cavman138 said:
Results are in!
Guys.....I've never fished so hard in my life. Three days, and about 28 hours or so fishing. We had a GREAT time, and laughed the entire time. I learned a lot about finding fish because there wasn't much to be found for some reason. Here's the breakdown.
Day 1: on water around 6:30AM. About 40 Degrees COLD! By noon, temps were in the high 60s to low 70s. Turned out to be a beautiful day. Caught a handful of dinks. Between the two of us, we caught about 8 fish. Could not get a bite on ANYTHING! Kept changing colors, sizes, speeds, cranks, worms, etc...Finally I tried a shaky head with a motor oil worm with a chartreuse tail. This is what we got the most bites on for the rest of the day. This was the day I caught my biggest fish.
2.7 lb largemouth, 15.25 inches.
Congratulation to CAVEMAN for guessing exact weight and within 1/4 inch of length!
Day 2: on water about 9:15 AM (Church first cause it's Sunday) Very similar day as previous, but, today we thought we'd try to get some crappie. Landed a decent, not huge one before 11:00 with several small ones that were thrown back. Much bigger lake, and warmer already. Again, could not get a bite off the banks from ANYTHING with ANYTHING so headed out to the middle of the lake around 12:30 or so and started burning lipless cranks, shallow divers and I threw a swimbait. After about 5 or 6 casts around the minnows that were breaking....got a hit and landed a Largemouth that I didn't weigh, but did measure in a little over 13 inches. GAME ON! After fishing this way for about 2 hours, we had 4 bass in the live-well. Around 4:30 we started chatting it up with another boat and they said they were having a hard time catching anything over the "slot limit". What slot limit we asked? Turns out that after we took the time to read the 2, rather large signs with lake rules posted at the entrance of the lake, we missed the 1 rather small sign by the boat ramp listing the slot of 12-15 inch bass are to be released. We ended up throwing 4 bass back in the water all 13-15 inches and the 1 crappie that I caught early in the day. No need to clean just 1 crappie. We were very discouraged after that...but had fun nonetheless.
Day 3: Today: Hit the big lake (Mark Twain) about 7:00 AM. Looked a little cloudy, but not really overcast. Today....mainly looking for crappie, with a slight chance desire to find a few bass...but mostly crappie is what we were after. Within an hour, we found a decent place and I started tearing them up. They were not huge, but they were average keepers. Long story short, it got VERY windy after about 2 or 3 hours and the water was so choppy that we couldn't keep the boat still enough to really do any decent fishing. We tried hiding in the back of coves, and the wind was so strong that it was more like we were sailing rather than trolling. I personally hate when the wind is so strong that I can't control the boat with the trolling motor...and my TM is 67lbs of thrust. Still no control. By 2:30 we gave up with 17 crappie in the live-well. All but one were mine.
Some of the things I learned on this 3 day trip:
1. I LOVE FISHING! I rediscover that ever time I'm out even if the fishing is rough.
2. I don't fish shaky head worms enough. I really liked the action and presentation of that rig.
3. In the big lake, water depths were on average 25-40 feet. The banks were more like cliffs and depths quickly went from 3 ft to 20 feet. Middle of the lake was 60+ feet in a few areas that I checked. I'm sorry to say that I've never been on a lake like this and I don't have a clue how to fish for bass in these conditions??? This actually upsets me. Time for me to learn something.
4. I don't stop enough to eat when I'm on the boat fishing. My partner called me a crazy machine!
Thanks to all who entered the contest. I really had much higher expectations, but tons of fun nonetheless!
Caveman....PM me your address and I'll get that rod saver out to you this week....and congrats.
