My wife and I have gotten lucky 2 weeks in a row. She was able to get free for an afternoon fishing trip. She met me at my building and we had to decide between the Civilian Rec area or Triana ramp on Wheeler. Being ever the cheap engineer, I considered the different places we could fish from each of the ramp on the remaining gas that I had bought the previous week. The Rec area gives me access to the typical Ditto Landing spots. But, that area gets heavily fished. The Triana ramp gives me access to just a few spots, but they don't get fished very often, neither by myself or anyone else. In fact, I had only been down to Triana 3 times, counting last week. But...we have always had luck.
I decided that I wanted to fish areas that were less pressured....and were close to the ramp. So, we put in at Triana. Now, last week, I noticed that the ramp has some problems. Seems like there was a huge pothole that I kept sticking the trailer tire in. Every time I tried to avoid it, I still fell in it. You can mess around and get stuck in one of those if you aren't paying attention. After easing the boat in, Alyse reported that a local fishermen who was hanging on the dock asked her why I was using a busted ramp. So, it made sense. The reason I couldn't avoid the pot hole is because it wasn't a pot hole at all. The whole bottom of
the ramp is gone. Face palm.
Water was stained. 2-3mph current. Water was low 70s.
So, we ran down river to the pump house right off the bat. Nothing. Not a nibble. Ran to a creek opening. Nothing doing. But, as we came out of the creek, I noticed the current had turned on and I hoped the fish would do the same. I decided that I would use my old noggin and start looking for fish on my Hummingbird rather than shot in the dark. As I dialed it up, I found a pod of baitfish in the middle of the creek channel with several high density returns surrounding them. I assumed they were white bass, but catching white bass is better than nothing!
I couldn't get them to bite my deep diving Spro John DD
But, as those white bass are incredibly depth dependent, Alyse did find them on a Lil John original. Man, I love that little bait. It has such a great wobble. It comes through rocks easily. It deflects off cover extremely well. It really is a go to bait for me when times are tough!
We pulled up and headed up river to the NASA barge tie up. I had thought the water looked really low, but the fact that the little spring that runs into the channel just above the barge tie ups was completely out of water, I would say it was 2.5 feet low. Not usually a good sign. Fished the upriver point without anything. I didn't fish the cove last week because there were shore fishermen and I like to let them have their space. But there wasn't any this day, so we decided to fish it out. . Just in case I was missing something, I told Alyse I wanted to swap baits. The water was stained and I wanted to throw something with more color. Maybe a red crank. So, I pulled out the box and started rooting. She started laughing at me and I asked her what was so funny. She pointed to my box of crank baits and said: "You have only about 3 colors in there. 3 colors in every type and size of crank. And most of those are those chartreuse ones that you are so gay over." Yep, she said I was gay for chartreuse sexy shad. Well, she's right. Anyway, she said she wanted to pick out a crank, even though I wanted to throw a red one. She pointed to a Strike King Series 3 in Chartreuse Sexy.
About half way around the horseshoe, I had figured out that there was only one active fish...on the down river point. I would see him bust. Since I hadn't had a nibble and Alyse had only caught one fish, I told her we would go catch that little scrapper and call it a day So, we did just that. Picked up my Lucky Craft Sammy, tossed it in his general direction and he hit it. But not hard enough to get hooked up. I paused the bait, twitched it again and he got stuck on his second hit. But, as I was taking him off, she snagged into one. At first she said she felt something, but now she thought it was just a leaf. But it wasn't. It was a tiny ole spotted bass. She swung it aboard and refused to take the hook out. So, I came off the front of the deck and did it for her. Tossed him in the drink and got on the trolling motor and got us repositioned. Before I could pick my rod up, she caught another. She swung it aboard like the other and the cycles repeated. Again. And again. She caught fish on 6 consecutive casts! That included this nice spot!
After about 10 fish, they slowed down enough that she wasn't catching them on every cast. But, I couldn't buy a hit on my deep diver. As a side note, for my friend Josh's wedding, we bought his groomsmen Lucky Craft crankbaits. I love Lucky Craft, but they are FREAKING EXPENSIVE. And, I am a sentimental guy and didn't want to loose it, cause Lord knows I can loose anything, as you all know. But, now that I have this Jewel Bait hound, I don't feel bad about throwing it. So, I threw it. And finally caught a fish on it!
But, that wasn't catching me up to Alyse, who was up on me about 10-1. So, I finally got smart and tied on the only crank I had similar, the standard Series 3 in Sexy. But, they wouldn't touch it! I would cast ALMOST to the same spot she was, but they wouldn't hit it. Turns out, the trick was to throw it towards the rip-rap and hit it. Let it fall in the water, and turn it 3 times. This wad of fish was within a foot of the bank! I was throwing too short because I didn't want to destroy my crank. She didn't care about that, so she was bouncing it off left and right. But it worked! She ended up smoking me 20-3. From the back of the boat! But, it was worth it...even the trash talk!
No comments:
Post a Comment