Wheeler Lake - Elk River
Evening of July 31 - Morning of August 1
Air Temperature: 72 - 80 degrees during trip
Water Temperature: 91 Degrees. HOT!!
Lake Level: 555.6
Weather Conditions: Rain drizzle and overcast. Wind N-NW 6 mphs.
It is time to do our annual fish fry fishing trip and there is no better way to stock a freezer than with trotlines. I recruited Doug and Douglass to help me out for a couple days in hopes of filling my freezer and theirs.
We put out 100 hooks per person in and around the Elk River. We put one 50 hook like just north of the HWY 72 bridge and one 50 hook line in deep channel water out in the body of the lake around 45 feet deep. These two were to be experimental. The one in the Elk was baited with 40% live bluegill and put in a spot that might attract flatheads. The deep water line was to see what was lurking in the deep and if a thermocline has any impact on summer fishing. We place a 100 hook like out from the island towards the channel and another 100 hook like on the Courtland side below the bluffs.
For bait, we had plenty of freezer shad and for giggles, I decided to play along with the trend of chicken and, yes, Kool-Aid. We soaked two pounds of chicken gizzards overnight in Kool-Aid and garlic powder. We baited every other hook shad then chicken.
When we deployed lines on Saturday evening, the recreational traffic was insane. We had to be very careful due to all the boat traffic. We ran into a couple snags putting lines out due to traffic and being out of practice, but got all of them out shortly after dark. Now to let them soak...
We got up early Sunday morning as was immediately met with rain showers. The weather forecast was calling for scattered early showers, but as time went on, the rain set in and was going to stay. We delayed an hour, but eventually had to go out there.
We ran the 50 hook like in the Elk first during a break in the weather. I believe we caught 6 off of this line, but it was shallow and we had some casualties due to the stagnant, hot water. Soon after, we headed to the other deep water 50 hook like and Douglas pulled this one as well. We did better in deep water. All fish were alive, but no monsters like we were hoping for. However, it was nice to see that no lack of oxygen in the deep existed and this line actually did better than the shallow line likely due to cooler temperatures at depth.
We headed over to the bluffs and Doug pulled this line. It was a solid line. We had weighted the center of the line and caught fish all throughout. At this point, we were very impressed on the performance of the chicken and Kook-Aid. We had been keeping all fish between 2-6 lbs and had threw back a few on each end of the range.
Finally, we headed back towards the island to pull in the last long line. I pulled this one in. As soon as the anchor was up, I could feel good fish. We caught stead fish, but with about 40 hooks left, I could feel something nice. I made comments along the way, " yes, I still feel it". 10 hooks later, " yes, its still there". " It's big.", "This is a nice fish, guys." After about hooks of feeling tugging, we finally came to the last 2-3 hooks and finally surfaced our big fish.
As she surfaced, she was fighting hard. I had to let line spool back out like a drag. Finally we tried to net the fish, but even my big net wouldn't due. We got it up against the boat and I reached into its mouth and hauled her in.
She's BIG! 51 lbs and some change and we had my larges trotline fish ever in the boat. This fish is my 2nd largest fish ever and a boat record. We took photos and released her back to the depths unharmed.
It was a fantastic day. We caught a total of 50 fish which equates to one every 6 hooks on the average. Learned that deep water in the summer is still a good bet and chicken and Kool-Aid is a real bait option.
We cleaned 32 fish and dressed 17.5 lbs of clean fillets. Were all set for or fish frys!
