Pretty Good Day

[Bill Babler]

Gosh it is hard to get back in the saddle after a month of layoff, but here we go.

Launched at Gage's this morn at 7:13 and immediatly got on them. Fished deep drop shot fish out to 40 ft. up Long Creek and up to the mouth of Clevenger. Had pretty close to 40 fish with 15 nice keeps, up to about 3 pounds, that being a LM on a spoon, in the first 3 hrs.

There were quite a few boats on the pond in the Dam area, so there was a spot or two I just could not get on that I thought might have been good.

Switched to a C-Rig and continued to do pretty well till quitting time, for the morning excursion. Rig fish were in the 28 to 40 ft. range also. Had 3 K's that were just toads.

Aftenoon trip went out of BAxter and I was a bit leary, but it worked out great. Fish were the same depth up there for me today and the C-Rig was the deal. Not the numbers as these rig fish are scattered but they will bite. Believe we had close to 20 and about a dozen were really, really nice Keeps.

Again, lots of help but most were pounding the banks. Saw a lot of hardware flying thru the air and am wondering how they fared.

Saw the first fish of the year in Trace Hollow and these were deep at 60 ft. Caught them both on a dropshot. Both nice keeper LM right in the gut or the creek, Lots of shad.

Best rig bite for me was a Yamamoto 5 in slim senko in green pumpkin black fleck. This is a very good bait. We didn't miss many, as a matter of fact, once they made up their mind you pretty much were going to hook them.

Hope it keeps on keepin on.

Good Luck

[Jacob W]

Good to hear of some fish being caught! I caught some fish super early Sunday morning on a wiggle wart shallow about 8 ft., including 5 keeper spots, but it was all over once the sun came up.

[Bill Babler]

I have to guide the James this morning out of Aunt's. Said it was foggy as all get out up there yesterday. Going to start early with the wart and hope we can put a half dozen in the boat, and then start the work when the sun comes up.

Pete Wenners is blogging they are really deep up there on the dropshot. I'll give some of the usually deep runnouts a look see. He is also saying they want nothing to do with the spoon, and for some reason on the rest of the lake it is good. He usually has a pretty tight reign on the James, so I'm taking his advice.

I'm for sure going to keep that rig handy, cause they were just tearing it up yesterday. I'm going to say at least 5 quality bites per hour for the boat. I'll take that right now. Not alot of short fish, a really good mix of K's, LM and Jaw's.

I'll keep ya posted.

Good Luck

[Geoff]

Good to see the fish are still biting. I'll be there house sitting this weekend and plan to just walk around the cove and see what i can catch.

[Bill Babler]

Well all good plans of mice and men are sometimes altered and today was no exception. Was going to pick up Jerry and

Brian at their dock in Aunts, but the Fog was to thick to breath and knew I would have a hard time finding them. Since I had done well yesterday evening at Baxter, I had the boys meet me and drive over there. Knew I could just launch and fish.

Fog was just terrible there also but we did manage to keep a lure wet most of the time till it lifted. Not nearly as good a day as yesterday but if Jerry and I would have done our part it might have been better. Jerry's son Brian caught 9 fish with 5 keepers, including a great brown bass and a very fat LM. Jerry and I did our part by catching 1 keeper each. We were trying to stay out of Brian's way. "Right."

11 fish with 7 keeps. The quality was there, just not the numbers. Clear blue and slick as a gut, but we had a great time.

We had 4 on a dropshot, and all the rest were on the C-Rig. 26 to 30 ft. mostly on long gravel points. Little chunk mixed in with the gravel helped and if there was a Loon present it also enhanced the bite, MIght be a pattern.

Good Luck

[huntest]

Bill

I saw a comment you made some time back about the brand of flourocarbon you use because, as you said, it has ZERO memory. I am having trouble with this on my new spinning reel and what brand would you ecommend for 8 to 12 lbs test?

thanks

[Bill Babler]

I know Edwin will disagree with me and thats ok. I never use carbon on a spinning reel as I have a terrible time with memory. I use Maxima 8 pound moss color. If I am dropshotting or dragging a splitshot, I go to a swivel and put a leader of 10# InvesX to the hook.

I use the heaver line on the leader as it get 90% of the abrasion. I at times will snag and break off, but I will tell you I cannot remember the last time I broke a fish off other than a walleye.

[Quillback]

I launched out of Big M in the fog around 0800, fished a jig for an hour and only had one bite. Tried some other stuff to no avail, put on a t-rigged tube, caught 5 bass fairly quickly, thought I had the secret, then I fished the next 3 hours with just a couple of weak bites. Pulled out about 1430 and headed home. Beautiful day, but the fish did not think so.

[Bill Babler]

They are for sure not everywhere. We caught all our fish both days off about 4 locations. I believe the bait might not have mattered with the exception they did not really seem to want the jig for us. The soft plastic on the C-Rig worked much better. Another point being, it they hit it and you missed them you had better keep it out there as they would continue to keep after it untill they got a stickin.

I thought about a tube and probably should have thrown it some. It is so soft and I bet they would really hold onlo it. "Me Bad."