Hey fellow anglers, I'm very sorry its been so long since my last update. I've been able to escape from work and go fishing the last couple weekends. I went down to prefish for a tournament and then came back the next weekend for the tournament. The bite has been slow with a few good mornings here and there. I've been looking for the magic bait of the winter bite but thats just been very hard to find. Last year it was float and fly and year before was the swimbait. But this year my poles have had everything tied to them trying to turn on some fish. I have narrowed my key baits down to about 4-5, float and fly, Swimbait, football jig, jerkbait, and tailspinner. Out of those 5 baits the jig and fly have been my best producers.




With the water temps about to rise the swimbait bite will be on in a few weeks. Spring is just around the corner and that means big numbers of fish coming in the boat. Water temps ar still in the mid 40's but once they reach the mid 50's to almost 60 then those Smallys move up big time. The tournament last weekend was a big fish only tournament. This meant a change in my normal fishing, I usually like catching numbers but this was a size game. So I started hitting spots where I have caught 20" fish or larger. Day one the sun was up and the sky was clear, but thankfully the wind was kicking like a pack of ninjas. I was able to get some bites on the Big Hammer swimbait but my better fish came on a 3/4oz football jig with a plastic craw on the hook. The second day the weather was working in my favor with the skies overcast and the wind had laid down and allowed me to throw the bobber with a fly under it. My first stop produced two bites, one pull down of the bobber and no fish but the second was just a slight tick of the bobber but I knew I didn't do it because there was slack in my main line. So with the fish just sitting under my bobber holding onto my bait I set the hook.
That fish was the winning fish, he measured 21 3/4" and weighed in at 4.78lbs. With no other fish over 21" brought in that was enough to win all the money from the paying positions. We didn't catch big numbers but we caught some big fish. I will be updating more often as the water warms ups and the bite gets better. Please feel free to e-mail with any questions [email protected]