Poplar Creek Stripers

 

I decided to make an exploratory trip this evening to see if the rockfish were pushing minnows up on the shallow flats up the clinch turning into a subsequent surface bite.  I called on my comrades Ethan and Ian to check it out with me.  We launched at Food City and ran up to Dead Mans cove to get bait - one or two throws and we were in business. We graphed a couple of spots along the way heading up stream, but didn't find any fish.  I thought that it might be worth a look at the mouth of Poplar Creek since its always a good idea to check major thoroughfares (areas where moving baitfish have the possibility of getting corralled).  We stopped outside the mouth of Poplar Creek and the first drop resulted in a beast.  From then on it was on like Donkey Kong! We boated several nice fish all in the 10 to 15 pound range, the best being Ian's. He really mopped up tonight - I think he had 5 by himself.

Stripers & New Friends

Stuart Row brought a friend of his along today as we headed out and attempted to get him hooked up with a nice striper, a fish he had never caught before. Dave is quite the accomplished fly fisherman, but apparently has done much lake fishing for stripers. We started at the barge tie up on the southwest side of Long Island. Stuart caught a pair of nice rockfish right off the bat, and missed another - but then the bite shut down.  We moved up to the top of the island to try the southern most drop off near the Osprey nest, but no stripers were showing up on the graph.  Earlier, when we were getting bait, I got a nice batch of threadfins that I just could stand to throw out, and man am I ever glad I didn't.  Since we were up near the Osprey nest I decided to rig up my Stradic 3000/7' St. Croix rig with a live bait Carolina rig - 1st pitch laid a perfect 3" yellow tail up on the shallow flat next to the big stump that sits at the base of the Osprey next and no sooner had it entered the water and wham! a beautiful 4.5# smallmouth crushed it.  It was a fantastic fight on that lighter tackle.  I caught another smaller smallmouth (~1.5#) on the very next cast. We then moved down around the east side of the island and Dave finally got to experience the ferocious fight of a rockfish.

Dualin' Stripers

A first for Dave

4.5# Bronzeback

Stripers and Storms with the Rows

Stuart Row and his brother Rob and his son went with me up to Long Island this afternoon to see if we could catch a striper.  The bite has cooled off considerably since a couple of days ago.  We started near the barge tie up and found a few fish on the graph, missed a fish or two right away but didn't boat anything.  Next we went up to the top side of the island and fished the west drop off.  Rob hooked up with a nice 14# rockfish as shown in the picture.  At about 4:00 p.m. Luke hooked up with us and we ran and picked him up at the Windy Hill ramp.  shortly after we picked up Luke a pretty nasty storm blew up and it started lightening - I think the Row's saw more lightening than they care too and we ended up running them back to the boat launch for the end of their trip.  Good ole Luke and I decided to take our chances and see if we could find some more fish. We got another batch of bait in the Center Farm cove and as I was throwing the 10' Cracker in 19' of water I caught a 5# largemouth.  We went back up to the west side of Long Island and I ended up catching a 20# blue cat. If you notice I'm soaking wet in the picture, that's because when I got the cat in it started flippin' around on the deck and knocked my Costas in the water and I had to dive in to save them. It was a real clown show for the boats fishing the island.                                          

More Long Island Striper Mania

Scott, Ethan, Ian, and I went back to Long Island again tonight for some more striper action.  We caught several nice fish again - not quite the bite as the night before but the fish were definitely there. The surface water temperature is in the low 80s. Here is Scott with a nice 14# rockfish.

Stripers

Scott, Ethan, Ian, Dylan Holt, and I went rockfishing up around Long Island. We caught several in the 8 to 15 pound range on nice gizzards.

Long Island Stripers

Ethan, Ian, Dylan Holt and i went up to Long Island to see if the rockfish had moved in yet. We fished the southwest side near the barge tie up and concentrated on the drop off into the channel as it runs NNW. We caught several nice stripers in the 10 to 15 lb range.

Watts Bar Crappie

Scott, Ethan, Ian, and I went crappie fishing on Watts Bar today. We launched out of Bell Cove and fished Angler's Cove. We fished with grubs (smoke, shad, and chartreuse), with floats about 3 to 4' deep. The map below shows where we caught the crappie in the order of our progression. We caught a couple of keepers off spots #1 and #2 within the first few minutes of starting the day. Spot #3 was the real hot spot of the day - we probably caught 5 or 6 keepers of the pylons of this dock. It has great depth (~6') and numerous double pylons, so it's like a monstrous stake bed. Spot #4 was a downed tree that held a few fish and spot #5 marks where Scott caught the big fish of the day (on a shad rap) trolling across the open water heading back out of the cove. Spot #6 is the one to remember, it is about 10 new bamboo brush piles that someone placed about 25 yards from the dock shown in the map below. We caught a few crappie here, but when the lake is up 3 - 5' these will not be visible but will definitely be worth checking out for bass and crappie. Over all we kept 11 crappie, and fried them up this evening.