Well FUNFEST 2011 was held this past Saturday, September 17th, and though the fishing was slow “the show must go on”! This is the third year of the event and like last year, we had 60 boats competing. Jonathan, Rick, Doug and myself started bright and early Saturday morning and though we didn’t have high expectations, I knew we’d boat a few. The question was would they big enough to matter?
Since Doug has been fishing up north, he didn’t know where to start or look. I had spent a few days scouting and knew where to find some fish and sure enough, we started marking a few on the graph right away. Unfortunately they weren’t ready to bite. Finally at 9:00 AM we got our first bite as Doug hooked one in the mouth of Big Creek on live blue back herring. It measured just 27 1/4″ which is tiny compared to what we normally catch but based on how bad it’s been, we knew it was a good fish.
But then it got real tough. We were able to find fish from Big Creek to the dam but could not get the first bite. As the clock was ticking and 2:00 PM was fast approaching, it didn’t look like we’d even boat two fish let alone do well in the standings. At 1:40, I decided to put the trolling rods out and hope that at least one fish would see our offering and take a bite. That decision turned out to be a good move…
Just 5 minutes into the troll, we got a bite! FISH ON!! And as often times happens when we get one while trolling, the second rod got a bite while Rick was reeling it in! Five minutes later two fish were boated and with just minutes to spare, I was able to take a picture and send our second fish photo to the tournament headquarters before the clock struck 2:00 PM!!
Our second fish was just 28 1/4″ so that put our total at just 55 1/2″. With such a poor outing, we didn’t expect to be high in the standings. Remember, we won this thing last year with 72 1/2″ so we were 15″ short of last years production. Still, we felt two fish would put us in the top ten and boy am I glad we went to the closing ceremonies!
So how did we do? We took SECOND PLACE!! Yeah, we didn’t win but we were close! Here is a brief summary of how everyone faired that competed:
- Of the 60 boats that entered, only 28 caught a fish. Last year 45 of the 60 caught fish.
- Awards were given out for the top 20 finishers and the boat in 20th place caught one 19″ fish
- Boats 11-20 in the rankings only caught one fish; only the top 10 caught 2 or more fish on the day!
Here’s Jonathan and I smiling with our second place finish.
Hit the lake today with Rick and Nick and once again the three Musketeers had a strong day. We finished up with 15 boated; several of these fish were 15 lb’s or larger including two 18 lb’ers and 1 that may have been over 20 lbs. We’ll never the know the exact weight of that fish (nor will we have a picture) since Nick and Rick decided to let it go “prematurely”. In other words, they dropped it back into the lake before we could get anything official on the camera or the scales!
Overall the day was much like it’s been; the fish were scattered throughout the water column and though we weren’t able to get over any big schools, we were able to manage bites when dropping lures to the ones we did see. Trolling accounted for 50% of the fish we boated and my strategy of “trolling first” and then jigging once we hooked a fish paid off with several hook ups following the retrieve of the trolled fish.
In the end the boys and I had a great day on the lake with moderate heat and lots of action. Here’s the Captain holding an nice and healthy 18 lb Lake Lanier Striper.
Nick, Rick and I hit the lake again this past Thursday and had a decent day. The bite is no doubt slowing as we approach the full moon that’s about to hit Saturday the 13th. I fully expected our day to have a limited window of opportunity and I was right. My Striper instincts said we’d have the best shot sometime between 3-7 and I was right. We found fish immediately and as it turned out, we were lucky we did! The first fish came on a shallow spoon trolled over the trees out in the front of Big Creek.
We then spotted a few fish on the graph and decided to try jigging. This turned out to be the right move with Rick getting a quick hook up. After that it was rough for Rick and Nick. For some reason they couldn’t buy a bite! From 4:00 to 5:00 I was the only one the Stripers were interested in “hooking up” with and during this time I boated 6. All the fish came on a light St. Croix rod vertically jigging a Capt. Mack’s bucktail. They were all over this bait and every fish but one was over 10 lbs.
Unfortunately all my “catching” got the eye of several boats out over the channel. One by one they filtered over trying to cash in on our honey hole. We saw two fish caught once the boats arrived and then it was over. When we left there were 6 other boats in our wake. I knew several of these guys and they told me the day had been rough so they were in “desperate” mode. That being said, we only saw 2 fish boated by the flotilla so clearly we got the lions share of what little action was available.
From 5:00 to 7:00 we scoured the lake looking for more action but it wasn’t to be. I expect Friday through till next week might be a tough time on the lake till this moon phase passes but then once we get past it, things should improve. I fully expect some of the best fishing is yet to arrive and from next week on we should see some excellent catches on Lanier for at least the next 4-6 weeks.
Hit the lake with Rick and Nick. I fully expected the bite to be late in the day but we started around noon just in case. Overall fishing was very slow until 5:00. We looked everywhere but it was like the lake was empty! After 5 hours we had nothing to show for our effort but my three bites and three fish to the boat including this 15 lb’er:
At 5:00 PM it apparently became dinner time for the Stripes. While trolling we marked a few fish here and there but after stopping and trying to jig them, we quickly learned these fish were hungry! From 5:00 to 7:00 we boated 10 fish ranging in size from 8 lbs all the way up to Nicks 23 lb Monster!
Rick and I hit the lake for a late PM trip and it paid some big dividends. As expected, the fish were “on” from 5:00 to 7:00 and we boated 16 during a 1.5 hour run. The big fish of the day was a 16 lb’er that hit my small swim bait. Silver spoons, hopkins and small Daredevils were also producing. Five fish were trolled and eleven jigged so overall we did well.
No doubt the fishing was better today since we put decent numbers on the boat in a short time span. But we still didn’t see any major schooling. In fact, the schools we saw weren’t as large as some we saw Tuesday. The big difference is that today the fish were hungry and more ready to eat.