I know its still way early, but this spring like weather has already given me wiper fever! I took the boat out last week for a few hours without a bite... Water is still way low, I tried fishing by the island but it was only about a foot under water! Be careful, my prop hit the mud and there were no buoys marking it!
Just wondering if anyone has any advice on catching some early season wipers or even some cold water kitties? I'm headed back out tomorrow!
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My advice is to ignore the air temperature. The fish don't know how warm it is above the surface; they are still in winter mode down there in the cold wa-wa.
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I know, but I'd rather be floating on the lake catching a skunk than working so I'm going to try anyway...lol
Caught plenty of trout last week, I need some white meat!
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Ya can't catch 'em if you're sittin' home.
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[#0000FF]I'll be posting up a report in a while on today's fishing. Caught a bunch of cool cats.
Wiperhunter2 was going out as I was coming in...about 11 am. Watch for his report.
Big weather change with a front coming through does not make for a very positive prognosis for a few days.
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[quote TubeDude][#0000ff]
Big weather change with a front coming through does not make for a very positive prognosis for a few days.
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Gives me a chance to get the needed repairs to the toon done so that I am not tempted to go out and use it on the water.
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Yeah, I've been watching the hourly forecast, supposed to hit tomorrow afternoon... I learned my lesson last year, I am not going to venture too far from the marina if it looks like any weather is anywhere close! I was planning on heading out around 9 and being back on land by 1.
Now just wondering if I should hit north or south, drag bait or troll raps?
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[#0000FF]Ya never know on any given day. But there was a brief flurry of wiper action on trolled hardbaits last week...when the water temps were a few degrees warmer.
This is a transitional time and a crazy weather year. Best to go prepared with anything you might need and keep watching temp and sonar to find fish. Then keep switching around until you find something the fish vote for...if they are in a voting mood.
As a general rule, wipers do not get active enough to chase lures until the water temps are well over 50 degrees...and another 20 degrees even better. But they act and react according to THEIR schedule and not to ours. The lower the temps the slower the fishes' metabolism...and the slower you have to show them your offerings. This is not the time of year to drag cranks at warp speed. But they will often hit a slow crank that has a good wiggle at the lower speeds...or a scented plastic (Gulp).
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Here's my suggestions:
1) White or chartruse curly tail grubs this time of year.
2) Give them a good coating of Pro-Cure stink in the Gizard Shad flavor. (Angler's Den sells it)
3) Once you find where they are (and that's a trick I have no good advice on) troll those grubs SLOW .... slow ... S L O W!!! Just fast enough to get the tail to wiggle.
As TubeDude mentioned, last week someone caught some on hard baits. I was quite surprised to hear that because how fast they have to go to show off action. But then that's fishing. Always something new to learn.
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You have depth finder on your boat? Do you have GPS? I have the island way pointed on my GPS from the dead center, and I know pretty close how big it is in diameter. So when I get within a 100 yards of any of it's way pointed edges, I start watching my depth, direction, and speed real close. Once I hit a point that is only 2 feet deep under my stern, I either stop, toss out the anchor, or reverse course and follow that edge around. Later in the season you can watch the collection of boats out there "circling" they are usually just about at the point where the depth changes enough to hold fish.....sometimes.[fishin]
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I have found that several high pressure days in a row regardless of the time of year will get wipers going. That being said I have had lots more early season skunks than early season catching. Here's a few pictures of the wipers my family and I caught last weekend. Note how excited I am in the one picture. It's not like I went out there expecting to slam a limit of wipers, but we did and the first day I was the only boat on the whole lake. It was even funner than it looks[
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