Labor Day Weekend
31 Aug 2018
My apologies for no pics, that is if I haven’t put any up yet. This short week of work is beginning to look like a longer week than normal. My phone is at the house and has my pic (yep singular) on it. Anyway, I know that you come here for the educational value of the literature and not the pics anyway, so here goes.
Friday rolled around and the wife wanted to go striper fishing. We headed out late morning, I know early morning and evening are better, but how can you test your skills when it’s easy. We tend to fish according to our available schedule and this is when we appeared to have opportunity.
Catching bait was not difficult and we decided to start at the trash line (cold water line). We saw minimal but some striper activity and trolled around throwing bucktails and pulling shad. Let me say that we trolled for quite some time without getting bit. The wife doesn’t enjoy casting and retrieving too much, however, she had tied her own bucktail jig and this adds a little bit of encouragement.
The sun was baking, I should’ve looked at the temperature instead of the radar, and we had been out a bit over an hour. When the wife says ooh ooh, I have a line I’m retrieving, she’s has a line she’s retrieving, and we have a rod bent in the rod holder. I grab her rod, put mine under my arm, retriever hers quickly. I retrieve mine and look back, she is having a battle. The line is taking off and she looks defenseless (I may have had the drag a bit light). She fights for what seems to be at least a minute or two and it finally arrives at the boat. She lands a nice hybrid, man if they got as big as a striper, you would have a fight on your hands. We take a moment for a photo op, and release him to fight another day.
Now I am wanting to keep one, but here is the dilemma. I am not guaranteed a fish when I go, so I don’t want to buy a bunch of ice to put in a cooler. So my plan is to keep one as I get close to quitting fishing for the day. However, when I catch one my mind says it is now on, I release thinking it will be easy to keep one in a bit. Then reality sets in and I do not get another bite for the day. Funny how that works for me, one day I will just have to buy ice and take my chances.
We finished the day with the hybrid being our only catch, but the wife had a ball and we got to spend time together on the water, it was a great day. I headed out on Sunday afternoon to the river. If I can find the time, I’ll add it on here, so check back tomorrow sometime. Have a great week and God bless.
8-24-18
Missing Fishing
I had all the intentions of going late Friday evening and staying until or maybe even past dark. The yard (I don’t have a lawn thanks to my other interest) got mowed and I had piddled around the house. By the time 3:30 rolls around I could no longer be patient and I headed to the lake.
I launched and the mission today was to catch a striper. I caught bait rather quickly and noticed I had a little crappie jig on my line. I went into the cold water just a little ways up and made a few cast. On cast number 2 or 3, I felt a nice bump. The hook was set and drag was being pulled. I was set up for crappie and began to tighten drag. As I started to tighten I saw the silver jump into the air, it was a nice, 20+” rainbow and I got excited, the daughter likes some smoked trout. I kept fighting for about 10 more seconds and the sucker got off. This was going to be a good day.
I fished a bit more here then decided to get the shad out for the big boys. I tossed one out and put it in the rod holder. I bent over to get the other one ready and the balloon took off about 10” to the left, stopped, and then nothing. Thinking I was about to get all over some fish, I kept a going.
I went a bit closer to the bank so I could throw my jig while I was trolling and boom, I felt something. I started reeling and there it was brown, about 15” long (no pic so I can make it as long as I want). It saw the boat or me, or something, and just took off. Again I am using my light power crappie rod and I am losing the battle to this point. After about 20 seconds of fighting, I felt slack. That rascal got off also, I am at 3 fish, 2 hookups, and nothing to show for it.
As I continue on down the bank getting bites and landing a bluegill (sorry no pic, it looks like the last few I’ve caught), I am having a ball but decide to head back to my little striper honey hole. When I arrive I see a couple of blow ups from the striper, I grab my rod that I have nicknamed the beast. Allow me to get sidetracked right here but the lure rating on this swim bait rod is 5/8 to 6 oz, I’m using a 1oz swim bait I think. I can launch that thing pretty good and I throw past a blowup. I bring it to the boat and a striper around 25-30” is following. Dang I am excited.
I continue to throw, the blowups stop but I still get a few bites here and there. I don’t think it was the big boys cause they usually leave no doubt, but something maybe a trout was messing with it periodically. I fish a bit longer and decide it is probably time for supper. I load up and head to the house.
It was a great day on the water. I got to fight a couple of nice ones, I got to see a bigun’, and even landed a little feller. There was little to no traffic on the lake and the weather feels like football is close and fall is real close. I may not have landed anything big, but mercy, it was a good time. I hope you get a chance to go fish this weekend, I am hoping for a couple of days on the water myself. Good luck and God bless.
8-19-18
I had all the intentions in the world of going after them striper this weekend. The race was in town and it’s a good time to be on the water. Friday rolls around and it’s a doozy. I have difficulties that limit what I can do this day. I get this dizziness thing going on and it’s really not very safe for me to be in the water, I mean on the water, well if I went I may mean in the water. Anyway, Friday was shot and I just tied some jigs and made some homemade fluid beds for the powder paint.
Saturday I wake up and think, I sure hope they get this race run, I’d hate to see all these folks get another one delayed. It’s a gullywasher for a bit and wife and I went to a movie. I still got some residual effects from yesterday and although it was rather nice Saturday evening, I thought I had better wait. By the way, the movie and popcorn were pretty good, I’d tell you which one, but I’m probably not the best reviewer of shows you’ve ever seen. My favorite show is Psych, which a lot of folks have never heard of, but is hilarious television.
Anyway, Sunday afternoon arrives, it’s hot but I needed to wet a line. Although the striper were my intended target during the week, the game had changed and I headed to the river. I got these little jigs and I thought for sure there was something there a trout would have liked.
I filled a little box with the ammo (jigs), grabbed my spinning rod and waders, and headed to the dam. It was fairly crowded, but I found me a spot with plenty of room and numerous fish. If you are not familiar with South Holston River, I have heard that there are around 3500 trout per square mile. Honestly, they are everywhere and I thought for sure something would be encouraged to take a bite.
I ended up using about every color combo I had with me. The fish were there and I watched them follow it a ways, but then they would turn back. Trout are a little more particular than them striper. In the past I have had them investigate my flies, then laugh, and turn away. Now they are looking too closely at my jigs. I ended up getting one bite, numerous follows, and no fish.
I still have a week or so of vacation I need to use up that is not planned for, but I am waiting for a bit cooler weather, maybe September. I know I have not done the striper fishing or as much fishing this year, my apologies. Seems like I have just not made good use of my time. However, as football season rolls around, the weather cools just a few degrees, and it isn’t daylight till after bedtime, I am hoping to have a few more fish pics and stories.
I hope you got to wet a line, remember it’s called fishing, catching is just a bonus. You see you come to remember things like this when you get whooped by the fish like I tend to do. I hope your week is awesome and maybe we’ll get some pics up next week, God bless.
11 Aug 2018
Sorry for not posting the past couple of weeks. My “real Job” has gotten swamped, but I have caught up on the rod building and starting to find time to tie up a few more crappie jigs. I did get out last weekend, but it was not much anyway. I was in the kayak and caught a couple of small smallmouth and the standard little guys, no crappie and nothing of any size.
This past Saturday I took the boat out. I almost went striper fishing, however, the daughter had been out of town visiting my brother and sister-in-law. She has stated in the past that I catch them when she is not around. So, I figured I would not give her a leg to stand on, so I went to do some jig testing.
I had checked the weather before I went, 15% chance of rain, and headed to the lake. When I arrived at Davis, they said it had just come a down pour, I figured the clouds had gotten it out of there system.
I headed out and caught a few bluegill, rock bass, and missed a ton of little guys, then a nice smallie. The one in the picture above is a pretty nice fish, I guess I need to add a reference in the picture, but it was nice. Now by nice I don’t mean real big and wouldn’t win a tournament with him, but when you are expecting little ones, that was nice. About the time I released him, here it came. Man a gully washer came down that I was not prepared for at all. I headed upstream to see if maybe it was not at the dock, but it was raining there and it was too late.
By this time, I did not have a dry spot on my body, yep, socks and everything was soaked, I just went to a bank and fished in the rain. It finally stopped and I kept at it until my clothes somewhat dried. I ended up with quite a few, but nothing to brag about. It was a good day, maybe not so much when I was soaked as I think my blood pressure may have increased a point or two during that time, but any day out on the water is a good day. I dried, got home safely, and my hands smelled like fish, hard to complain about that.
Next trip should include a bit of striper fishing. Unless the weather changes, I have a pretty good idea where they may be. I put gas in the boat, you know the race will be in town next week and I don’t want to get gas during that time. So if all works out, we may have a bit more info next week. I hope everyone has a great dry work week, and the weekend brings you bent rods. God bless.
