bass
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It was father's day but everyone in my family was sick all week so we decided to postpone celebrating father's day and my wife told me that I could go fishing since I had not been out in a few weeks.
I was torn between sturgeon fishing in the MC and hitting Hagg. Since the outgoing was not really starting until about 10am I decided it might be wiser to fish Hagg than be sitting on anchor in the middle of what was likely to be a busy day on the river.
I got to Hagg a little after 7am and I was on the water by 8am. I started the day off throwing a topwater for bass. There was a light chop on the water but within 5 minutes I had my first bass. Only 14" but it spent more time out of the water than in it- what a crazy hard fighting fish. In the next 15 minutes I missed two more strikes on the topwater and felt like I was on a good pattern.
Two hours later.... not even one more strike. I switched from topwater to crankbait to carolina rig, but I could not buy a strike after the initial flurry.
Around 10:30 I had worked my way up near ramp A and I decided to switch over to trolling for trout.
I fished my usual rig which is a 1/24 oz roostertail plus a trailer hook fished with a weight on a dropper. No extra flashers or anything like that. When I had been out there a month or so ago I had good success with a 1/8oz weight - fishing just a couple of feet deep - but with the surface temp at 73 I figured the fish would be deeper than that.
I put on a 1oz weight and started trying different depths. I finally found success with 25' of line out. With so little terminal tackle, 6lb test and the 1oz weight I get a very steep line angle (45 degrees or more) With 25' of line out I figure I was fishing about 17' deep.
The fishing was not fast but I had a couple of hits and caught two nice fish around 14" long. Once again I felt like I had put myself on a successful pattern. However, just like with the bass, after an initial flurry the action stopped. I stuck with that depth longer than I should have but finally I decided to increase the line out on one rod to 35', putting the lure down around 22'. This turned out to make a big difference for me.
Soon after dropping down to this depth I scored a fish on the deeper rod. About 15 minutes later I caught a second fish on the deeper rod at that point I set both rods to 35'. The action was never fast but I slowly picked up fish and had hits throughout the rest of the day.
I will say that it was tough fishing. There was a lot of chop on the water between the pleasure boaters and the wind. My kayak was bouncing around like crazy which resulted in the rods bouncing around so much (especially with the 1oz weight) that it was hard to tell for sure if I was getting bit or just being fooled by the wave action. If I went more than 15 minutes without a strike I would reel in the lures and check them. Sometimes the worms had been chewed on indicating that I had missed a strike.
In the end I scratched out a total of 12 trout including 4 in the 14" range. The bigger fish all looked really healthy and fat and they fought like demons:
You can kind of see the gut on that fish, but the picture does not do it justice. The larger fish all were really fat.
What was a bit disturbing is that 3 of the smaller fish had large red sores on the their bodies. I am not sure what the deal is, they seemed healthy and strong, but the sores looked nasty. I was curious if others had noticed this and if this is a normal summer thing.
So, while I never found a great bite the action was steady enough to make for a fun day of fishing, but the day did end sadly. When I had finally finished loading up I called the Lakestop store to order some fried chicken for dinner. They told me that they had turned the fryer of a while ago.
Nooooooo...
Sadly and hungrily I drove home with a hole in my heart that only fried chicken could have filled.
I was torn between sturgeon fishing in the MC and hitting Hagg. Since the outgoing was not really starting until about 10am I decided it might be wiser to fish Hagg than be sitting on anchor in the middle of what was likely to be a busy day on the river.
I got to Hagg a little after 7am and I was on the water by 8am. I started the day off throwing a topwater for bass. There was a light chop on the water but within 5 minutes I had my first bass. Only 14" but it spent more time out of the water than in it- what a crazy hard fighting fish. In the next 15 minutes I missed two more strikes on the topwater and felt like I was on a good pattern.
Two hours later.... not even one more strike. I switched from topwater to crankbait to carolina rig, but I could not buy a strike after the initial flurry.
Around 10:30 I had worked my way up near ramp A and I decided to switch over to trolling for trout.
I fished my usual rig which is a 1/24 oz roostertail plus a trailer hook fished with a weight on a dropper. No extra flashers or anything like that. When I had been out there a month or so ago I had good success with a 1/8oz weight - fishing just a couple of feet deep - but with the surface temp at 73 I figured the fish would be deeper than that.
I put on a 1oz weight and started trying different depths. I finally found success with 25' of line out. With so little terminal tackle, 6lb test and the 1oz weight I get a very steep line angle (45 degrees or more) With 25' of line out I figure I was fishing about 17' deep.
The fishing was not fast but I had a couple of hits and caught two nice fish around 14" long. Once again I felt like I had put myself on a successful pattern. However, just like with the bass, after an initial flurry the action stopped. I stuck with that depth longer than I should have but finally I decided to increase the line out on one rod to 35', putting the lure down around 22'. This turned out to make a big difference for me.
Soon after dropping down to this depth I scored a fish on the deeper rod. About 15 minutes later I caught a second fish on the deeper rod at that point I set both rods to 35'. The action was never fast but I slowly picked up fish and had hits throughout the rest of the day.
I will say that it was tough fishing. There was a lot of chop on the water between the pleasure boaters and the wind. My kayak was bouncing around like crazy which resulted in the rods bouncing around so much (especially with the 1oz weight) that it was hard to tell for sure if I was getting bit or just being fooled by the wave action. If I went more than 15 minutes without a strike I would reel in the lures and check them. Sometimes the worms had been chewed on indicating that I had missed a strike.
In the end I scratched out a total of 12 trout including 4 in the 14" range. The bigger fish all looked really healthy and fat and they fought like demons:
You can kind of see the gut on that fish, but the picture does not do it justice. The larger fish all were really fat.
What was a bit disturbing is that 3 of the smaller fish had large red sores on the their bodies. I am not sure what the deal is, they seemed healthy and strong, but the sores looked nasty. I was curious if others had noticed this and if this is a normal summer thing.
So, while I never found a great bite the action was steady enough to make for a fun day of fishing, but the day did end sadly. When I had finally finished loading up I called the Lakestop store to order some fried chicken for dinner. They told me that they had turned the fryer of a while ago.
Nooooooo...
Sadly and hungrily I drove home with a hole in my heart that only fried chicken could have filled.
