Labor Day trip with Jonathan was a “rough ride”

Went out with Jonathan today to get him back to the mindset of fishing. He’s been going to school for almost a month now and with our Funfest Striper tournament coming up this Saturday, I wanted to make sure he still knew how to reel in a fish! Fortunately he got some practice even though the lake was as packed as I’ve seen it all year. The boats were out big time along with 3-4 foot waves throwing us around non stop. Still we fared well all things considered boating 8 and missing a few that weren’t taking the lure hard but instead just pecking at it. When this happens you’ll get a lot of “nibbles” that don’t stick when trolling and we had at least 4-5 which is a lot in one day.

We started moving across Lanier around 9:00 AM and the boats were already up and mobile. To add motion to the already tumultuous water, there was a strong Northeast wind that wouldn’t let up. We had 1-2 footers across the main lake when we first got out which swelled to 3-4 footers in the PM. I counted over 10 monster cabin cruisers and half a dozen speed boats ripping it up in the afternoon. The net effect of all this surface interference was to scatter the fish in the water column. What little schools we did see were hard to keep on the sonar screen due to all the rocking and rolling we were doing at the surface. I was actually able to find fish as we traversed and the boat was fairly flat but as soon as I’d stop, I’d start rolling side to side and loose them. I just couldn’t keep the boat centered and still over them and this made down jigging tough since we didn’t know if  we were over them or not.

In the end patience and diligence won out. I kept trying and was able to hook a fish here and there. The first was in the mouth of 4 mile over a small school. It was a fat 8 lb’er and was boated around 11:00. At noon we got our second at Shady Grove and the rest of the fish were caught from the mouth of  Young Deer out to the channel. The good news is that we saw fish out in the channel, really deep, and I was able to toll some as well. I even got a bite while trolling the monster Cisco Kid but it wasn’t meant to be. After taking drag for 3-4 seconds, he fell off. I intend on trying this lure more during the week as it gets deep and I’m hoping I can get on a ‘big fish” pattern prior to the tournament. If this works it would really help our odds in the “total length” department since the winners will be judged on overall length.

In summary, the fishing was decent considering the lake was packed. It’s days like this that make me really appreciate being able to go out during the week Here is Jonathan sporting the big fish of the day; a long and lean 12 lb’er.