04-12-2024, 12:40 PM
I seen an opportunity to fish yesterday after work and took it... Probably should have worked on other stuff, but I'm thinking my chances will be fading fast, so I better take them while I can...
Nice to live two miles from the boat ramp, it really helps for the short burn trips... Hooked up and was on the water in about 15 minutes.. I have two spots I like to hit this time of year and I usually start at the far one and hit the close one on the way back, usually after not finding fish in the other spot... So this time I figured I'd hit the close one first... Started off great with a hit right after casting out, it was an 18"er and before I got that one taken care of had a hit on the other rod, but it was a swing and a miss, which was a bad omen on the day... I would end up missing about 8 hits to one hook up on average, and usually I would blame that on bullheads, but this time nearly every time there would be a big swirl where I'm pretty sure a channel was taking off after it's failed attempt to get hooked.. Once again the cats were keyed in on the night crawlers, at one point I had had ten hits on the worms to one hit on the carp chunks... I ended up getting a few more carp takers later in the trip, but I'm sure it was at least 5 or 6 to one in favor of the crawlers.. Well as the trip went on I ended up landing 3 channels from 18 to 19.5 in that spot and then the bite shut off... So I was getting ready to move and got one more bite which I broke off my line as I tried to set the hook... I know you're supposed to retie and replace your mono leaders, but I don't very often and it cost me that fish... I did give a big harry jerk, but the line broke very easily, it had already broken before half the power got there...
I retied and started a new soaking cycle, after another 15 minutes with nothing I finally moved to the other spot... I cast out and before my waves had even settled I had a fish on and a bite on the other pole... I landed the first, a near 20" channel and the second stole my bait and left the area... Well things were busy there for about 45 minutes and I think I landed 3 more channels, then like usual in that spot the bullheads rolled in and ruined the night... After catching 3 or 4 of those I decided to try and troll back since it was getting time to head home for the night... I think I had 3 hits but I never felt a fish when I jerked but that was kind of consistent with the rest of my night, lots of hits and not many hook ups...
Well as I was leaving the first spot I had raised my motor since it's really shallow in that area and I was backing out when I felt a big clunk on the motor, but everything seemed to keep working so I didn't worry about it, but when I pulled my boat out I found I had really bent my prop up... Usually it's soft mud everywhere, but I must have found a sunken log or something this time, looks like I need to find a new prop, or get lucky straightening this one, but usually that ends up breaking the blade... This prop is so well matched to the motor so it runs really well, so I need to make sure and get the same size and I can't read the numbers very well... Anyone know how to tell which size prop you have when you can't read the numbers that are stamped on it? Anyway that was my trip, fun outing even if I had a few hick ups... Later J
Nice to live two miles from the boat ramp, it really helps for the short burn trips... Hooked up and was on the water in about 15 minutes.. I have two spots I like to hit this time of year and I usually start at the far one and hit the close one on the way back, usually after not finding fish in the other spot... So this time I figured I'd hit the close one first... Started off great with a hit right after casting out, it was an 18"er and before I got that one taken care of had a hit on the other rod, but it was a swing and a miss, which was a bad omen on the day... I would end up missing about 8 hits to one hook up on average, and usually I would blame that on bullheads, but this time nearly every time there would be a big swirl where I'm pretty sure a channel was taking off after it's failed attempt to get hooked.. Once again the cats were keyed in on the night crawlers, at one point I had had ten hits on the worms to one hit on the carp chunks... I ended up getting a few more carp takers later in the trip, but I'm sure it was at least 5 or 6 to one in favor of the crawlers.. Well as the trip went on I ended up landing 3 channels from 18 to 19.5 in that spot and then the bite shut off... So I was getting ready to move and got one more bite which I broke off my line as I tried to set the hook... I know you're supposed to retie and replace your mono leaders, but I don't very often and it cost me that fish... I did give a big harry jerk, but the line broke very easily, it had already broken before half the power got there...
I retied and started a new soaking cycle, after another 15 minutes with nothing I finally moved to the other spot... I cast out and before my waves had even settled I had a fish on and a bite on the other pole... I landed the first, a near 20" channel and the second stole my bait and left the area... Well things were busy there for about 45 minutes and I think I landed 3 more channels, then like usual in that spot the bullheads rolled in and ruined the night... After catching 3 or 4 of those I decided to try and troll back since it was getting time to head home for the night... I think I had 3 hits but I never felt a fish when I jerked but that was kind of consistent with the rest of my night, lots of hits and not many hook ups...
Well as I was leaving the first spot I had raised my motor since it's really shallow in that area and I was backing out when I felt a big clunk on the motor, but everything seemed to keep working so I didn't worry about it, but when I pulled my boat out I found I had really bent my prop up... Usually it's soft mud everywhere, but I must have found a sunken log or something this time, looks like I need to find a new prop, or get lucky straightening this one, but usually that ends up breaking the blade... This prop is so well matched to the motor so it runs really well, so I need to make sure and get the same size and I can't read the numbers very well... Anyone know how to tell which size prop you have when you can't read the numbers that are stamped on it? Anyway that was my trip, fun outing even if I had a few hick ups... Later J
. Jon and I were out last night too. We may have had as many hits, but most of them weren't cats. We got 3 channels for the "evening" and one Jon got was 29", so he's happy. We got 10 or so white bass. There were 2 big (or little) surprises with the whities. First, all the whites were down less 3 from the surface. I've seen that when the midges were going, but not this early.