09-14-2014, 09:00 AM
I was invited to accompany Spurhunter and a couple of his friends to the tailwaters for a little Foley Spoon/Live Bait Striper fishing. Everybody knows that I don't do live bait. Well, today, nobody did any live bait fishing. Oh, Spur tried and tried and tried to throw his cast net and catch a bunch of threadfin shad, but all he got was his t-shirt wet and exhausted me just watching. He accused me of being a jinx, but we all know who carries the jinx gene. emoUp
<br /><br />After wasting some valuable fishing time trying to catch live bait, he finally gave up and broke out the Foley spoons. Then he took us up to the boils and said, I&#39;m gonna show you how this is done. Pitched his little 2&quot; spoon in the water and was hooked up into a Striper in less than 30 seconds. I asked him why in the world do you waste time trying to catch live bait when you can catch these fish on artificial lures? That fish was pushing 8 to 10 lbs. Spur&#39;s friends got on the front of the boat then, and I sat back and observed the technique as this is one way that I don&#39;t fish for Rockfish. <br /><br />The guys, along with Spurhunter caught a variety of fish over the next 2-3 hours. 5 white bass, 2 really good keeper sized Saugers, 2 drum, 2 catfish, 3 other Rockfish, and the big surprise of the day, a Sturgeon. First time that I have seen you brought into the boat that I was in. It was about 40&quot; long. It was released, along with the drum, catfish, and a couple of smaller white bass. <br /><br />Then around noon, they took me over to the current break on the edge and we drifted down. I caught my first Rockfish on the first drift. About 4.0 lbs. Then a couple of drifts later, I hooked 2 Rockfish on a Tennessee rig and fought them for a short time. One of the Rockfish broke its leader off, but I landed the other one. It was around 7.0 lbs. Fun while it lasted. Then after that, the fish decided not to play with us anymore. We fished until 2:00 and called it a day. <br /><br />We pulled the boat out of the water, on the 3rd try. First two tries, the strap on the winch broke. Jinx struck again. We finally got it tied on and gently pulled the boat out of the water. By that time, a game warden came down to see what all we were doing. He was a friendly fellow. Talked for a while, and then asked us if we kept any fish, which of course we did. He checked the Sauger to make sure that were legal and then checked out licenses. Everybody had theirs, but me. I could not find my lifetime license in my wallet. I pulled everything out 2 or 3 times, but poacher Porter just couldn&#39;t find it. The game warden let us go anyway. Then we go to a local quick stop to buy a hamburger, and lo and behold, I found my license after all. It was stuck to the back of one of my plastic cards. I need to put that license in a more prominent place. emoBig emoGeezer <br /><br />I watched Spur and the guys break off about 3 dozen spoons and I&#39;m sitting here thinking, &quot;Huh? There must be a better way to catch these fish than this.&quot; That&#39;s when I broke out the Tennessee rig. They liked it too and I never did hang up. emoUp <br /><br />Thanks for taking an old timer out today, Erik. I owe you a crappie trip or something like that when you get tired of catching all these big fish. <br /><br />I&#39;m so excited. Going over to Madisonville tomorrow and pick up the new boat. It might get wet, who knows? emoGeezer
<br /><br />After wasting some valuable fishing time trying to catch live bait, he finally gave up and broke out the Foley spoons. Then he took us up to the boils and said, I&#39;m gonna show you how this is done. Pitched his little 2&quot; spoon in the water and was hooked up into a Striper in less than 30 seconds. I asked him why in the world do you waste time trying to catch live bait when you can catch these fish on artificial lures? That fish was pushing 8 to 10 lbs. Spur&#39;s friends got on the front of the boat then, and I sat back and observed the technique as this is one way that I don&#39;t fish for Rockfish. <br /><br />The guys, along with Spurhunter caught a variety of fish over the next 2-3 hours. 5 white bass, 2 really good keeper sized Saugers, 2 drum, 2 catfish, 3 other Rockfish, and the big surprise of the day, a Sturgeon. First time that I have seen you brought into the boat that I was in. It was about 40&quot; long. It was released, along with the drum, catfish, and a couple of smaller white bass. <br /><br />Then around noon, they took me over to the current break on the edge and we drifted down. I caught my first Rockfish on the first drift. About 4.0 lbs. Then a couple of drifts later, I hooked 2 Rockfish on a Tennessee rig and fought them for a short time. One of the Rockfish broke its leader off, but I landed the other one. It was around 7.0 lbs. Fun while it lasted. Then after that, the fish decided not to play with us anymore. We fished until 2:00 and called it a day. <br /><br />We pulled the boat out of the water, on the 3rd try. First two tries, the strap on the winch broke. Jinx struck again. We finally got it tied on and gently pulled the boat out of the water. By that time, a game warden came down to see what all we were doing. He was a friendly fellow. Talked for a while, and then asked us if we kept any fish, which of course we did. He checked the Sauger to make sure that were legal and then checked out licenses. Everybody had theirs, but me. I could not find my lifetime license in my wallet. I pulled everything out 2 or 3 times, but poacher Porter just couldn&#39;t find it. The game warden let us go anyway. Then we go to a local quick stop to buy a hamburger, and lo and behold, I found my license after all. It was stuck to the back of one of my plastic cards. I need to put that license in a more prominent place. emoBig emoGeezer <br /><br />I watched Spur and the guys break off about 3 dozen spoons and I&#39;m sitting here thinking, &quot;Huh? There must be a better way to catch these fish than this.&quot; That&#39;s when I broke out the Tennessee rig. They liked it too and I never did hang up. emoUp <br /><br />Thanks for taking an old timer out today, Erik. I owe you a crappie trip or something like that when you get tired of catching all these big fish. <br /><br />I&#39;m so excited. Going over to Madisonville tomorrow and pick up the new boat. It might get wet, who knows? emoGeezer