Willard...Warm B-4 The Storm 10-15-24

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Thought I’d get in one more shot at Willard before the forecast major weather change at the end of the week.  Semi hoped to find a few more wee wipers but figured I’d be happy with any tugs I got.  And I was.
 
Launched at the south marina about 7:30…along with Curt & Ira…and several other boaters.  Air temp at launch a cool 45…warming to 72 at noon departure.  Water temps a degree cooler than last week at 63…warming to 65 by noonish.
 

Same ol’ same ol’.  Dragged a variety of cranks and spinners…at various speeds and depths…all the way to the feed lot.  No hits, no runs, no errors.  Saw lots of shad balls, from small to larger.  Even saw a few predator type marks on TV, but they all had their mouths closed and their middle fins upraised.
 
Got to the area I have been molested the last few trips by lots of kitties and sent over a couple of minnow-baited fligs…one blue-silver and the other pink tiger.  Action was not nearly as fast as the previous two trips but enough to bend my sticks and stretch my string.
 
First cat to the net was a feisty 20 incher that liked pink.  Climbed on in only 9 feet of water, only a few feet off the rocks.  Most other inquiries came from 11 to 12 feet of water.  Continued to see lots of shad clusters and sometimes some followers.
 

Lovely weather all morning.  Barely had a breeze ripple a couple of times.  Truly the warm before the storm.  And the kitties came to play.  But about the third or fourth fish was a gobsmacker.  Rod was motionless one second and developed a serious downward bend and a shrieking reel the next.  After running off a few yards of line it turned out in a big circle toward the open lake.  I dared hope it might be one of the bigger wipers that have been showing up for the mussel dunkers from shore or anchored boats.  But, nay.  Not so.  Turned out to be a big scaly “golden wiper”.  But it pulled good and took several minutes to coax into my undersized net.  I even released it without my customary complimentary gillectomy.
  

I tried the “pistachio” color without a single hit.  The pink tiger got all but two of the seven cats I caught…plus the “golden wiper”.   I only wanted to keep a couple of cats today…one for me and one for my appreciative neighbor.  I had my two and was almost all the way back to the marina when I went bendo on a substantial fish.  Turned out to be my biggest cat of the day…a solid two-footer.  But it had snarfed my flig clear down in its gullet.  Not characteristic.  Almost all fligged fish are hooked in the corner of the mouth or at least not very deep inside.  Not wanting to kill the fish with an invasive hook removal.  And not wanting to leave it inside to interfere with feeding, etc., I opted to add it to the basket for removal at the cleaning station.