Fishing Forum

I've been running below the radar for quite a while... I took the month of October off from guiding for my own personal Road Trip! But returned to the water guiding Saturday.<br /><br />I'd been out of the game so long I was kind of nervous. Thank goodness the fish weren't!<br /><br />Mitch Gravitte and his stepson from Cleveland wanted some "fishing lessons." They have a boat and have taken to fishing, without much success. Mitch told me he was hoping to learn some stuff no matter what the fish did. That took some pressure off.<br /><br />As it turned out, we fished for a variety of stuff a variety of different ways and EVERYTHING worked. For a few short hours I was living a "charmed life."<br /><br />We started out drifting shiners, found just the right seam and the stripers absolutely ate 'em up! On the downside, I was actually expecting smallmouth and spots, so I was using light leaders (6 lb. test). I'm sure that improved our bite ratio, but with stripers, it also improved our "broke off" ratio. It was an absolute blast nonetheless.<br /><br />Oddly, the first hour or so all we caught were stripers... then they slowed down and we started catching a few smallmouth. Mitch tagged a great fish... 20.5 inches long with a 14 girth... right at the 5 lb. mark. Unfortunately I had dropped my iPhone BEHIND my boat console (irretrievable without a screwdriver) and could take no photos. I expect Mitch to send some from his phone.<br /><br />We also caught a few small cats on shiners... but later Mitch wanted a taste of how to specifically target some bigger cats. We actually left the shiner bite with 'em still bitin' and I drug out the big cat tackle. We drifted a favorite hole with the primary intention of simply demonstrating the technique for Mitch's future reference. After a few minutes drifting however I started feeling some GREAT structure I'd never felt, glanced at the depth finder lit up with fish and said out loud, "Dang, I'm surprised we're not getting bit!"<br /><br />About that time my rod bowed to the water. I handed it off to Caleb to do battle and a few seconds later Mitch exclaimed, "I've got one. Good grief!" They weren't absolute monsters... 15 and 20 lbs.... but Mitch and Caleb were in awe. Stripers, smallmouth and big cats... a virtual Trifecta.<br /><br />Later I pulled out the ultralight tackle and we headed to check one of my favorite wintertime bluegill hangouts. As usual they were there en masse and we went through a couple of boxes of mealworms in a hurry. We could do no wrong.<br /><br />It's good to be back.<br /><br />Hopefully Mitch will get me pictures of other fish from his phone, but for now: