keep fresh water moving over it's gills and it takes off twice and tries to swim off, but both times it shortly goes belly up again. After about 5 minutes of holding it, it finally quivers a few times and then I see the gills stop pulsing and it's fins go limp. This was a nice fish for this river, and it just died in my hands. Should have listened after the first ten minutes and just gone home. Now this little afternoon fishing trip is totally ruined. I've hooked fish in bad spots plenty of times before, and killed quite a few that way, it's part of the game when you're fishing. It happens and you just deal with it. Most of the time, it can be justified, or at least it's a small fish and you tell yourself it wouldn't have survived anyway right? Give it a "sorry buddy" and send it to the catfish for dinner. But this one I'll remember for a while, partly because I already had the feeling like I should just quit fishing while the quitting was good. And partly because I know there's at least two other fish swimming around with my hooks possibly stuck in them. Fast forward to Sunday. Have a trip planned with my fishing buddy to hit the lake at sunrise. That means leaving my place at 3:45 am and being on the road leaving his place by 4:30. Leaving the house and my car won't start. Battery is great, it's cranking strong, just no fire. Dunno what it's deal is, so I toss everything in my truck which is harder to put my gear in than my Subaru, but at least it starts. Now running 20 minutes late because of having to move everything over and strap the kayak down in the bed. I get 5 minutes from my buddies house and it starts pouring down rain. Weather said 0% chance of rain on this beautiful 80° Sunday. Turns out, it's only raining at my buddies house. No rain anywhere else on the weather radar within 300 miles! Just here. So we strap my kayak to his trailer in the rain and head for the lake. We had decided before to put in at a small access point that's way up-lake from the boat ramp that has been VERY busy the last few months. We've put in here before and it was a breeze and cuts off over a mile and a half of paddling to get to where we wanted to fish anyway. Driving down the road to the access point and there's a tree down across the road about 1/2 mile from the lake. No way around it, no pushing it out of the way (it was huge). We manage to turn around and head for the boat ramp. It's now well after sunrise, and the parking lot is filling up quick. We get unloaded and get on the water and start fishing. Different game plan now since the upper end of the lake where we wanted to fish is now a LONG paddle to get there. We float around out in the main part of the lake with 2 dozen other boats for the next 5 hours. I miss one fish on a crank bait. Only bite I got in 5 hours. Now it's blazing hot out, and we decide to just call it. Once again, should have stayed home! Good thing is, it will only go up from here! Next trip is gonna be stellar! I know this probably looks like a book, but this is the condensed version... Thanks for reading, and if you made it this far, and if you have a similar story (or stories) share them!

Ned rigs get stuck. But there are plenty of weedless options out there now which I always fish. Can't keep an open hook ned jig around here. Too many sticks and junk to get them stuck in. That said, I purposefully throw ned rigs around brush and stumps to catch fish, because all I fish are ned head jigs with a weed guard. It doesn't completely prevent them getting stuck,but it does make a huge difference, and there have been plenty of days where I lose 3 or 4 hooks in a couple casts, but there are more days where I fish the same hook all day long and catch fish on the same hook multiple days. Another big thing with ned rig fishing is having a quality sensitive rod and braided line to a flouro leader. The more you can feel the bait with the rod/line, the less you get stuck. Often in dirty/stained water I fish a ned rig on straight braid, but if the water is really clean/clear you need a leader of at least a couple feet. For fishing lay downs, I find that a small bullet weight (1/4oz or less) with a tight rubber bobber stop on the line can make all the difference. Fishing larger line also helps with sensitivity, so you can better feel what the lure is doing and if just bumped up against a stick or if that was a fish picking it up. It also makes a huge difference if the lure does get stuck because you can sometimes either break off the stick that you're stuck on, or pull hard enough to pull the hook out. There is also a big advantage to tying the right knot. Tying a palomar knot on 10lb flouro it will break pretty quick. Tie the same knot on 40lb braid and try to break that one. Don't get discouraged by stuck lures, change your presentation up and find the better way to fish those spots without getting stuck. Use a lighter weight, or a heavier line, or a lighter wire hook that can bend out if you pull it hard enough and get it unstuck from the debris it's on. A texas rigged weightless senko is almost impossible to get stuck unless you set the hook on the tree.

And they say tiny baits won't catch big fish... Nice one man! Ned has got me several bass in the 6lb range the last couple years. It's just a matter of getting that bait in front of the fish, and eventually that fish will be a giant.

With all the hubbub about the virus I've found a lot of the lakes I frequent have been much busier with pleasure seekers lately. Yesterday I went to a local lake that normally doesn't have many people, and is only open to certain recreational uses, mainly fishing. It's a small lake with an Electric Only (No Gas Motors) restriction so pleasure boating is normally not a frequent occurrence, and kayakers generally are fishing. Hardly ever see anyone there that's just out for an afternoon paddle. It's only a 50 acre lake which means it only takes about 20 minutes to cover the entire thing and most pleasure paddlers don't find enough pleasure in that. Yesterday was the busiest I have even seen this lake, and it wasn't even a warm day. Sunny, high of 60°, and 15mph winds with gusts to 25. There were 14 vehicles in the parking lot, two had boat trailers and they were both people I know that frequent the lake because like me, they live less than ten minutes away. The rest were pleasure kayakers and about a dozen kids that they had drug along to get them out of the house for an afternoon! Not to say I blame them. Problem is, none of them went more than 100 yards from the ramp! So there was literally 25 people on kayaks packed into an area not much bigger than an olympic sized swimming pool. One of the kids flipped his kayak and fell in, started crying, and dad jumped off the dock at the boat ramp and swam the 50 feet or so over to the kid to rescue him. He had a life jacket on, and he was perfectly fine once he was back on dry land, but I guess when you're 6 years old and never flipped a boat before it is a little scary to be in muddy water and not able to reach the bottom. Then the flipped over kayak was just floating out toward the middle of the lake. Mom tried to retrieve it, unsuccessfully. So I offered to help once I got my kayak in the water. Got theirs rolled back over shiny side up and got it pulled back to the bank next to the dock. While none of the other twits there could even offer to help to the kid, much less grab the kayak to keep it from floating away. Social distancing leading to social #8$%-waderry? or maybe they're just turd munchers in general. Either way, kid and float-away kayak situation dealt with, I run the gauntlet of fake "social distancers" who are all too close to each other anyway, and head out for the far end of the lake to find some fish, and some quiet, which is what I went there for. Crappie were suspended everywhere. Bass were not. Caught probably 15 crappie just jigging a small grub lure 5-6 feet under the kayak. Every time I would stop in a spot to fish bass the crappie would swim up under the kayak and I'd drop the lure over the side and a few seconds later reel one up! Fun to catch, and it breaks up the sometimes monotony of bass fishing on a pressured lake. Caught a few small bass and missed a couple bites but I quickly figured out a few key areas that were holding fish, and just had to make the rounds and hit each of those similar spots around the lake. Finally the trip paid off right before sunset, with a nearly 22" 5.2lb largemouth. She was skinny, post-spawn and waiting on a small point for some unsuspecting trick worm to fall in front of her. Her problem was that trick worm was tied to my 50lb braid, and once I set the hook she wasn't getting away. Had a good day, just hoping next time there will be a few less people on my used-to-been secret muddy honey hole.

I love the cold weather fishing as long as it’s above 32°F. If there’s ice on my guides and my reel I lose my patience and have to give it up. Most of the time I’m the Only person on the lake, and I have found a knack the last couple years for finding where the fish are when it’s cold. And it’s usually not where I’ve always been told/heard from other people that they should be. They might not always want to eat at first, but if you wiggle a worm in front of them just right for long enough they just can’t help themselves. Dink’s to giants, they can’t ignore an easy meal when the water is cold. That said, I do love spring when the weather warms up and I can get back to using moving baits and don’t have to wear ten layers and carry hand warmers.

You guys may not have as much to worry about right now as we do, but please do not take this virus for granted! The shads hitting the fan here and in a lot of major cities across the US, and it’s not gonna be pretty for us or the rest of the world. Not the thread for this topic I know, so enough [/offtopic], back to the fishes!!

That’s awesome man thanks! I’ll be sure to give you a shout next time I’m down that way. Time-line for that at this point... who knows. Hope you guys are staying safe and practicing your “social distancing” out there! Around here my fishing has been kinda dismal the last few weeks. Fronts and cold and hot, then almost snow, then about 1.5” of rain the last few days, fish are all over, but are pulling up almost ready to spawn! Finally got on some bigguns today after work! 5-1/2lbs that went 22” and a 4-1/2lbs around 20”. Only caught three fish in three hours and they were on brush around 5-8feet just out from shallower areas. The other one was a serious dink, but hungry enough to eat the same jig these big girls fell for.

I visited the Cherokee area for the first time back in October. Beautiful area down there, I didn’t want to leave! Fishing for trout while I was there, but I whooped on them so bad I got tired of them! Had a couple rainy days while I was there and made a trip to see the dam at Fontana just because. Hoping to find a guide down that way next fall and chase after some lake monsters!

Well for the last month or so my fishing has resulted in only a dink here and there. Lucky to get one bite. But a recent warming trend has finally woken up the big girls, and they’re ready to eat... Got some new rattle traps in spring colors and put them to work today, after I got off work. I can say that at least one works! Little football grabbed it around 10 feet on the bottom. Crappie tail sticking out of its throat and it still wanted the bluegill trap for desert! 3lb fish with a 5lb gut! 5.7 and a 5.2 in the dark! Both around 21”

That’s a hawg! Congrats to Mr. Martines!

Very much so. The bass in that particular lake are almost always “washed out” and have very little marking, especially the smaller bass, which can sometimes be completely silver with only a hint of difference in color on the back and lateral line. Hard to tell in photos but this bass was lighter to the eye than it appears. The water in this lake this year has been unusually clean, so the bass have started to take on darker colors than they usually have. Ive often wondered in late fall going into early winter how the colder rain affects lake temperatures. Logic says the cooler water should flow in and fall to the bottom. But I’ve also wondered if the water becomes stratified where there are layers of 80° surface, 70° in 20-40 feet , 60° somewhere in between. I know that when it starts to get very deep 60ft+ water temp tends to stay at a certain temp no matter what time of year or what temp inflowing water is, but it also tends to have very low oxygen levels so bass won’t typically spend any time there.

Been learned a few times. Haven’t learned yet! Feb 25 2017 I was bank fishing a local reservoir. It was a warm day, mid 70s partly cloudy, and from what I remember a “chance of rain”. A little after noon I was almost a 2 mile hike around to the far end of the lake out on a long point. The point drops off to very deep water at the end, and at the time was not a heavily fished spot, but was still accessible through the briars and locust trees if you made the effort. That’s when I heard the first rumble. Maybe it was a truck? A few minutes later I hear it again. There’s a mountain behind me to the southwest, where the rumble came from, so I can’t see anything in the sky beyond that. Try to check the local radar on the weather app and of course, I have no signal. Decide I should probably heed warning and head for the parking lot. At best this would be a 35 minute walk, but I have gear, rods, there’s several downed trees I have to jump over, and the trail back to the parking lot is not exactly a direct walk around and over two mountain ridges. Thunder keeps getting louder, and now I can see over the trees the dark clouds are moving in... fast! The wind starts picking up, and I’m less than halfway and now in the woods. Tree tops start whipping in the wind, there’s lighting getting closer, and now the rain starts to fall. Light at first, but cold, and I don’t have my rain jacket, because I wasn’t “expecting rain”. Im hustling at this point, but you can only move so fast on a leaf covered trail in the woods, with 3 rods and a backpack, and things getting wet, and trying to keep an eye up for falling tree limbs. The wind is whipping now, and the rain is picking up. I make it to the emergency spillway where I can see out across the lake, and the wall of heaviest rain is not far behind me and moving my direction! Another 3 minutes I’m through the last section of woods and out into the open crossing the long dam to get to the parking area on the other side. The rain is driving Hard at this point, and winds are probably 30-40mph gusts. I’m soaked from head to foot, and then I start to hear clicking on the gravel, and feel the sting of suddenly MUCH colder rain. Hail starts pelting me in the shoulder, arms, back of my legs, and neck. Not large hail thankfully, but pea sized and a few stones up to about the size of dimes. I’m in the middle of nothing, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, so I put my hand over my hat to keep it from blowing away and keep on trucking. I’m about 300 yards from my car at this point, I just wanna get there. The rain is Freezing cold, it’s a complete deluge, wind is whipping tree tops every direction. I make it to the car and drop all my gear on the ground and just hop in and shut the door. Start the car and turn the heat on because I’m shivering, despite the 2 mile marathon I just ran. It’s now 1:20, and I have a stack of paper napkins in the glove compartment I’m using to dry off my hand and my phone to take this picture. The rain continues for another 15-20 minutes, and finally eases off so I can get out, shake off my gear and get it put away in the car. I strip down to my boxer shorts and drive home to get a hot shower and then spread out all the fishing gear from my backpack to let it dry. I caught one bass. It was worth it!

Interesting subject and thanks for taking observations. This is something I’ve been slightly paying attention to the last few months as well. We’ve had several moderate rains that at first kept most smaller lake temps in the low to mid 40° range. (Vs falling into the upper or mid 30s due to overnight temps during the same time period) Last week we had a night of heavy rainfall, around 1-1/2 to 2”. Several of the smaller lakes I normally fish were in the low to mid 40s surface temp. Knowing that many of them would soon be full of mud I went to one of the smallest which is fed by a somewhat large creek, and normally this lake stays pretty muddy. Over the course of the previous several weeks the water had cleared considerably with groundwater inflow, and only a few light rains. I fished here about two weeks ago and water temp was around 41° with visibility about 2-1/2 to 3 feet. I decided to fish here the next morning which was only a few hours after the rain stopped. The bulk of the rain had come in about midnight, and I put on the water around 10am. There was a very clean cut line between cold clean water, and warm muddy water that was flowing in and down the spillway of the dam. The “cove” at the bottom end of the lake was still very clean. Approx 4ft of visibility, and water surface temp was 39°. In the muddy water that was coming in, water temp was 45°, and visibility less than 6”. This is the best photo I have showing the demarcation line between warm muddy and cold clear(ish) water. I also noted that in the cold water fish marks were on or very near the bottom anywhere from 10-18 feet down (18’ being the deepest point in this lake). But in the warmer water I marked baitfish and bass as shallow as 3 feet and as deep as 16ft, but all were suspended in the much warmer water. Nothing would eat, spent 4-5 hours fishing various different lures without a bite.

Cold. Post front (again) post 1.5” of rain. I was anchored on a point with 5-10mph winds and gusts to 15-20 drifting me side to side. Sat there about 20 minutes fishing painfully slow on the bottom because that’s the only place I’ve marked anything yet. Bait seem to be between 8-15 feet and that’s where I was casting to, working back up to 10 feet right below the kayak. I started seeing a different looking “spot” on the sonar dead smack on the bottom. Drift left, there’s the spot, drift back right, there it is again. Went this way for about 15 minutes more. Probably drifted over this “weird spot” 10 times every time the wind would gust a different direction. Then I float across it again and this time the “spot” had moved Up! Just a little... For the past three months or so I’ve kept a crappie jig tied on the ultralite whenever I’m out on the kayak so I can drop into schools and pick off a couple crappie here and there. It’s like playing the lotto though because you never know what you’re gonna get. Sometimes it’s crappie, sometimes a big bluegill, every now and then it’s a bass, but usually tiny. Drop the crappie jig over the side and let it slowly fall down to about 8 feet. Drift back over the spot, and sure enough the spot starts to come up off the bottom more! Sweet! Play the dangle game on the video screen and watch the mark getting bigger, and bigger, then there’s white space under it and it’s coming up toward the line from my jig... The tiniest almost imperceptible “tunk” on the line. I fish 8lb braid to a 6 foot 6lb floro leader on this rod, so bites are normally obvious, but not this one. Had to think about it for a second and really watch the end of the rod, then felt a little bit of a pull back down. Rip the rod up and the poor thing does a 180° U bend and the tip goes for the water and the drag starts screaming! I know what it is at this point, but don’t know how big it is yet. I also know it doesn’t want to come to the surface. It slowly swims a few circles under the kayak as I make a turn of the reel handle every now and then and wait. I reach for the net, yawn, wait some more, it’s finally coming up, then another drag rip and it runs back down to the bottom. Wait some more, swim another circle, wait some more... Felt like an eternity but was probably only 45 seconds. Short fat 4.5lb bass at 18” One for the day!

Only got one today worth taking a pic of. 68° full bluebird post-front sunny, steady 10-15mph wind out of the southwest. We got a ton of rain last night that brought water temp up a fair amount so bass were suspended but apparently they weren’t interested in eating. spent some time with a fluke, Ned rig, and blade bait working around bait schools and only managed to pick off 3 dinks with the ned. Put on a rapala deep diving jerkbait and first cast caught this 2lber, which was my biggest of the day. Hit it like a freight train after about a ten second pause and twitch. Spent another hour working jerkbait super slow after that and got nil.