First Cast Curse, Yough Dam

[S Hovanec]

Met Lucky Craft Man at the ramp at 5:30 am.  After prepping the boat we launched and motored to out first spot a couple miles from the ramp.  I get on the trolling motor and he makes a cast.  Immediate hook-up.  I make a cast and hook up too.  First cast double!  Both were keeper smallies.  We should have ended the day there cause it was downhill after that.  We dabble around that spot a little more with dropshot and get nothing.  He grabs his topwater rod and casts towards a dock corner.  BOOM......smallie explosion.  gets it up to the boat and it hops off.  we work down along a bunch of docks and pick up a couple more little smallies.

 

Decide to run a few more miles down lake to a spot near the dam.  Here's what we run into.......at 9:35am.  The spot we left was sunny and clear.

 

We kinda have to slow down a bit, so we start watching the electronics.  Smallies or walleye?  My guess is walleye.

 

Get to another spot that typically doesn't produce all that well and he starts throwing topwater again.  We're now in 40' and BOOM, another explosion.  big mouth, green fish comes out of the water.  gone again.  I throw to the spot with a dropshot worm and let it sit.  Dead sticking it and my rod just about gets ripped out of my hand.  I'm thinking channel cat.  Get it to the boat and its a green fish.  Same one he lost?...maybe.  Get it in the boat and it's a smallie?  a really green smallie.  He has a pic of it, i do not.  Really strange markings.  We work down the shore/cliff a little more and pick up a couple more small fish.

 

Head to another spot right at the dam.  We start sight fishing for fish on the screen.  This is a pic of one I lost

 

Hit one more spot before calling it quits at 11:30.  Got a pretty nice bluegill and had a toothy critter bite me off.

 

Got off the lake before we got overrun by more azzhats.  There was a plethora of them on the lake today.

 

[OntarioFishingGuy]

Sounds exciting. You sure your sonar wasn't on simulator mode?

[F14A-B]

Interesting , it would be cool to see that green smallie, I have caught them in small rivers, a long time ago... Cool post!

[S Hovanec]

It doesn't look as green in the pic as it really was.

I don't know what the goofy expression on my face was all about either?

[Dwight Hottle]

Sounds like a fun trip.

[Lucky Craft Man]

There were many firsts for me on this trip.  Here is a list of things I never experienced before that day.

 

- First cast of the day double (after that, we thought we were going to light it up, which, as Scott mentioned, didn't happen)

 

- A Topwater Strike that sounded like a Beaver Smacking it's tail against the water (combine a mirror flat water surface, with a lake in a deep quiet valley, and a Smallmouth that was geared to kill and you will hear the loudest topwater strike of your life.  It actually startled me it was so loud). 

 

- Catching a fish off the electronic screen (for those of you who have never down this, you don't know what you are missing.  I saw a fish arc in 25 ft. of water holding on a little hump and I dropped my drop shot straight down, which I saw fall on the screen.  that little arc moved up to my line and next thing I felt was a light tap.  Fish On!.  That was just awesome!)

 

- A green looking Smallmouth with a larger than usual mouth (that picture really doesn't do that fishes true color any justice. This was a green looking fish)

 

- A motor boat towing a water skier with a death wish (we saw a boat going about 35 mph towing a going on water skis squeeze between a slowly moving pontoon boat and a parked boat on a dock.  There was not more than 25 ft. between the two.  The wake rocked the hell out of that pontoon boat putting along.  There was plenty of room for that motor boat to go on the outside of the pontoon, but they just wanted to squeeze in there I guess.  Pretty ignorant, if you ask me, but I am not a water skier and maybe the reality of their world is a little different)

 

 

Overall is was a good time on the water.  Thanks again Scott for the invite.