Juggin'

Took Thomas and Jessica out this morning form some jugging.  We threw out 24; 13 in the shallows in about 7-9 FOW and 9 in the deep in about 32 FOW.  We used my "Guzzard Punch" bait, which is chicken gizzards soaked in Kool Aide and garlic powder.  Had a fantastic time and Thomas pulled in a big one!  Ended the day with 8 cats and 1 drum.  Ready to go again.

Thomas's First Time on the Water and Daddy's First Trotlines in nearly 20 years

Location: Wheeler Lake - Cowford/Swan Creek Area - Alabama

Time: 7:00 AM - 8:30 PM
Air Temperature: 58 degrees AM
Water Temperature: 62 - 67 degrees
Lake Level: 554.91' - 97,667 cfps - A little heavy on current, but level is correct for this time of year.
Weather Conditions: Calm. Sunny.


Decided to take the 50+ 2-3" bluegill I caught this week in minnow traps and do a trial run of my new trotlines with nothing but live bait.  Jessica and Thomas helped me to put a 50 hook line just east of the Cowford boat launch in about 9-10 FOW.  We put the line between the channel and the feeding flats in hopes of targeting flathead catfish with the live bait.  We placed it about 6 pm on Saturday and ran the line out and came back to bait it in the water. This was Thomas's first time out on the water! 

I came back out this morning (Sunday) by myself to run the line.  On hook number 2, I had my first fish! Although I didn't catch any flatheads, I did haul in 4 channels and one nice blue.  My line did get snagged on something pretty solid around 20 hooks in.  I did have to cut and re-tie, but that is just part of it.  Hooks 20-30 seemed to do the best.  Lots of empty hooks.  I think the bluegill got off the line rather than catfish throwing the hooks.  I think I ended up with about 20 lbs of fish.  They made a nice mess once filleted!.  These new lines are nice and I can't wait to run them again.

Jessica Showing How It's Done

Location: Browns Ferry - Wheeler Lake - Alabama

Time: 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Air Temperature: 90 Degrees
Water Temperature: 86 Degrees

Lake Level: 555.76' Strong current. 

Weather Conditions: Moderate winds from the south. About 11 mph

I took Jessica out this afternoon after work. I didn’t fish, but instead worked the trolling motor to try to keep us stable. Winds were very strong and the current was pulling hard, since we really struggled to keep the boat in position. Nevertheless, Jess fished with cut shad bouncing bottom with the new inline float rig I’ve been working with. We fished alongside the boils and submerged pipeline by the nuclear plant. 

She immediately caught a nice 6 lbs class blue literally on the first drop in the water. She quickly followed it up with a couple more on the next couple drops. She even pulled a double with cats in both hooks! She was slaying them and managed to land 7 in roughly an hour or less. It was a blast trolling while she was hammering the cats!

S L O W

Location: Browns Ferry - Wheeler Lake - Alabama

Time: 6:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Air Temperature: 89 Degrees
Water Temperature: 83-85 Degrees
Lake Level: 555.98'.
Weather Conditions: Calm.  Winds less than 6 mph SSE

I launched again from the house today with the intent of running jugs.  Today I launched them right in front of my house on the flat between the stump row and the channel in about 12 feet of water.  I had cut bait on all the hooks.  I only launched 12 today since they didn't do so good yesterday.

I went up to the nuclear plant to rod and reel fish.  Bite was very slow near the boils by the pipeline.  I only picked up two here today by bouncing bottom with shrimp.

I split my time between fishing the boils, the water intake gates, and running the jugs in between changing spots.  The jugs didn't produce a single fish on the first run.  The intake gates didn't produce any fish today at all.  I caught one nice blue about 8 lbs on my second jug run and also caught a small flathead. 

I picked Jessica up and we rotated through the normal spots again with no luck.  We even tried a bobber over the rocks on the bank to try to see if they were spawning on the rocks, but had no luck there either. 

We ran the jugs a final time and and caught one small blue.  Overall, a very slow day with only 5 fish.

Location: Browns Ferry - Wheeler Lake - Alabama

Time: 6:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Air Temperature: 94 Degrees Hot!!
Water Temperature: 83-85 Degrees
Lake Level: 555.99'.
Weather Conditions: Calm.  Winds less than 6 mph SSE

I had spend the previous week re-tying all my catfish jugs and added 8 more to the fleet, so I was anxious to get some jugs out.  I launched at the house and started off by dropping 20 jugs on the flat just west of Mallard Creek in about 14 feet of water.  I had cut bait on every hook.  I then headed to the nuclear plant to fish my normal spot along the pipeline.  

I was bouncing bottom with shrimp as bait.  Fishing was a bit slow.  I fished about 1.5 hours and pick up 3 catfish.  One was a very nice female blue cat full of eggs.  I'd say she weighted 10-12 lbs.  

I then headed over to run the jugs, but had absolutely ZERO fish or lost bait.  It begin to cross my mind that jug conditions may not be right.  We were on the tail end of a mayfly hatch and some of the catfish were releasing eggs.  They may not be on the flats like normal.  I pulled all the jugs and took them to the north side of the river and launched them in deeper water about 20 ft deep just as an experiment.  I figured the catfish may be moving shallow, but wanted to rule out deep water first.

I returned to rod and reel fishing over by the nuclear plant intake gates and pylons.  I picked up three more nice cats there with one big blue in the boat that probably weighed 10-12 lbs.  I released both of the large fish of the day.

Jessica joined me and we ran the jugs again.  ZERO luck again.  Headed back to the house having caught 6 cats total and kept the 4 that were of a good size to eat.

Location: Cedar Creek Reservoir - Alabama

Time: 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM
Air Temperature: 54 degrees AM - 75 degrees afternoon
Water Temperature: 70 - 74 degrees
Lake Level: 580.06'
Weather Conditions:  Moderate Winds from W to SW. Mostly Sunny.

Fished for crappie with Jessica today on Cedar Creek.  As I have learned, there is no sense in getting there super early, so we got there about 9:30 AM. Concerned that spawn should already be early, but this year's odd weather patterns suggest conditions are still right for the spawn.

We launched on the north landing in the center of the lake and started our day by heading west to the next large bay.  We kept with the same spawn tactics I've been using over the past couple of successful trips and we concentrated on fishing shallow brush: fallen tree tops, man-made  brush piles, log jams, beaver dams, etc.  We fished in 2' to 6' of water with a bobber and minnows.

Pretty successful immediately on the first top, but wind made it very difficult.  Quickly picked up 2-3 before we had to find better cover from the wind.  The bay by the road produced in the log jams.  Kept "quick fishing" areas and moved on pretty quickly when we didn't have much luck in 10-15 minutes.  Had pretty good success just about everywhere we stopped on the west side.
Late afternoon, we headed to east end of the lake to the north bay where before the bridge.  Continued to pick up a few fish.  Moved to the big bay in the center on our way back to the truck and stopped and fished a couple of new pockets on the east side.  Had success there too!

Ended our day with 20 keeper sized crappie and threw one short back.  Also caught a largemouth and a pumpkin seed.  Overall, very good day!! Looks as if they are still on beds.  Did see a couple dying crappie that suggest they may be spawning out.

Cleaned fish. 3+ lbs of fillets.  Several (5-6) still holding eggs.  Late spawn this season.

 

Location: Bent Pine Pocket - Wheeler Lake - Alabama

Time: 4:30 AM - 6:30 PM
Air Temperature: 60's afternoon
Water Temperature: 64 degrees
Lake Level: 554.28' - A little low for the area
Weather Conditions: Bad Windy - 15+ mph. Partly Sunny.

Fished today with Jessica after work. After having luck this past weekend with crappie in the bushes, I was curious if we could catch any in Bent Pine. It was so windy, we couldn't have fished anywhere else. No crappie today. Lake is still a little low to get into the bay shallows. Did catch a couple of largemouth and 4-5 very big bluegill on jigs. Try again when the water get up.

Wormy.

Location: 2nd Creek - Wheeler Lake - Alabama

Time: Morning - 7:00AM - 3:30 PM
Air Temperature: Cool 60ish in AM - warmed up to 80's.
Water Temperature: 78
Lake Level: 553.92'
Weather Conditions: 7 - 10 MPH North - North West.

Fished 2nd Creek for crappie.  Fished with minnows and jigs.  Fished in front of the landing at first.  Caught 1 crappie in 18' to 24' of water.  Slow.  Moved to other side of bridge to fish flat beside south side of the road.  Caught 5 white bass pretty quickly.  Jessica came up to join, so I fished under the bridge while she was coming.  Bumped bottom and caught 2-3 catfish quickly.

She and I headed out towards the lake and fished the large bay to the west of 2nd Creek, but wind changed and we moved to large bay on the north bank of the main lake.  No crappie, but picked up a nice 16"-18" largemouth and several small bluegill.  Bound the bottom of the bay to be very rocky.  Will be a good spot to shellcracker fish in the spring.

Came home to clean our mixed bag and found the white bass to be full of parasites!!  Will not eat these jokers again, at least for a while...

 

 

Location: Browns Ferry - Wheeler Lake - Alabama

Time: Afternoon
Air Temperature:
Water Temperature:
Lake Level: 555.24'
Weather Conditions: 

Didn't take good notes today, but Jessica and I fished Browns Ferry in the evening for catfish.  Looks like we had a pretty good afternoon.  Caught at least 3 catfish.  I imagine we were using shrimp.

 

Location: Bent Pine Pocket and Cowford - Wheeler Lake - Alabama

Time: Lunch to Mid Afternoon
Air Temperature: 80-82 degrees
Water Temperature:
Lake Level: 555.7- nice level for the area
Weather Conditions: Bad Windy. 8 - 15+ mph South.

Jessica and I set out from our home ramp. Extremely windy. Intended to go to swan creek, but couldn't with the wind and had to head back. Went into Bent Pine Pocket to escape wind. Caught some shad for catfish bait with the casting net.

Threw back excess shad and immediately noticed whit bass hitting to water shad we threw back. Started Jessica casting a Bobby Garland Money Milk and immediately caught fish. 5-7 white bass very quickly, almost every cast. Also caught 1 large mouth. Jessica was on fire!

Later moved to the swan creek area when the wind calmed, but it was too shallow.

Instead, we set up over a deep hole out from Cowford for catfish in 14-20' of water. We anchored, cast, and tightlined over the edge of the hole. Caught one beautiful flathead, 1 blue cat, and one 15-1/2" largemouth bass. Fun day for sure.

 

Location: 2nd Creek - Wheeler Lake - Alabama

Time: Morning - Mid Afternoon
Air Temperature: 37 - 65 degrees
Water Temperature:
Lake Level: 552.17'
Weather Conditions: 4 - 12 MPH East Wind

Jess and I started out under the bridge. Immediately picked up 2-3 crappie. It was too cold and windy to stay under the bridge, so we moved out to wind protected bays. Not much luck elsewhere. Returned to bridge after lunch and resumed catching crappie. Fished minnows bouncing bottom. 20-25' of water. Caught several nice deep water bluegill. Kept 6 crappie and 4 bluegill.