Better late than never...

Finally got a chance to escape and chase ole linesides this past weekend. Weather was picture perfect for fishing. A little rain Sat AM and foggy all day long - it felt like 6AM all day. Did my usual research before heading down and just ended being more confused - past experience tells me the fish should be close to the heads of the creeks this time of year but the reports I kept reading were all about large schools on the main-lake or near the mouths of major creeks. I know its feast or famine when the fish school up like that so decided to dedicate the first morning to staring at the Lowrance before dropping any lines. I launch out of Indian and "searched" from the no-wake zone to the mouth without spotting anything that would make me want to stop and fish. Cruzed up teh channel past some of my favorite main-lake points and again nothing impressive. Cruzed over to the flats - same story. Said hell with it and ran to mouth of Beaver. As soon as I made the right the screen lit up. Circled back around with anticipation and set out the 10 rod spread. Pulled through some nice marks with no response, kept the poles out and pulled through the flat on the front-side of the first island on the right. Marked very little in 40ft or less of water until you get near the back side of the island and it drops from 20 to 80 ft real quick. Picked up a dink on the drop off. Saw some nice fish holding on the break so we did a circle and ran the length of the ledge and picked up another dink. Pulled up and ran just inside Otter back where the nice hump is and it looked like the Exxon Valdeez just sunk. Big oil slick and heavy stench? Thought for sure a boat just sunk? Thank god I wasn't smoking at the time... decided to hi-tale it out of there and ran back to mid-creek (Otter) and pulled one of my favorite walls with no luck. Told the old man, PRO V, about it and he mentioned hearing of some old underwater gas lines or something in the area. Someone really needs to check that out. Anywho, back to fishin... by this time we were a couple hours away from dark and decided to run back to Indian. Made it to the no wake zone when I noticed the birds having a ball near mouth of Brown and then saw why :-) tried to patiently idle to the madness but didn't make it in time. Marked about as much bait as I've ever seen - one giant blob from surface to 60ft. Continued to idle and mark and keep my eyes peeled and spotted the birds again. This time clear of the no-wake we headed down to the action. Now I already know I've spilled my guts with exactly where we were fishing but from here on out you'll have to just guess (shouldn't be hard). A large school had the bait traped in a large shallow flat pocket - a thing of beauty. Cautiously we trolling motored on over and made it in casting distance. My partner had a bucktail tied on, I had a spoon and we let em rip right in the middle of the maylay - NO TAKERS! After several more attempts decided top water was what they wanted so switched up to red-fins and spooks. Finally two takers (one on each) but that was it even though several casts were in the money. Tied on the new Gizz-4 (shallow) I just got in the mail and managed a dink on my first cast but followed up with several other casts with NO TAKERS. After that they went down. So three fish to show out of dozens of casts in the money. This isn't the first time this has happened to me working the jumps - you'd think it's easy money but it's really not. Felt humbled once again - makes me appreciate ole linesides even more. We called it a day and were pumped about tomorrow knowing where the fish were (my back-yard the whole time yet I'm running 20 miles to Otter??? oh well, the way it goes). Get out early Sunday to load up on some fresh bait. Hand picked a full tank of alewives and headed out. Ut-Oh - trolling motor decides it doesn't want to turn - I've got throttle but that **** thing won't turn. Bottom fishing it is. The fish and bait where were we left them but couldn't buy a bite bottom fishing. Then we saw em start to bust in the same place so I said hell with it, reeled in/cut the lines - grabbled the casting rods and trolled over to em. Repeated same process as day before but they didn't stay up near as long. Not sure if there's anything more frustrating and exhilerating at the same time as being in the right place at the right time but still can't catch a decent fish. In all honesty, the majority of the fish were small even for schoolies but a few nice explosions in the mix too. Moral of the story - yes, there will always be fish on the main-lake but there also where there supposed to be too - in the creeks AND just because their in the jumps doesn't mean there going to bite your plastic/metal/whatever lure. Net time I'm going to rig up Florida shiner style and a bobber three foot above my hook and just pitch bait at em - I'm not that **** proud. All in all marked a ton of fish, but they were only periodically feeding. I haven't been posting near as often this year, mainly because this was just my 4th time down to the lake all year, but hopefully this will help someone.

Happy Holidays to all the fishin.com crew

Scott

ps - A big thanks to Clayton Hollarand for hooking me up with premo bait Sat morning.