Time: 7:15 AM - 4:00 PM Air Temperature: 48 - 68F degrees during trip Water Temperature: Lake Level: 579.67 Weather Conditions: Mostly Sunny, windy, cool. Winds sustained North 10-14 mph
After my awesome trip a couple weeks ago, I got up with Kevin and we headed back to see how we could do. We had a massive cool front move through the night before and winds were picking up and temps were headed down into the low 40s for nightly lows. We weren't sure how we'd do with this sudden change in weather, but thought we'd give it a try.
The wind was definitely a challenge. We started the morning fishing east of Britton Bridge around the powerlines before the wind got up. We knew we'd be most exposed to the wind here, so wanted to get it fished early. We fished jigs tipped with tuffies in 12-14 FOW and had good luck immediately.
We moved around mid day and did some scouting around Slickrock and found a new spot that produced some of the best fish of the day. As we were leaving there, we found a school of crappie bunched up and not relating to structure. We chased them around with the trolling motor for a few minutes and pulled 3 out of there.
We moved out on the west side of the lake and fished the north shore as the wind got up. We caught a few crappie, but all were small. We did pull out 5-6 nice bass from this area.
We refished our morning areas after lunch, but the action had turned off. The wind really made jigging structure tough and we stayed snagged, but I felt we did pretty good considering conditions. Finished the day with 17 keepers and probably about as many throwbacks. Looking forward to the next trip!
Wheeler Lake - Mouth of the Elk and near Lucy's Branch
Time: Morning Run Air Temperature: 75 - 81F during trip Water Temperature: Lake Level: 555.64
Weather Conditions: Nice, clear. Winds calm.
After spending about 2 years talking about it, I finally hooked up with Kevin to show him how I run big water trotlines.
YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF THE TRIP HERE:
I set out lines on Thursday afternoon and launched from Cowford and intended to run all the way down to the Elk river. It is about a 30 minute boat ride, but I wanted to enjoy my time on the water and the weather was great. I had two lines boxed and anchors placed in the front of the boat.
WARNING - GRAPHIC INJURY DESCRIPTION!!
I'm writing this after the fact, but I had the worst fishing related injury/close call that I've ever had while heading to put out these lines. Shortly after I launched from Cowford, I had gotten the boat up on plane running about 30 MPH when one of my anchor lines and marker floats came unwound. The pool noodle float flew up into the air like a kite on a string. I was somewhat annoyed and never slowed down, but instead attempted to grab the line with my left hand and reel the line back in. Suddenly, the float hit the water behind my motor wake as I grabbed the line and it was pulled underwater. The line became tight and started smoking through my closed hand. I felt the pain immediately, but couldn't get my hand off the line quick enough. I managed to pry my hand open just in time as the float ran out of line and pulled a 25+ lb steel I-beam anchor out of the front of my boat as sailed it right by my face until it crashed into the water. It all happed in just a split second, but it seemed to drag out forever. I slowed the throttle and realized I just had an extremely close call. The pool noodle marker float was in shreds behind the boat and the trotline anchor was gone for good.
I realized I hurt my hand pretty badly. I I took a look at it, it was bad. I has sustained severe rope burns on all five fingers and the palm of my hand. The line had burned away about 1/4" of flesh from my fingers and had cauterized them. It never bled a drop even given the severity. I was trying to figure out if I needed to go to the ER or exactly how bad it was. I was close to my neighborhood boat dock, so I decided it was best to pull in and walk to the house to check out the damage a little closer.
There really wasn't any think left to sew up and all a Dr. would could do is numb it, pack it, and wrap it. I decided I could do as much. I sprayed it down with Dermoplast, packed it with triple antibiotic ointment, wrapped it in gauze and tape, and put on a thick latex glove. That would have to do.
The pain was steady, but manageable. My hard-headed, stubborn ass decided that putting out the lines wasn't too bad and I had help the next day to pull them in, so I carried another anchor and float down to the dock and hit the water to fish. Gotta be tough to be dumb...
The culprit that made me cuss and left me with some new scars...
NOW BACK TO THE FISHING!!
I decided to put one line out on the west side of Lucy's Branch and the other in my favorite spot on the south shore across from the mouth of the Elk. This is the first time I put lines out since installing the programmable trolling motor and MAN, what a difference it makes in ease of deployment!!
I baited alternating hooks with cut bait and my Kool-aide and garlic soaked chicken gizzards. We returned at daylight to pull lines and it was a hit!! I won't spend a ton of time writing detail about the pull, but please check out the YouTube videos of the day above.
On the first line, we caught 41 cats which I believe is my best haul ever on a single line. This was the line across from the Elk. We caught 20-something on the second line, which is more typical.
We ended up catching 60-something and kept 58, I believe. We had both livewells absolutely running over with catfish. Kevin came to the house and we cleaned fish for hours over a few cold ones. I believe we ended up with 50-something lbs of dressed fillets. What a haul!!
After having such a great time last weekend, Kevin and I headed back out for a repeat of our last trip.
Overall, today was almost a carbon copy of last weekend. Today, the current was a bit tougher, and the wind kicked up at times making it very difficult to stay in position.
We caught a few bass and a couple cats, but it was definitely slower than last weekend. The highlight of the trip by far was Kevin's flathead catfish. It weighed 41 lbs and was tagged in the dorsal fin! First time in my life seeing a tagged fish in the wild. Very cool.
We had a blast and definitely will get out again soon.
Time: 7:30 AM - 11:30 AM Air Temperature: 21 - 43 degrees during trip Water Temperature: Cold, barely above freezing Lake Level: 552.03 Weather Conditions: Sunny. Winds North- North East 2-10 MPH.
For many, many years, I've wanted to learn how to catch Hybrid and Stripped Bass, but just never knew how to get started and never had anyone to show me. I've had never taken the time to learn on my own via trial and error as I always just targeted something familiar. Well, one day recently I asked my friend Kevin if he'd show me how and he was all in.
We launched around 7:30 from Cowford and rode down to the nuclear plant. It was COLD! Kevin had stopped at the bait shop in Tanner and picked out some very large shiners/bass minnows. It was so cold, that the minnow bucket was frozen nearly solid already. My wet feet were freezing to the deck.
Kevin showed me how to rig. I was very surprised to see that it was really just a deviation of a Carolina rig with a 3 oz egg sinker rigged to slip against a swivel. We tied a two-foot leader with a regular shank hook on and that is all it took. Kevin explained that we'd let it drop to bottom and reel up a couple feet and fish as vertical as the current would allow and adjust as we found the fish.
We fished the current break along the drop off around the pipeline near the green buoy and all the way down to the four steel posts around the boils. We used the fish finder to find local groups of fish and then used the spot lock on the trolling motor to set up over the targets. Now that we were all ready, we dropped line.
And BOOM! Fish on!
Kevin got a massive hit almost immediately. I was amazed and the strength of this fish. It took off like a torpedo and peeled like off quick! It put up one heck of a fight and after a couple minutes, we put the first fish in the boat.
I washed Kevin repeat and put a couple more in the boat. He reeled in a 24 lbs monster and had another one over 20 lbs pretty soon thereafter.
Now that I'd seen a round or two, I was ready for my turn and soon got a good hit. I've never fought a fish in freshwater that fights quite like these bass. Amazingly strong and fast with little to no quit in them.
We had a great day and put somewhere around 7-9 bass in the boat along with a couple stray drum and catfish. What an amazing day learning a new species.
Big shout out to Kevin for teaching me the ropes and I can't wait to try it again!
