First it was toilet paper and then it was my favorite corned beef hash, but now they’ve gone too far with this shortage of 125 Sebiles. If I was a country singer I’d be singing a number one hit called “Jonesin for a Sebile on Lanier” right about now because you can’t find a slow sink 125 Sebile anywhere in the south. They’re gone except for a few of those fancy chrome ones. There are probably thousands of Sebiles sitting in one of those containers off the coast of California headed for Tackle Warehouse right now. I have a stash of 125 Sebiles somewhere in this house and I’ve been searching for them for days but I have tackle everywhere including 2 shops, an attic and a large garage so finding my stash of Sebiles could take years. I’ve tore this place apart only to find one usable 125 Sebile and then I bummed one from my buddy Mike to make it 2 usable Sebiles for the week. I painted both of them my pearl white color and started my week.
This week the Sebile bite hasn’t been off the charts for me and I’ve had to work for my bites but I’ve really amassed some fish by weeks end. It’s mainly been right place right time but there has been a little skill involved. I only needed the pearl white Sebile all week and I literally wore them out, both the fish and the Sebiles. Right now my milk run is out on the main lake early and then working my way back to the creek by midday. This week the bulk of my numbers have been from the creek in the afternoon but the larger size is still out on the main lake, whether it’s humps or points.
I think that my gear was the most important part to my success this week. On Monday I started using 10lb Tatsu flouro with the Sebile but the fish were very leery of the bait so I dropped it down to 8lb Tatsu and that was the ticket. The fish started showing more interest in the bait and were much more aggressive with the 8lb. I was able to catch a few fish just blind casting the bait around brush and out on points which has been kinda hard lately as most of the fish have been caught while fish were schooling or shortly after they stopped schooling. I was throwing the Sebile on my 7’6″ MH Shimano Clarus with a Diawa Fuego 2500 spinning reel. I could throw the Sebile a long way with the spinning gear and it handled the bass and stripers just fine. Speaking of stripers, I caught a lot on the Sebile this week and at times they were much more aggressive than the bass and that 8lb Tatsu handled the stripers like a champ. I gotta hand it to the Tatsu, it takes away a lot of worry about line breaks when catching a big one.
Basically this week was about moving around and making casts early on the main lake. If the fish weren’t coming up on a hump or point out on the main lake I was making blind casts with a steady retrieve and the pearl white Sebile I painted was very visible just below the surface. It was pretty awesome to watch some of the fish just slam the Sebile. Some of the stripers would just come out of nowhere and aggressively slash through it and sometimes a whole school of a few dozen bass would follow it back to the boat without a reaction. Sometimes bass would fight over it and sometimes they didn’t want anything to do with it. If the fish started schooling and I could cast the Sebile into the area they were schooling, the Sebile would be hammered almost immediately every time. I gotta tell you that there were times when I just knew I was going to get hammered by a schooling fish and my heart would be racing with the anticipation of feeling that tug and the chance for a big bass. You fishermen know exactly what I’m talking about. Sometimes I could cast the Sebile in the area where schooling had just occurred and I could coax a fish back up to whack the Sebile. It was just a fun week of not having to throw the kitchen sink at these fish and the Sebile is low impact with high rewards. I suppose there could have been other baits out there that worked better than my painted Sebile this week but I was perfectly content with just sticking with it and getting the occasional nice fish. The video below pretty much covers the extent of my pattern, cast the Sebile out and reel in back in.
I think the fish were much more aggressive in the afternoon also. It seemed like a lot of fish in the morning were just a bit slow to react to the Sebile but by the afternoon they were out in the sun chasing bluebacks. A lot of times I was just looking around to see where the fish were coming up and if I saw fish schooling I would make my way to where the action was and make some casts. I think it’s a good idea to keep a watch out for surfacing fish on points and humps right now. If you see fish schooling and surface activity make a mental note of it and pay that area a visit as soon as you can. I was also able to utilize my Spot Lock on the trolling motor and sit up wind of a lot of places and just fan cast the Sebile down wind when the fish weren’t coming up. It was a blast to feel the rod load up with a nice fish out in the wind and white caps on the main lake. Even in the big choppy waves the fish were still blasting the Sebile.
This week I’m not much help with the fishing report unless you’ve got a stash of light colored Sebiles hid away in your tackle box and if that’s the case, it’s time to use them.
The lake is just above full pool and the water temps are mid to low 70’s. The corps is moving water in the afternoons and evenings. Here are a few pictures of some memorable fish this week. All of these fish were caught on the custom painted Sebile including 2 very nice largemouth caught on back to back casts on a rocky secondary point.
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