TR through the weekend.

Bite was great early on a shad fly. Got to the dam at 6:45, and by 8:45 we had a couple of dozen to the boat.  It got really tough then as the area looked like a boat parking lot for a Chiefs game.  Only thing missing was the tailgaters.

Some pretty crazy driving up there, a deep V with 3 guys shot between me and a pontoon plowing and put about 4 inches of wave over the side of my boat.  He must have been pretty mad at the fish to drive that crazy.

By 9;30 it cleared out.  We switched to a jig and float with the jig about 9' deep and again caught them decent.  Lots of quality rainbows and most looked way better than they did yesterday, some full bodies.

Had a 20+ inch very fat and heavy Brown but cannot get it to load right now, hope to get it later.

Good Luck

 

Tournament champ and I headed back out after an awesome meal provided by the Lilleys!  It's been brown City and we are throwing jerks in the rain

8 minutes ago, JestersHK said:

Tournament champ and I headed back out after an awesome meal provided by the Lilleys!  It's been brown City and we are throwing jerks in the rain

             Thoroughly enjoying you taking us along on this trip report DJ,

  BilletHead  

@Seth congrats on a great Taney weekend and tournament!

@JestersHK thanks for the reports and congrats as well. You guys did great!

Thanks fellas.  Seth put on a clinic today and was about out catching me 3 to 1.  I missed over a dozen and he maybe missed just a few.

Dark colors caught better than white for us today. I fished tri olive jig, and a solid grey 3/32oz for almost the whole tournament.  

 

Finally got a 20in Taney brown.

24in and 6.5lb

Grey 3/32oz jig on 4lb down past the narrows.

Saw the bite and got a good hook set.  Seth did a great net job and we got it on video too.

 

21 hours ago, Bill Babler said:

 

Congrats man what a beautiful fish!! 

Looks like I get to add another check mark to the "co-angler that caught a 20"+ brown and not me" board! Before long, that board is going to start looking like the 11" portion of my CAM score card. 

So kind of a formal recap here.  I must say this was the best weekend for me out of a boat on Taney ever.  Fish we're hungry and we had a consistent bite pretty much all up and down the lake FOR 3 WHOLE DAYS! 

Trophy area fished well, albeit a bit slower down around the boat ramp.  The sections after the trophy run and the clay banks both fished really well.  Eddy fishing was on fire.  Not just in trophy area but a little further down lake as well.  Above and below the narrows also produced, heck pretty much anywhere there were eddys and structure you could find a bite or two.  We doubled up 8 times I think when we'd find them?  You'll lose some jigs in structure, but if you're not getting in there or down there you weren't catching em.  

I will say we caught a ton of smallish fish.  We also we're targeting schools of fish for the tournament since you need numbers to get the length total up there.  We'd find a school of dinks and just sit there and sore lip as many as we could.  One small stretch I think we motored and drifted back about 5 times just in one small stretch but almost every cast we were getting bites.

The upside to the above is that we also caught some really solid healthy bows and browns once you weeded past the schools of small stockers.  The fish were healthy and had some really good fighters and colored up beautifully.  I had a brown follow on my jerk bait that was a monster, and we had several other follows by some solid fish including one that followed a small 11in rainbow all the way to the boat and was ready to take a swipe at him till I pulled him up.  Wish I would of let him take that one in hind sight...

Night fishing was kind of a bust for me, but honestly with the amount of fishing we did and the numbers we caught it didn't bother me much.  I need more practice fishing out of a boat, and had a great teacher who I got to watch put on a clinic Saturday when it comes to deep slow jigging.  

We fished white, but I think for me personally the darker jigs caught more fish for me anyways.  I fished a tri olive zig jig quite a bit, and also a 3/32 grey on grey which put up some great numbers.  I literally fished that jig till it fell apart...  You needed 2 rods as well one with 1/8oz for the fast deep stuff and then 3/32oz for hitting the Eddies.  Speaking of rods I did pick up a 6ft rod instead of my normal 4.5ft buggy whips.  The extra length for sure helps out of a boat, and I got to break her in on a nice brownie Sunday.  Appreciated having a bigger rod for that fish.

Equipment wise I also found another great piece of gear in a pair of Huk fingerless gloves.  My wife is always on me for good reason about sun protection and she bought me a pair of these.  Not only did the tops of my hands not get burned, but they are fantastic for handling fish when you have to.  I use the jig pop method when I can, but sometimes you have to get a hand on them to get them released.  With the textured grip on these gloves you only have to grip them once, and you avoid when they go squirting through your hand and you are constantly trying to get a better hold on them.  From a fish health perspective with trout I will be wearing these pretty much everytime from here on out.  Really helps with conserving the slime coat when you do have to get ahold of them. 

Great turn out for tournament, great company, lots of laughs, and some fantastic stories.  We lucked out and got a last minute room at Phil's and as usual just my favorite place to stay.  Just overall a stellar weekend of friends and fishing that will be hard to beat on the fishing side of things!

I've never worked so hard in my life to catch 10-12" fish. If I didn't have Ipilot, I wouldn't have come close to putting up the numbers that I did. In that fast current, I could set my heading and speed and the boat would handle itself while I dealt with fish. Without Ipilot, the drift would have been over as soon as I landed a fish and had to measure it in that fast current. I'm sure it looked about like a cat with a hot stove poker up it's rear end was trying to fish with the way I bouncing between the front deck and the drivers seat. Poor DJ even got dumped on to the floor when a wave hit us just right as I was about to take off and bummed up his shoulder a bit.

It sure made me wish I had enough room in my bilge for one more battery so I could rock a 36v 112# pound thrust trolling motor. I could have just stayed put out in that current then!