Three Cheers For the Birds!!!

Have you ever wondered how the birds stay alive all year long. I am talking about the shore bird or the cranes and egrets types. They fish for a living year round. So take advantage of them when you can. If you see a egret fishing along the shoreline think bigger fish nearby. The bird is hunting small fish and so are the bigger fish. Where there are small fish there are also like to be bigger fish as well trying to catch a meal.

I don't know how many times I have been out fishing and saw one of these birds wading along a shoreline. Usually its on the windward bank and this is especially true if the winds have been steady out of one direction for a day or so. But a few hours of a South wind may put the plankton, minnow and bait fish on teh North shorelines that are exposed to the winds.

I fished Lynnville, IN County Park's strip pit and caught about 10 bass. I started out near the launch ramp and had three bass in the first 15 minutes than then decided to go for a ride. Boy was it hot today. Even under an umbrella it was a scorcher today. I went to trolling 300 series bandit crank baits without any luck. I am just getting started doing this after reading about how to troll them on another web site. I went out to walmart and got me two new 7 ft long Shakeshere Ugly Stick fishing rods. Then I picked up a few new low profile reels and some ten pound stren Green fishing line. I already had two of the shakespeare line counters that I used to determine just how much fishing line I have out in the water. I tied a big brass snap swivel to the end of the stren using a palomar knot. Attached a blue/chartruse 300 bandit crank bait to the snap swivel and started trolling. I also picked up two new rod holders by Scotty. These are hard rubber that have fiber reinforced inside them. They mounted on the flat back deck of my boat right behind the bench seat. I can hold the fishing line with my right hand while driving the boat forward form the bench seat so the position was excellent. I mounted these bait caster Rod Holders with 1.5" long #10 self tapping pan head sheet metal screws. My deck is covered with thin aluminum and then there is about 1" of wood under that. So using four of these screws for each rod holder did the trick. I set the drag on the reel to let out line if there is any more resistance than just trolling a crank bait. That way if I get hung up on a stump it won't yank the rod out of the holder. The holders have a safety strap that is a quick release type and it goes over the front of the rod to hold it in place just in case you snag something big.

I found an area on the NW part of Lynville where it gets shallower. I estimate that I caught my first bass in 10ft of water.

Today I basically was testing the depths, line length and boat speeds necessary to get the 300 bandits down to about 12ft deep with 10 # test line. I think I had about 50 to 75 ft of line out when I caught my first bass. I could tell immediately that I had a fish on. Didn't have to drag it very far. You can hold onto the line and feel the changes in vibrations if you pick up a fish or some weeds. I caught a lot of weed today. Yuck. The rods worked great.

I am not ready to head up to Patoka to troll the main lake for crappie, bass or even stripers. Look out because you can cover a lot of water with this trolling system.

Oh and take along a lure knocker/retriever so that you can fish out any hung up baits from the stumps. I have used lure knocker/retrievers ever since I was a little kid and fishing KY lake. They pay for themselves in no time flat. As a kid I use to go down to KY lake in the Fall of the year with my dad. We would walk along the shorelines of many of the islands and find all kinds of baits hanging in the low scrubs... buck brush. It was like going to bass pro shop but free. Just like picking money off the low hanging tree limbs. In Oct and November back in the 1960 the lake was deserted most weekdays. You may see a boat once in a while but not very often in the area we fished. So any baits that were lost in the summer time when the lake was at summer pool would be out of the water in Nov. We also found a few arrow heads in the gravel along the islands.

Give trolling a try. Keep your speed under 3mph. I like about 2mph or even slower. My little Johnson 35 hp motor will only go so slow. About 2.0 mph is the slowest I can get it now. I can go that fast with my All Terrain Minn-Kota 50 AT trolling motor. But I can't use the bow mounted electric trolling motor with the rod holders in the back of my boat when I am by myself. Therefore the trip to Lynville, IN today so that I could use my gasoline motor.

Also beware the Lynville Launch ramp is still very slick with algae. I saw a guy loose his footing and fall down and then slide down the steep concrete ramp another 4 ft. He was OK but a little bruised. He was wearing some of those rubber flip flops and even they didn't give him any traction on that moss covered concrete ramp. If you have ever waded in a mountain stream and slipped on the moss covered smooth river rocks you know what that's like. That's where a good pair of felt soled wading shoes comes in handy.

Regards,

Moose1am

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jul-05-06 AT 06:58AM (EST)[/font][p]Thanks for the report Moose. I love Linnville, even though it is a long haul for me. The peace and quiet, and the wildlife are a big draw for me. You didn't say how big your bass were, my only problem with Linnville is it's mostly a dink lake. Occassionally I get a two or three pounder, but most are of the 12" variety. Any notable size to your trolling fish?

I fished Lynville two days. Should have bought a season pass for 15 bucks. But only had 15 bills with me at the time and needed that for buying crappie minnows the next day. Anyway the biggest bass that I caught the first day was around 13" long. The other bass were all under 12" long. They are fun to catch though. I had a lot more bass tugging on the tail of the sliders that didn't get the hook in them. I saw many bass that were from 6" long to 9" long cruising the shallows.

The bigger bass was caught along the bank near a drop off with a cut in the drop off. If you have fished the North Eastern End of the lake you probably know the spot well. It's hard to miss it. It's one of the only places I found that has a stream with running water flowing into the pit off the North Face High wall. and there is a small two man boat and plastic bench and a plastic chair right down along the water's edge. That tells anyone that it's a fishing spot that someone enjoys so much that they took the time to set up camp there. After a rain it would be a good spot. There is access to deep water nearby and flowing water that brings food into the lake. And the sediment that flows off the high wall and into the lake eventually builds a small feeding shelf where there would other wise be a sharp steep drop off. That is where I caught three or four bass in a row until the speeders came by and washed my boat into the fishing spot. Once I turned on the trolling motor it put the fish down for the rest of the day. Stealth and 2lb test line were the key to catching fish in Lynville. These fish see many baits and they are quite schooled in the ways of fishermen. Live bait would IE minnows on a small hook will normally work well too. I was using small crappie sliders 1.5" long (purple) with a red head colored slider jig. 1/16 oz or 1/32oz. I take the crappie slider jig heads and weight them on my scales. But the scales are made for measuring rifle powder and the scales is calibrated in Grains not grams or oz. So I have to weigh each red slider hook and lead weight and then record the weight. I measure all the red colored head and then get the average and covert that to oz. IE 1/32 oz 3/32oz or 1/16 or 1/8 oz. I had to do this to determine the avg weight so that I can accurately know how fast they sink. That allows me to count them down to the right depth. I find the fish on my depth sounder and freeze the display. Then I zoom in a 10ft vertical section of the water column and more this part of the split display up and down until I can determine the depth of the fish. I am looking at fish suspended over deep water and these fish are normally suspending down about 10ft to 14 ft deep below the surface. I need a news depth sounder that will do this for me automatically but since I am still using my 1986 Humminbird LCR 8000 unit I have to do all this manually. But once I get this figured out all I have to do is go to a spot that has 10ft deep water or 13 ft deep water and let my bait down until it just touches bottom. Then I take a magic marker and mark the line as it enters my reel. That way I can always put my baits at the same depth each time. That's the key to catching those neutral mood suspended summer fish. Be they crappie or bass. I found the bass suspending while crappie fishing.

Another good area to fish this time of the year is the Far North Western section of Lynville Lake. That area has a few acres of shallower water and it's a good spot for summer bass. The depths average about 10 to 5 ft deep depending on where you are. I found a lot of small bass back in there. I found the shallow water by slow trolling crank baits using my 35 hp Johnson Motor on idle speed. That allows me to go about 2.0 mph s clocked by a garmin eTrex Vista GPS Unit. I was trolling 300 series bandit crank baits on 10lb test stren fishing line. I had about 50 ft of line out. I used an shakespeare line counter that I attached to my rods. I used a shakespeare 7ft long Ugly Stick and Scotty Rod Holders. This system worked for me at Lynville. It took me about 2 hours to find the fish the second day. I trolled along the edge of the main part of the lake up in the Area where all the houses are located. The area that has all the NO WAKE signs.

I still need to fish the Southern End and Western Edge of this pit as there are a lot of homes located along this area. I last fish that area back many years ago. I tried to fish that area at night one time and found that I was always underestimating the distance between me and the shoreline at night. I kept catching my top water baits into the trees. LOL I was with a few friends that night and they were not really into fishing. So we didn't really fish hard that time. But these friends were into scuba diving and we dove this pit a few times at night and during the daylight hours. I learned a little bit about where the fish hang out when I was still very young. As we were still in our late teens when we first went diving at Lynville. The fish hung along the deep weed edge then and they still do that today. Fish Lynville parallel to the bank and up close to the bank or along any drop and you will do much better. Fishing perpendicular to the bank will not cover as much productive water. But most of you guys already know that. I just mention this in case there are younger readers that may need this information.

My first trip I tried tolling with big Buck Perry Spoon Plugs and didn't catch a thing. These big spoon plugs can go as deep at you want them to. I used them on KY lake on time and caught bass in 20 to 30 ft of water out on the main lakes river channel. However you need a lot more room and bigger rods and reels to troll the big spoon plugs. I used deep sea rods and reels and lead core fishing line to troll on KY lake. I wish I had a few more of the medium sized spoon plugs.

And don't forget to take a good plug knocker/retriever with you if you plan on doing trolling with any crank baits. They can help you recover those expensive crank baits if you get snagged.

I like the bandits best as they float up when you stop trolling. Spoon plugs sink like a rock if you stop the boat.

Regards,

Moose1am