Black Friday 2016, Dam area

[MOBass]

Rough start, motor was being cold natured.  Said a few prayers and finally it dawns on me to trim the thing down.  Viola!  Ran like a champ after that.  First stop trolling motor on 24V, nada.  Click to 12V, not optimal, but we are fishing.  Big Cedar hollow, ran a bank with a topwater and spinner bait, nada.  Hit the 86 bridge with drop shot and spoon after marking plenty, nada.  0 for 2.  Headed over to brushy....get crushed on a football jig....drag was not set...missed that one.  My son was throwing a ned and missed a bunch.  It had been awhile since he had been on the water and he had at least three swim it almost to the boat, he couldn't figure out the slack line was a fish with the bait.  Bank was just a little transition from bigger rock to gravel.  Wind started to pick up.  Decision time, run to Indian and have lunch and make a full day or pack up early.  With the trolling motor issue I opted to split the baby, try a couple more things and then head to Hollister for late lunch.

We were 0 for a bunch, but at least made some sort of contact.  I stopped at the smaller island in front of Big Cedar hollow.  Graph was lit up like all get out.  Tried to spoon and drop shot them, but with the motor getting puny I couldn't hold us on them.  Time to punt.  Back to State Park and found a bank to run.  Grab a ned myself and was just wanting to kill the skunk.  Hit a little transition from bigger rock to smaller stuff again and the varmit was swimming fast towards the boat....no more white stripe thanks to a mercy dink smallie.  That was enough of that.  He ate it deep and it took a few dips in the water to carefully dislodge it.  No blood, swam off strong.  Enough of that.  Grabbed the rock crawler and took another pass in the little transition spot.  Made a few cast and finally felt some good weight and reeled into it.  Number two was on and I got a couple of nice aerials out of him.  After that we packed it in for a post session lunch and McD's.  Life has been pretty unrelenting for about a year and it felt good to get some quality time on the water.  Horrible photographic evidence provided my ace photographer....who cut off the top of my head. 

 

[Quillback]

Good stuff - Looks like a nice meanmouth.

[vernon]

I have a head like that.  I actually prefer that it be cut off in photos when not covered!  If the flash were to accidentally go off who knows what the collateral damage might be!

Way to stay after em'.  Glad you got rewarded even if minimally.  

[Hammer time]

Thanks for the report. Your a great writer, felt like I was with you as I read your post. Please post more often, I really enjoyed the read!

[Nitro 750]

Good report, thanks for sharing!!!

[Pepe]

Way to persevere.  That time with family is irreplaceable. 

[gabe]

Nice report. 

[m&m]

Mobass, thanks for the report. Keep on keepin on. 

Mike

[MOBass]

On 11/26/2016 at 2:57 PM, Hammer time said:

Thanks for the report. Your a great writer, felt like I was with you as I read your post. Please post more often, I really enjoyed the read!

Thanks, I try to get details in there that will help someone else figure them out.  Hopefully I will have more to post, been a heck of a year.  Married a daughter off, sent one on a trip to Hawaii, did a bunch of work with youth groups.  Finally seeing daylight on a lot of things.  

Bad news is I felt a thunk loading the boat up, didn't think much of it.  Apparently there was something big and solid on the ramp as I have a bad dog ear on the prop and ground the edges a little.  Need to pull it and get it fixed and hopefully no lower unit damage.  Need to get the meter out and check the 24V side of the plug to see if the battery or the trolling motor shot craps.  Oh well, best get it done now and try to get in another trip and look towards spring.

BTW, water temp was 56ish-59ish, banks that got sun on them first were on the warmer side. 

[THE RAT]

MoBass, when are we going to go fishing? it's getting ready to get really fun. TJ