Monday August 16th, 2010

Hit the lake for a “solo” trip to see if there has been any movement of the fish from their recent haunts. I noted they were moving quite a bit at the end of last week and I’m hoping they’re thinking about coming out of the trees. Typically we’re seeing a lot more of them out in the open by now in the summer but 2010 has been anything but typical. At this point we’re still catching them in shallow water, suspended just in and over the trees, which makes for some difficult jigging and/or trolling. Snags abound and it can get frustrating and costly when you have to fish the trees all day long.

I started around noon and didn’t expect much activity. After speaking to Doug, it appeared as though the best bite was early in the morning. Still I decided to fish different water to see if I could find any hungry fish out and about. My first stop was Young Deer and it held fish way in the back. They were moving shallow, up in some 30 foot water and close to a dock, and they were constantly moving. Doug said he caught them hard earlier in the morning and I could tell they were fished out. Still I tried and after 45 minutes, I only had three to the boat. I saw plenty of fish but they just weren’t biting.

At that point I ventured out to the mouth of YD and spied several out in open water. On my first cast I hooked one down deep, in 100 feet of water, and it was a nice 12 lb’er with plenty of kick. I picked up a couple more fish in the next hour before moving out to the channel. There I found some more and boated 2 while heading toward cocktail cove.

In front of the CC, I started to note some decent bait pods and sure enough, I got a hookup while trolling. This fish was big, around 12 lbs, and underneath it I saw more gathering so I dropped my silver spoon. On my first cast I hooked up and boated a fish I thought to be 15-16 lbs but it looked really fat. After putting it on the boga, I found out it was over 18 lbs! Definitely a fatty and while holding it she started squeezing out some old eggs that were definitely “bad”.

Between CC and the Sisters I picked up another two fish so I ended the day with 10. The good news is the fish are clearly moving out to the channel and deeper water. I bet we’ll start seeing them in all the regular summer spots from now on and hopefully away from the trees!