27 April 2019
I’m no weather man, but I can tell you that we will have rain on Fridays, I say this because it’s my half day and I could go fishing with less folks, however, it has been raining on most of them. This Friday though, we went to watch the Avengers at 11:00 am. That’s right, the old person time to watch a movie. You might be thinking, you can’t say old person, that is insensitive, yet I am in that age group now. My hair is about as white as Bob Barker so I say it with affection. Anyway, we did go fishing on Saturday.
The wife wanted to go and I had woken up with my normal headache and just general stuff. So I did a few chores including lawn mowing, prior to heading to the lake. This time I headed straight to Candy Creek to catch bait, observing the fishfinder on the way, just in case I could find a place they were located. We got back into Candy Creek and found “some” shad. Most of them were small, like barely useable small, we kept about 5 of them just in case. Finally, we found two gizzards that we liked and I had spent too much time throwing and was ready to fish.
We headed back to where I had see a few on the fish finder and began the angling. We put out a down line and a flat line with the big shad. Just a short time into it, my shad was able to locate some structure (there are a lot of trees sticking up in Boone) and I ended up having to break my line, one gizzard gone. Then shortly down the bank, the wife’s flat line gets hit. She springs into action with incredible grace and precision, goes to set the hook, and it was off. It had hit like a striper, they distinguish themselves from other fish when they hit near the surface, but it did successfully take gizzard number 2.
We put a small one on the flat line and head toward some shad that were flipping. I throw the net a few times, catch nothing, then decide to start throwing the Jig. It was an excellent decision, as I get nailed on the retrieve just off the bank and bring in the largemouth, by the way if you can’t tell, I am not a fan of getting my picture taken. I make another cast same spot and boom, smallie takes it. Two cast in a row, two fish, my mind begins thinking, it is on now, those fish are toast. Well, that is the end of my fish catching for the day.
As we are pulling down the bank, the wife had been getting the flat line messed with periodically and finally, something takes it. The fight is on and the battle is leaning in the anglers favor. I see brown and it’s a decent size. Then all the sudden the hook came free, the fish was off. I told wife to check the line, if it had been slimed, it was a catfish, sure enough, slimed.
We ended the day boating two, hooking two although one was extremely brief, and getting a few bites. It was a good fun day on the water. This weekend looks like thunderstorms, but maybe it will not arrive. I hope everyone had a great week and this week brings you tightlines. God bless and let’s bring on May.
I’m gonna write up about 4 short trips, well, 3 short and one long, but hopefully I won’t bore you too much. Last week on Tuesday, I headed up to the South Holston River with the daughter to do a little fly fishing. I didn’t realize how few flies I had and yep, still haven’t restocked. Anyway, we head out on the water and the daughter likes the dries. She misses one or two but no good takers. I switch up my fly to a black #22, figuring if I get a few hits, we will switch rods. As I am talking to her I feel a slight tug on my line and in bass fishing fashion, I give a big hook set, by the way is not the proper technique. About 0.5 seconds later, I see that little feller fly by me through the air. Daughter laughed, I laughed, took a pic and released. You’ll probably notice I held that close to the camera to make it look bigger, but I’m not sure you can make it look bigger, it was little. The only other action we really had was when my daughter forgot about me and changed her direction of fishing and her fly line slapped me twice in a row. Fortunately no hooks were embedded, but I learned to get a bit further away.
Thursday rolls around and my plan was to get tires on trailer, then go to the lake. While getting tires, the feller noticed that I had a u-bolt missing on my axle attaching to my spring. Great catch, so I headed to Builders Mart, got a temporary, picked up the girls and headed to the lake. The wind was blowing well, by the way, love the new trolling motor, and we went to catch bait. The bait catching took a long time, but we finally found some we liked. Headed down the lake a bit and started marking quite a few fish. We put out one down line and two flat lines, with daughter and I casting periodically. The downline got fidgety quite a few times but we were not getting a bite. The jig I was casting got a couple of hits, but I’m not convinced they were bites maybe just bumps. What I learned was find more schools of bait, them fish we marked just weren’t eating there.
I spent another afternoon in the rain on the river. By afternoon I mean about 1.5 hours, I just had to get out of the house for a few minutes. I hooked a couple but that was about it. I didn’t get them in, probably should’ve went into bass fishing hook setting mode, but still a good time.
Yesterday I wanted to go and see if any bait was at Davis yet. We tossed some stuff around there, but no hits, and little bait. Actually I didn’t see any, but the cold water was there, I am going on a guy telling me he has seen some, so maybe. We headed down to Sugar Hollow Ramp, just to cast a few minutes, really just doing some killing of time. First cast with the Jig, I was reeling and right at the bank, I mean I saw him take it, was the smallmouth. It was a pretty good fight and a pretty good fish. Grabbed the fish, daughter took the pic and I was excited that we were going to catch a few. Well, that was it, 20 minutes later we headed home, but finally, I had a bit of fish smell on my hands. Have a great week and God bless.
12 April 2019
Finally Found One
Friday rolled around and after a morning visit to the dietician (you can tell by the photo that I need one) and after work was complete. I piddled around a few minutes at the house, then got ready to go angle for a bit.
The day was intended for crappie fishing, but I have a hand-tied incredibly effective TFR Custom Striper Jig on my casting rod, ready to be deployed as soon as I untangle it from the other rods I have on the boat. Side note: this is not a complaint, just an observation, as I build custom rods and accumulating testing rods, I carry a lot of rods on the boat. Too many you may ask, well now that’s funny, can you have too many? Anyway, I throw it when I see activity, or just want to throw it, mostly the latter. So after the crappie we go.
We find some structure and fish huddled around it and we fish for a bit in different places. We got a few bites, but they felt like bluegill. We ended up trying a few places, banks, deeper structure, and showed that I obviously do not know what I am doing. We anchor near some brush and I see some striper that are busting shad near a rock wall. Although I have in my possession a custom built jig casting machine, it is well out of my range.
Throughout our time fishing, we see activity but not catching anything. We talk to another angler, he says the same thing, nothing, not even a bite. We kept the secret that we have had some bluegill getting our blood flowing, didn’t want to act like we knew what we were doing, we just kept fishing. I started getting tired and went to fish a bank to the ramp and load up. I saw a swirl, grabbed the TFR Custom Rod that had attached the TFR Custom Striper Jig (do you see a pattern here? Subliminally, you are probably wanting a TFR Product, you’re welcome). I cast toward the swirl, began reeling and boom a hit. At first I will admit, I was shocked. I set the hook and began reeling.
I was not convinced this was a striper at first, they typically rip off a lot of line, but I was man handling this rascal kinda. I remember I had cranked down on the drag and thought uh oh, and let it up a bit. Yep, he took off and it was on. I didn’t bring my net, so I grabbed the lip grippers and as I was going after the striper, I remember the one that got knocked out of my hand last time, so I held on tight. Pic taken and released, thought about keeping but had been there too long to go home and clean one.
That was the first striper of the year, not a big one, but it was a good time. I found them earlier on the sonar, but was focusing on crappie, didn’t even catch bait. But hey, who needs live bait when you have a TFR Custom Striper Jig. Sorry I keep saying that, but I was messing around with tying up different bucktail jigs and have finally caught one. The other colors I had tried had a couple follow in, but they didn’t bite, this tickled me and I tied up a few more to give a shot.
I hope you got out this weekend, spring is here and the weather is great. Saturday and Sunday were fun filled days with a migraine and I didn’t accomplish much but jig tying. I’m hearing Boone is tough right now, I hope that ends, but I don’t know, everyone I’ve spoke with has had a tough time. I hope your trip was a goodn’, have a great week and God bless.
06 April 2019
Friday was a great day outside and the fishing bug was a biting bad, however, I am so far behind on my chores that I have got to catch up, so I committed to cutting down a tree. This one/was at the house and liked dropping berries on the vehicles, plus it made pulling the boat out of the garage a bit of a pain. That being said, Friday afternoon was spend cutting down a tree, picking up limbs, and a little bit of complaining.
Saturday came and the wife said she wanted to go to fishing with me. When all was said and done, we headed out for the late afternoon. Last week the water temperature was around 50, I was hoping it was nearing 55 and thought the crappie might be getting ready to get busy. We got there, put in at the free ramp and headed down a cove using the electronics to see what was going on with the fish. Nothing intrigued me there so down the lake we went.
The wife loves to catch striper, we saw a bunch of bait and I tossed out the net, caught a bunch and put them in the livewell. I checked the water temperature and folks, it was between 60-64 throughout our fishing, depending on where you were. Well, it sure shot up fast, perhaps the rain and reduced generating, I’ve no idea, but we were seeing bait, gar, carp, and some periodic action on top water.
We trolled up a bank and the flat lines behind the boat were following. I heard the wife jerk a rod and a big swirl at the bait, it was a miss. Not sure what it was, striper are usually more accurate in their eating. We kept trolling and the other line gets a swirl around it, then nothing. We end up with the flat lines having I think 3 times attention paid to them, but no takers.
I was throwing a white swim bait or a crappie jig toward the bank. I don’t do well just sitting still, kinda like some activity. In the shallows, probably 5’ of water, I caught the fish you see above. Not a beast but he help mask the smell of shad with his own fragrance. We go near some brush and I switch to the crappie jig, I get a few bites with this one and end up landing a bluegill. No pic available as I released it prior to photo being taken. I typically do not enjoy having my pic taken, you can see me above and understand why, it really benefits no one seeing that.
We were having a good time and back up the lake we went. We got to a spot that I like fishing for some reason, apparently I had caught a fish there 20 years ago. We are trolling along, and we see the ever elusive striper bust top water. Now don’t get too excited, they weren’t wearing it out by any means, but periodically we would see one bust. It was completely out of casting range and always where we weren’t. But it lends hope that by next weekend, things may be getting where I like it.
I’ve got to catch up on chores around the house, so I have some self-imposed rules, Friday work, Saturday fish or vice versa. I did complete a rod that I built for testing. It’s a medium power light saltwater rod with moderate action. I put a spiral wrap on it with a bait caster, the wrap will make it look different, but I’ve used these before and they are pretty nice. I have a light power rod in the same line, I use it for about everything (spinning rod). It is probably the most sensitive rod that I have and can throw up to 1 oz lures. I can also launch the crappie jigs pretty dang good with it. I figure I needed one to display spiral wraps anyway, in case someone wanted to test it.
All right then, I hope everyone got a chance to get out, or if not, you got all your chores done so you can get out next week. Looks like warm days lie ahead and hopefully the fishing gets good. Have a great week and God bless.
