Off The Grid

[slonezp]

Never get skunked in the grocery store

 

[operationgrass]

I grew up fishing the atchafalya spillway “basin” before I moved. If you ain’t jumping or trying to to run some sketchy stuff you probably not trying to hard. 

[A-Jay]

"Off the Grid" 

Can be sort of a state of mind deal . . . . . . 

A-Jay

[Cbump]

I’ll haul my boat anywhere in the country to fish but I won’t beat It up on the water. 
Last year I pulled It to choke canyon and slept on the deck a couple nights. Just camping out and fishing. Was great

[DitchPanda]

Last year I got back into cat fishing the river. Put on some hip boots, small tackle bag, 1 rod and a small cooler for bait. Then I hike down stream and fish cut banks and tree piles along the way. Good times.

[Cbump]

17 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

Last year I got back into cat fishing the river. Put on some hip boots, small tackle bag, 1 rod and a small cooler for bait. Then I hike down stream and fish cut banks and tree piles along the way. Good times.

Sounds awesome. We used to do that in early summer. Catch a bunch of the big yellow grasshoppers and take off. Might do that with my son this year. 

[DitchPanda]

Just now, Cbump said:

Sounds awesome. We used to do that in early summer. Catch a bunch of the big yellow grasshoppers and take off. Might do that with my son this year. 

I'd recommend it. I hadn't done it in years..having basically completely focused on Bass. It took me one river wading trip to go oh yeah now I remember why I love cat fishing. Plan to do alot more of it this year.

[Jig Man]

I used to do that all the time until I could afford to not do it.  Now I require a paved ramp and a courtesy dock thank you very much.

[volzfan59]

Nothing like Keith Poche, but back in the late 80's a buddy and I launched my old jon boat into a creek with no ramp. Heck, there wasn't even a road to the creek. Backed the trailer over a 2' or 3' embankment into water and let it go. My buddy and I had a great day catching little slicks, nothing big. I remember launching like it was yesterday, couldn't tell you how we got it back on the trailer or back up and over the embankment! All I had to pull it was a 2WD Ford Ranger.

[Big Hands]

The first time I visited Lake Fork in March 1995, we found floating laydowns in several places. One cove in particular (halfway up in Birch Creek, just past the 514 bridge) had a couple hundred yards of floating laydowns similar to the ones in the pic that covered the entire cove mixed in between the still standing timber. The only way through it was up and over each of the laydowns. A popular rigging for bass boats there BITD was a hand controlled TM on a "Gator Mount" with a dimmer switch in each side of the front deck to turn the motor on and off. I would be in the back of the boat and my partner would pull the TM out just as the boat got to each log and put it back in on the other side to get as far as we could on that log, then I would come to the front to tip us over and motor off the other side. If you didn't go up and over, you weren't going anywhere.

 

Imagine a cove full of standing timber:

 

 

Mixed in with floating laydowns forming small pockets that were only two or three boat lengths across each pocket:

 

 

A full cast required you to fish through at least two or three pockets. 10" worms, lizards, and buzzbaits were the producers. Since it was my first time at the lake, I figured it would be a normal occurrence, but I have not seen anything quite like it since that trip.

 

I'd fish like that all the time if I could.

[river-rat]

On 2/18/2023 at 8:42 AM, operationgrass said:

I grew up fishing the atchafalya spillway “basin” before I moved. If you ain’t jumping or trying to to run some sketchy stuff you probably not trying to hard. 

 

 

I’ve been fishing in the Atchafalaya Basin since I was a kid (I’ll soon be 71). I’ve been known to run my bass boat in some really skinny water to get to areas that hold fish. The skeg on my outboard doesn’t have any paint left on it from running across mud flats.

 

My brother and I have an aluminum tunnel hull with a hydraulic jackplate that we use to run areas that a bass boat can’t get through. Even with this set-up you still have to be careful about where you're running.

 

The thing that you have to be most careful about are sandbars. If you run aground on a sandbar it's about the same as dropping your boat off the trailer in a parking lot. I've had to be towed off a few over the years.