I got out this morning with a friend to do a little planer board testing and scouting a little north of Browns Bridge. Long story short; not much to report to the north. The best we could do with the planer boards was a few small spots and a 4 pound catfish on a weighted planer. After dinking around that area for a couple of hours we came back down to the 2 mile chute. We marked a nice school of larger fish just to the back side of a point but couldn’t get any to commit to the trout and bluebacks. We moved further south and found some really nice schools of stripers around the mouth and inside 6 mile. Again, we got right over the schools and no takers. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, we power reeled, fished above them, below them, in them and around them. We did everything but troll through them. I left all my trolling gear at home for this trip. I was commited to live bait. I kick myself for not bringing the u-rigs for these groups of fish.

We headed back to the dock around lunchtime and called it a day. No stripers were boated today. It was one of those days that the fish we were on were not really active fish. The water temps were in the upper 70’s this morning and from what I’ve seen, a few fish are probably moving a bit north. I think that the front coming through this weekend will cool the water a bit more and scatter a few schools. We saw very few topwater fish north of Browns Bridge and not much topwater to speak of by the time we got to 6 mile. My guess is that planer boards and free lines early, followed by downlines and trolling once the sun comes up. There are still good groups of fish on the south end that can be caught trolling. We did see a few larger fish sitting on points early but couldn’t get any to hit the trout yet. All in all, we’re starting to see signs of a fall pattern with fish being shallow and on the surface chasing bait early in the morning and late in the evening. Topwater baits should work well early in the morning and late in the evening. I also like using 1/2 to 3/4 ounce bucktail in light or off white colors for surfacing stripers at dusk.

Good Fishing!

Jim

Well, this morning was interesting. I was suppose to meet a couple of friends at the ramp this morning to go out in their boat and try a little trolling. I hadn’t heard from them by 9 am so I decided to drive on down to the lake and wait for the call. As I pulled up to the ramp I saw a small school of larger stripers just having a blast busting bait on top; And right out in front of the ramp no less! I jumped out of the truck and grabbed the rod I had in the back. I had a bucktail tied on and thought maybe I could catch one on my spinning gear from the dock. By the time I got the rod out and headed to the dock, they were moving back out. I got to the dock and just couldn’t get that 1/2 ounce bucktail out far enough to get at the school. None the less, it was a great site to see the stripers up on top. My buddy pulled up in his boat to pick me up and said they had just caught a nice 15 pounder on a freelined herring straight out the back. That was another good sign. Catching fish on freelines means that planer boards will probably work also. We set out to try some trolling and hit a few spots where I’d been catching them on leadcore and downriggers. We tied up a couple of bucktail trollers and tried a few areas that held fish down deep. We had 1 taker that came unbuttoned. He hit the Blueback troller hard and peeled about 50 feet and let go. We checked a few other areas and went back to where they had caught the 15 pounder earlier. The fish had moved on. After a couple of hours of looking and trolling the leadcore I headed back to the house. It sounds to me like there was an early bite and the leadcore trolling has slowed a bit. The water temp was 81-82. I don’t expect those temps to hold much longer with a stronger front coming through in a couple of days. Hopefully by late next week, there will be even more topwater and cooler water temps.