Newbie Tuber Scores at Willard 9-15-23 (With Video)

[TubeDude]

LINK TO VIDEO

BFT mod jjAnnie still hadn’t had a good fishing trip in her new tricked out float tube.  Our last try a couple of weeks ago saw us blown off the water…in spite of a calm forecast.  This week worked out better…weatherwise and fishingwise.
 
We met up at the south marina of Willard and got launched a bit after 7 am.  Air temps went from a cool 51 at launch to a toasty 79 at noon departure.  Water temps only raised from 68 to 70…and will probably drop another couple of degrees by the end of this next week in the cooling forecast.  That should help fishing.

 
The newbie is still working on some steering and speed issues so she pretty much went her own direction once we got out of the marina.  I kept in constant communication with her by walkie talkie and she followed directions well enough to find some fish.  In fact, she caught the first cat before I caught my first fish…a dink 7” perch.  But I also caught a smallish 16” cat a few minutes after and caught a total of about 10 cats for the day.
 

I was fishing mostly with a variety of colors on some of my new “drop-back” whirly fligs.  Instead of attaching the hook directly to the back of the foam whirly flig I add a piece of wire (2”- 3”) between the flig and the hook.  This is a takeoff on the old ice fishing lure, the Hali Jig…with the little chain between the body and the hook.  A lot of fish seem to like the (perceived) safety of munching a bait not attached to a lure.  And quite a few Willard cats voted for it today…in several colors.
 

Oh yeah, I also caught the smallest wiper I have ever caught in Willard…on a small jig I was casting to what looked like some bottom-hugging perch.  No other perch were harmed after that first one I caught right outside the harbor.
 

Not sure how many cats the newbie actually brought to net, but she had 3 in her basket at ramp time.  Her chatter on the walkie talkie gat a bit “animated” at one point when she reported having a double…a fish on each of her two rods at the same time.  She said she was able to bring both of them in, but lost one as she was trying to unhook it and remove the sharp spines before putting it in her basket.  She said she also lost another one or two the same way.  She definitely experienced some “float tube moments” on that trip and probably learned a lot to help her in the future.  Unfortunately, we were always too far apart for me to get any action pics or video of her catching her fish.  However, I did get one closeup of her in her purty new ride…and another posing with her 3 cat takehome basket.
 

A bit of info for those who wanna know:  Most bites came in 12 – 15 FOW…moving about .6 - .8 mph.  Saw lots of shad and lots of larger fish…mostly with mouths closed.  Saw a lot more on TV than on our lines.  Here’s a pic I got of a shad school that looked like one big fish.
 

The big downer of the day happened at the cleaning station…AGAIN.  This time the grinder was working fine…and the water…but there was no power to the electric outlets and I could not run my Bubba Blade electric knife.  Bummer.  Hadda take ‘em home.