Day off with Daddy

Thomas was on spring break this week, so he and I decided to go to the Decatur pumphouse and catch some bluegill.  We dug worms out of our yard and headed out with our Toy Story Woody Pole.  Thomas caught 13! Awesome day!!

Teach 'em Right

 Had a Father-Son day today with my boy and decided to take him bluegill fishing on the bank at the pump house.  Probably caught + on worms we dug out of the flower beds at home.  Thomas reeled in his first solo fish!  Needless to say, he had a blast!

Drinking the Kool-Aid

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!

Shallow Water Winter Crappie

Wheeler Lake - Tennessee River @ Mooresville/Arrowhead Landing

Time: 7 AM - 4 PMAir Temperature: 37 - 64 degrees during trip
Water Temperature: 54 degrees
Lake Level: 553.08' ~ 76,000 cfps
Weather Conditions: Moderate to Strong Winds, 5-16 mph SSE. Would have been difficult to fish had I been anywhere else.


Today I changed things up a bit and fished Wheeler for winter crappie. Based on a recommendation, I tried somewhere new today and launched at Arrowhead in Mooresville and fished the Arrowhead Slough. I'm glad I did.


It took me a little while to hone in on how to fish this area. It is basically expansive mud flats along the refuge with a narrow deep slough running right down the center. Reminds me of the Big Sandy River back home. Along the sides of the slough are numerous blown down tree tops extending outwards into the slough.


The day started off slowly as I tried various water depths along the slough. As the day warmed and I worked my way into deeper water, the action heated up. I finally found the crappie in a tree top extending out to about 10-12 FOW. I began working a minnow and cork in the 4-10 FOW depth fishing about 3-6 feet deep. BINGO.


These fish were HUNGRY! I immediately began getting hits and lots of action. I caught several but struggle with the hook set. These fish were con artists and stole almost every minnow I threw at them.


Over time, I managed to put several in the boat and caught several nice bluegill as well. I moved on down to another big tree top and got even better results. I played a bit with vertical jigging to try to discourage bait stealing and picked up a few that way. Not as effective as minnows, but still put a few fish in the boat.


The overall size of the crappie were pretty small. Possible that I wasn't fishing deep enough to catch bigger fish, but fishing any deeper with the wind would have been tough with jigging and corks. I pulled in a herring and realized a school of them had moved in so I took the opportunity to change over to a casting road runner type of jig and caught 12 herring. I kept these for future catfish bait. Never pass up an opportunity for catfish bait!


At the end of the day, I exhausted 4 dozen minnows and had to resort to jigs for the last few fish. I ended the day with 49 total fish: 28 crappie with 15 keepers, 9 bluegill with 3 keepers, and the 12 herring. I caught all but about 3 fish from the same two tree tops. It was an awesome day and I'm definitely going back!

Trotlines and Fun Times

Location: Wheeler Lake - Cowford to Courtland - Alabama

Time: Morning
Air Temperature: 63 - 79 degrees during trip
Water Temperature: 74 degrees
Lake Level: 555.85' - 51,566 cfps - Perfect conditions
Weather Conditions: A little choppy & overcast, clearing as day goes.  S-SE winds 4-10 mph.

Doug and Douglas joined me on Friday afternoon to bait and prepare lines.  They had never run full scale lines, so I knew they would have a blast.  These are the lines they helped me hand build over the spring.  

We ran 100 hooks per person, which is allowed by law.  We started by running down towards Courtland and dropping a 100 hook line below the bluffs and across the mouth of a little inlet.  This one was baited 100% chicken gizzards and was in about 24 FOW.  We put the next one N-S between the island and shore in Mallard Creek.  We baited this one with live bait and it was a 50 hook line placed in 9 FOW.  We put the third line (100 hooks) on the flats behind my house and baited it with cut bait and gizzards.  We put the final 50 hook line behind the big island by Cowford landing in 6 FOW and baited it with miscellaneous gizzards, cut bait, and whatever we had left over.  

We were on the water by 7:00 AM on Saturday morning and started with the line at Cowford.  We pick up 5 fish off this line and it was a pretty normal run.  We did pick up one that weighed in at around 20 lbs and took a picture and turned it loose.  

The next line we ran was the one in Mallard Creek.  Our intent was to target flatheads on this line with live bait in shallow water.  We knew we wouldn't catch a lot on this line, but was hoping for something big.  We ended up catching 2-3 channels but nothing giant.  It still was a good run.

The 3rd line we pulled was the one in the flats behind my house.  This one did really well and caught one flathead and mix of channels and blues.  I believe we pulled in around 6-8 fish off this long line.

The final line we pulled was the one towards Courtland below the bluffs.  This one was HOT!.  We caught fish nearly every hook for the first 5-6 hooks and picked up fish throughout the entire length of the line.  Both end of the line were very heavy with fish and kept us hopping for a few minutes.  This line pulled in 20-22 nice fish and was an absolute blast.  It was an awesome way to end the day! 

In total, we ended up with 38 catfish caught.  We had turned the biggest fish loose immediately and then took to deep water for a photo op and to cull what we had kept.  We caught more fish than we needed, so we took photos and turned loose the smallest and largest of what we had.  We kept around 16 fish for the freezer.  Overall, it seemed gizzards did the best, followed by cut bait.  Deep water did the best and fish consistently were on hooks nearest the weights across all lines.  As a learning point, I will probably sink all lines in the middle from now on when running deeper than about 12-14 FOW.

We had an awesome time and I believe Doug and Douglas got a good feel for trotlining.  I think we are all ready to do it again! Our lines were all 100% hand made and I'm proud of everyone that helped us build these this spring as they proved they can produce.