Fishing for a Gift Idea?? 92 Fish, Stillhouse Hollow, 01 April 2011






Happy Birthday, Dalton!! Dalton B. and his family (Dad-Duane, Mom-Cristy, little sister-Delanie) all came out this evening for a birthday fishing trip in celebration of Dalton’s 14th birthday.

Dalton turns 14 this Sunday but started the festivities a bit early!

Little Miss Delanie held up her end of the bargain boating a big mess of white bass tonight.

We moved this trip from its original time of the morning of 02 April (tomorrow) due to the fact that our late-week weather forecast showed a mild cold front dropping down overnight, shifting winds to the east for most of the morning that day. Fortunately the family was able to flex and come out this evening as we enjoyed a bit of pre-frontal action.

Dalton has a quiet determination about him — I think he’d have hung with me no matter how long we fished and no matter how good or bad the fishing or weather was. Miss Delanie, who is 9, is a cute, cheery young lady who didn’t mind getting her hands a little slimy on account of her big brother! Mom and Dad were along for the ride and loving that their kids were having a great experience this evening.

Tonight we boated fish from four areas — the first three by way of jigging vertically, and the last area by way of flatline trolling.

Our first encounter with active, bottom-oriented fish came at Area 103. Sonar lit up with fish from 28 to 25 feet deep here on this breakline. We set the boat in a hover with the Terrova on Spot Lock and went to work. Since the kids were both athletic, I used a sports analogy and told them this game is ours to lose — meaning we would catch a bunch of fish here if we didn’t goof anything up like making excessive noise or tangling lines in the trolling motor, etc. Well, none of those things happened, and we boated exactly 51 fish here in about 90 minutes’ time. At first we used a smoking tactic with TNT 180 slabs, and then used a lift-drop tactic to reach horizontally beyond the boat giving 1/2 oz. Sand Blasters a workout.

As these fish softened, I searched the immediate vicinity with sonar finding little else, so, we cranked up and expanded the diameter of our search. We again contacted fish at Area 746, this time finding the fish cooperative for a much reduced period of time. We all caught fish on the initial drop as the fish turned on quickly, but then they turned right back off and only responded half-heartedly from that point on. We boated 18 fish here including 1 drum, with most taken via TNT 180 in a smoking format and the balance Sand Blast’ed.

Our last bit of vertical jigging came a bit shallower from 13-15 feet deep between Areas 731 and 728. Again, the fish were most aggressive right at the beginning and quickly tailed off. We smoked and blasted here for 20 additional fish, the majority of which were short.

With sunset now knocking at the door, the kids’ wrists hurting, and the fish about to shut down, we changed the pace a bit and flatline trolled off Area 999 for the last 15 minutes of light. We put out twin Rip Shad 200’s and boated a final pair of whites and a nice 12.125 inch crappie.

By now we’d amassed a catch of exactly 92 fish and headed to the dock. I was very pleased that this trip worked out well, as Dalton and his dad had come out with me once before when the weather did not cooperate and I did all I could to keep this from being a repeat performance of that tough day on the water.

TALLY = 92 FISH, all caught and released


CONDITIONS:

Start Time: 4:00p

End Time: 7:55p

Air Temp: 84F at trip’s start.

Water Surface Temp: ~64.6F

Wind: Winds were SSW11-13 the entire trip.

Skies: Skies were fair with building clouds to the N in advance of a mild cool front due in overnight.