Hit Willard last night with wife and son for a couple hours. Nothing! Lost one to a bad spot in the line. Watched a few boils but they didn't last long. Don't know if its me, weather or timing but not doing too hot at Willard this year. Casted and trolled to no avail but wife bbqued a couple of nice steaks on the boat to soften the pain.
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I was there also. The fishing was strange to say the least. I managed three by the end of the evening, but never have I had such a tough time getting wipers to smack a lure. I never really saw a consistant "boil" that I could work into. Just a bunch of one hit wonders. Occasionally two or three wipers would group up and attack the shad, but for the most part it was just one at a time.
There is SO much natural food available right now, I think they just aren't really aggresive toward artificials. About all they need to do for a snack is open their mouth and rush the surface. The shadlets are so thick they probably get two or three by accident for every one they attack intentionally.
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[inline "0807091601-00 (Small).jpg"]I hit it last night to take my uncle and cousin for cats and we only had 1 taker and a couple hits. My past 3 trips out there have been at least 2 limits in the boat within a couple hours. My son even caught a 22in wiper on a shrimp.
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[#500000]Know what's worse than getting Skunked?[/#500000]
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[#500000]Following a boat that has steaks on the barbeque!............WW.[/#500000]
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What kinda boat do you have that you can BBQ on it....oh and if there was no smoking involved then its just grilling....and what kinda grill did you use?
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Me and a friend were there from 6:00 'til 8:15 and chased small boils along the north dike but only caught 3. He caught 2 and I caught 1 but mine weighed over 6 lbs. Here's a lousy pic.[inline wiper2.jpg]
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We have a 23' Trophy and we just use one of those small butane stoves that you can buy at the boat shows or fairs. We have a grill that fits ontop. We did the steaks and she also grilled some squash, pretty tasty and alot of fun. We also have an alcohol stove onboard thats great for making fried egg sandwiches for breakfast. I can get my wife on board a little more often with these toys on it.---Gary
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Well said d-mack. I totally agree.
Me and a buddy went out last night too and I caught three on the troll and buddy caught zero. Mine all came in on three colors of lead line with a Lucky Craft pointer in shad.
I too only found occational tail flips ... no hard fast boils. Lots of shad out there for wipers to eat without having to rodeo them into a boil.
Even the birds were not able to locate any boils.
For a long time, I didn't see anyone else at the cleaning station ether. Just before we left, a group of boys came in with a very nice catch of 6 big wipers. They said they caught them all in boils just out to the left (south) of the channel leading out of the South marina. They had been fishing from a boat and using a variety of rapala lures to catch them.
In the channel, as we were coming in, seen lots of surface tail flips along the north side of the channel. I tried zara spook, top water popper, kastmaster, producer, and even grub and lead head. Never a single bite!
My fish finder showed LOTS of schools of bait fish throughout the lake.
One of the wipers I was fileting burped up one little shad about an inch long. I think there are shad of all sizes out there right now for them wipers to fiest on.
I am beginning to wonder if there will even be any big long waves of boils at all this year like we see other years. I think if they do start to boil real good, it will be later in the season when shadlets are harder for them to find.
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