Deer Creek Fall Finale 10-9-23

[Redrebel]

Met up with the jjannie team at the Island ramp about 7ish...launching by 7:30 am.  Air temp a crisp 36...warming to about 65 by noon departure.  Water temp 59...where it remained all the time we were there.  Flat calm conditions all morning.  Was pleased to see how high the water has remained...with only a short walk down the ramp.  A lot worse last year.


Game plan was to focus on walleye and perch.  Unfortunately, they were both a no-show species.  Did get one small smallmouth but the rest of the day was almost non-stop action on recently planted rainbows...AKA hatchery pets, bitty bows or finless Freddies.  I got 3 before I even got around the end of the island to head for the flats.  Also got my only smallie there.
 

For the next 4 hours we worked a bunch of different areas...at depths from 12 to 35 feet...looking for the targeted species.  Saw a few individual marks that looked perchy or larger but they all had their little mouths closed and their middle fins upraised.

Got quite a few rattle rattle bites that could have been small perch.  But I suspect they were the aforementioned finless Freddies.  'Cause that's all I could catch.  And I caught a grundle...on the worm sweetened whirly fligs I usually use for catching perch and walleyes.  And when I put on a silver with red spots I really got molested/


After a lot of fruitless searching for non-trout species I went with the flow and started dragging my offerings at mid-depth...hoping for one of the suspended walleyes or perch I caught on my last trip but hoping for maybe a bigger trout.  I was still catching a lot of bitty bows, but I did land one chunky 16 incher and lost another at the tube.  And on my way back to the ramp I hooked up on a super-sized bow...probably around 20 inches from the quick view I got just before he politely returned my lure.


Jeff and Jill didn't do as well.  I'll let Jill chime in if they wanna give their report.  But it was a purtiful day on the water and we all enjoyed that.


I was surprised at the number of boats launching along with us early on a Monday morning.  Some were "quacker whackers"...with guns instead of fishing rods.  But there were also a few other anglers.  Although most of those I observed seemed to be happily harvesting the bumper crop of dinkster bows. 

Deer Creek evidently doesn't like me.  On my last trip my sonar wasn't working and I fished blind all day...but still caught fish.  On this trip there were two "glitches".  First, after airing up my float tube and getting ready to launch I noticed that the air chamber on the right side had lost a lot of air.  Then I remembered hearing a hiss as I capped the valve after filling.  It hadn't seated properly.  So I dug out my air pump and refilled it...making sure to seat the valve properly.  It held air and I launched...belatedly.

The second glitch was my original battery in my GoPro camera gave up the ghost and died.  I had just topped it off the night before but it only worked for a couple of segments before "powering off" for the last time.  Lucky I had a spare in my fishing vest.  I replaced it and it worked. What next????

Thanks for the report, my last two trips there I had about the same success. Water clarity was an issue, and when I did find some Clearwater, I only found smallmouth. The first of the two trips I got my first skunk of the year, and the second was only a single perch and a few smallmouth. My best educated guess is there is just too much food in the water. They just take a pass on my bait. As I was leaving on my last trip I saw the DWR truck dropping off all those fish you caught.