Well I managed to get back up to Patoka Lake Sunday. Had a great trip up there. Even though the leaves are all off the trees the country side still looks good to me. All the brown grass and trees looks good to me as I traveled East on Interstate 64 heading to the Birdeye Exit from the Boonville Exit. Sometimes the joy of the trip is missed as we anticipate the arrival to our destination. But once in a while it's nice to just enjoy the moment and take it all in. That's the way I began my trip Sunday. Enjoying the trip and the moment and taking in all the beautiful country side.
Got to the lake and started fishing between 10 am and 10:30 am. Evansville, IN time. (Central Standard Time). We launched from South Lick Ramp and saw only two other vehicles with trailers at the parking lot. Didn't see a sole anywhere were we fished.
I left the boat at home today and sat in the back of Larry's Boat. He has been fishing Patoka almost every weekend and has a handle on where the fish are located.
We caught a number of crappie. We actually lost count but the 40 gallon live well was filled to capacity when we left the lake. Lucky fish all were returned to the lake. Both Larry and I have freezers full of packaged crappie fillets so neither one of us wanted to fool with cleaning fish this day.
We got to the lake and it was about 40 to 45 deg F air temp but the water temp in the bay we fished was still around 53 deg F. According to Larry's temp gauge on his boat. We fished in about 15 to 20 ft of water with brush coming up off the bottom about 5 to 10ft in places. One big brush pile had most of the fish. We started catching fish immediately. Larry has a set of Tite-loc rod holders on the front of his boat. He was using 12 ft long limber graphite poles and fishing about 8 to 12 ft deep. Man can he catch this fish with this setup. He was using Stren Magnathin line about 6lb test. But he switched methods. These days he tied a #4 gold thin wire hook to the end of the line and then clips on a few small split shots above the hook about 6 to 8 inches. This allows the rig to be pretty much weightless. I fished with a 10ft long graphite pole that's a little more sturdier. It's got a faster tip than Larry's BnM Sam Heaton Rods. I put my hook onto the line with a loop knot and have the hook standing off the main line about 2" or so. The tag end of the loop knot is left long. I add a Bass Pro Shop Finesse Drop shot weight 1/4 oz to the very bottom of the tag line. That's about 12 to 18 inches below the hook. I use a #2 gold wire Aberdeen hook that I picked up at Walmart. My rod is a RW Crappie Wizard 10ft long Graphite Crappie Rod and I put a Shimano Spinning Reel on it. I am going to change that out someday to a newer spinning rod that has the immediate backstop feature. We slowly trolled along with the electric trolling motor. But we kept the boat speed very slow. About 0.5 mph or so. Wind was gusting off and on but for the most part the lake was very calm. Average wind speed was only about 5 mph. The wind did change direction during the trip. It was out of the North when we left the ramp at 10 am but by 3 pm it was coming out of the South more. Wind was not really a major factor but when the water's cold it sometimes nice to have no wind so that you can stay in one spot a bit longer. But today the fish were hitting the moving baits much better. Larry and I both fished with small 1" long crappie minnows that we get at the lake. Theses are chubs I think. They are not the shiners that I get at home. But today the fish were hungry and they were also hitting a small 1/8 oz unpainted round lead head jig with a white curly tail grub. Larry was casting and catching crappie one after another. I tried my luck at the casting game using one of his older rods and reel but didn't get any hits. I was using Chartreuse curly tail and the same lead head jig he used but he caught all the fish while casting. I caught fish but only using the minnows. But I only caught about 1/6th of the fish he caught. I guess they don't like me as well as Larry! :(
We fished until the sun was going down below the tree line. We ended up fishing in Ritter creek but didn't catch much there. We were held up by a bad accident that occurred within sight of Ritter Creek. Evidently an SUV had been traveling East on IN Hwy 164 and had swerved across the road and off on the North Side of the road. The SUV went off the road and down into a ravine and must have hit a tree. We saw several emergency vehicles on the road from were we last fished. And two helicopters were flown into the scene and they both landed on the road. That was a sight to see. The first Helicopter hovered over the highway and then flew just a few feet over the road way and went along the road way for a while. Those pilots are good. The Electric and Telephone Lines are along the South side of 164 so the helos came in from the South. The first helicopter was trying to increase power and take off but it ended up shutting it's engines down. Maybe they had some type of problem with the helicopter or they had something happen in the back with the patient and they had to abort the take off. Then a while later a second helicopter arrived and it landed. We though the second helicopter took off first and left the scene. Then finally the last helicopter left the scene. We had to travel that highway to get back to the camp and went pass the accident scene. The car was a mess. But this was after the firemen had taken the car away from the victims. These days they use a Hurst tool to take the roof off the car and also to take the doors and front windshield off the car so that they can reach the patients. So the vehicles was not only in bad shape after hitting the tree but it was totally destroyed by the rescue guys.
One my way home I went pretty slow down highway 145 as I fear that the deer were the cause of the accident we had scene. I saw black tire marks on the highway that stretched for over 100 ft before they left the North Side of 164. Something made that vehicle hit the brakes and leave tire marks on the highway. I think that they may have hit a deer or tried to avoid a deer on the highway. There were no other vehicles involved in this accident. Anyway I hope that they survive this accident. I would like to know what really happened. Maybe the local papers will print the story and we will find out what happened.
Needless to say it was on my mind as I departed the lake and drove home. I saw several deer crossing the road on 145 between Birdseye and the Interstate 64. I 145 is pretty curvy with lots of hairpin turns but it's much shorter so I like to drive that way up to the lake. You just have to go slower and watch out for the deer. I saw one deer cross the road in front of my headlights and slowed down to a stop. Off to my left there were two more deer right at the edge of the roadway. They stood there for a second and then did a 180 and bolted back into the woods. I saw a few deer carcases that were shreaded along the Interstate on the trip up and back. So there were a few auto/deer accidents along Interstate 64 in the last week or so.
So be careful as you drive these roads in Nov. The deer are out there in numbers and on the move.
I think we caught at least 50 crappie all together. The biggest was about 12" long and may have weighted about 1 lb. All the fish had good colors and were hungry and fat.
It was a good trip. We will most likely fish a few more times this winter.
I got a new set of Insulated Bibs. These are the Field and Stream Bibs that have the Thinsulate Insulation built into them. They are camo and so I can uses them for hunting too. They are very comfortable and I was actually nice and warm in them I have the matching parka. I go them at Dicks Sporting Goods Store. They were on sale so I could not resist. LOL The sold for 89 bucks this last Saturday. I had purchased the Parka last year and was waiting for the Bibs to go on sale. Overall the entire outfit cost about 200 bucks. I payed about 180 as they were both on sale when I got them. The parka is also thinsulate lined but the inner liner zips out and can be worn by itself or inside the parka. So I have two coats that can both be work alone or in combination. I like that idea. I wear the liner by itself when it's just chilly outside and then combine them both together when it gets below 40 deg F. I also wear the outer coat by itself if it's raining. It's waterproof as are the bibs. The all have mosey oak camo on them. The insulated liner also have camo or it can be reversed and it's brown on the non camo side.
Fishing in the wintertime can be good and it pays to go in November. The fish still have to eat as our catch rate proved.
The Lake is still up pretty high. The fisherman's camp ground launch ramp would not be a wise place to try to launch from as it's underwater. Well the steep part of the ramp is underwater. You may be able to launch from the road that goes down to the ramp but it's not going to be very steep and it' would be very hard to launch from I guess. We didn't even try that launch ramp and I am going on what Larry told me about it. But South ramp was very good and the dock is still there and in good position.
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