donberry, Tims Ford, Largemouth smallmouth, 12-14-11, none

[donberry]

Hit Tims Ford yesterday. I have never caught a striper so the game plan was hit the smallmouth until 9 or 10 pm, stay out all night and catch a striper. Read and was told the place to be is Rock Creek as far up the elk river as you can go. I've been working the other end of the lake and had not been up there yet.
Left around noon and stopped by the Sportsman to get minnows and shiners - they were closed. Did a quick google and it showed a bait store right by Rock Creek dock, Emma's. Get there and they are out of business.
I really want some shiners to catch a striper - so I get in the boat and run to the other side of the lake to Holiday Marina. They have large tuffies, no shiners. I did manage to find 3 in the tuffy bin so was happy.
Guy at Holiday marina is really nice and gives me fishing info - he also says Rock Creek is the place to be.
Back in the boat, I shoot back towards rock creek. Not familiar with that part of the lake - need to be really careful as it is very shallow in areas you would not expect it to be.
Taking everyone's advice, I head up the Elk as far as I can go. Big mistake wish i had that time back. Took forever getting thru the area at Estill Spring park. Bottomed out a couple of times and had to troll some.
Took a long time but I get thru it - I musty be missing something. Is basically a big , really shallow creek now. 18' or so in some places, but very few. Mostly working through 4 feet or so of water. I ran over every inch of that water that i could and i never once saw a bait ball. Maybe too early to be up that far.
Takes me forever to get back. Seems like I have been out all day and have done little actual fishing..
Working back by Estill Spring Park where the old dam is. Using a football jig with a red/white skirt. Was at walmart the day before and picked up these YUM LPT "wooly grubs" - only pack they had , never heard of them but they looked good.
I am drifting the shore, tossing the jig to shore and then working it down the incline. About my 3rd cast I catch a largemouth - didn't measure it, maybe 14".
Caught 2 more the same size before I got to the bridges.
Hmmm, I think I like this lure.
I work my way back up Rock Creek towards the main lake and don't catch anything - throwing that jig, a Rapala DT and a strike king swimbait.
I am not seeing anything on sonar - no fish jumping, nothing. I normally fish Little Hurricane and Hurricane Creek areas and i always see big bait balls and hear some top water action.
After about an hour and a half I say heck with this and head over to Hurricane Creek. Working down the left side going towards Holiday marina before the bridge.
Within 10 minutes I catch a nice smallmouth on the jig and Yum - 19" and weighed about 2 1/4 pounds. By the time i get to Awalt Bridge I have caught 4 smallmouth - 2 keepers, the 19" one and a 16 1/2 " one. Other 2 were around 14".
I also missed 4 - had them hooked and on for a good 15-20 seconds and they all just popped off. Wondering if maybe the weed guard was keeping me from getting a good hook set.
I also had 3 good hits but they were never hooked.
My new favorite lure for this time of year is the Yum Wooly Grub. After I missed the 2nd one, I switched to a stand up jig with no skirt - that is what i got the good hits on but they never took it.
I strongly recommend that Yum. On a football or stand up jig the bass have to think that is a crawdad with those arms waving at them.
Not a good day for most, but catching 5, missing those and also having some nice hits is a good day for me.
Getting late so i go back to Rock Creek, striper time.
Again, I must be missing something - I never saw the 1st bait ball on sonar, never saw anything. Could not find shad anywhere so i basically drifted all night looking for them - needless to say I never got my striper.
Everyone says Rock Creek is the place to be now but I am staying on the other end of the lake - Hurricane, lil Hurricane, Lost Creek etc. I may not have caught any over there, but I always see BIG bait balls and hear the fish working them.

Anyway, I digress. Right now seems they are loving the football or stand up jig with a nice trailer. I was having good luck so i stuck with the Yum and will be ordering more today.
Probably just me but I did not have any luck with the Rapala DT and a few different swimbaits.
ALL of the bass came in about 20' of water, close to shore. All of my strikes also came on bluffs, did not have any luck in shallow areas leading to inclines.

Always remember tho that I am not a good angler and your mileage will probably be much better.</p>

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[drumking]

I've had days like this. Going to the end of the lake only to find out that I should have gone in the opposite direction. Some people will deliberately steer you wrong so that you don't bother their fish. emoBigsmile emoGeezer

 

[groce87]

you do know that a 16 and half inch smallmouth is not a keeper

 

[donberry]

groce87 - 12/15/2011 6:37 PM

you do know that a 16 and half inch smallmouth is not a keeper

actually no I didn't. I have no idea why I thought it was 15" as I looked at the regulations, even have the book.
Bright side - tho I said keepers, I didn't keep either of them. Turns out not only can I not apparently read and comprehend the regulations, turns out the quality of the fish wasn't as good as I thought.
Tho they were still a blast to catch and the small ones seem to take flight much better.
Seriously , thanks for pointing that out. I could see a ranger checking my catch and i would be standing there proudly telling him I had some "nice" 16"'ers.
Sounds about like something i would do.

 

[groce87]

still a great day just didnt want you to get in trouble

 

[donberry]

groce87 - 12/17/2011 9:16 PM

still a great day just didnt want you to get in trouble

would have been a blast even if they were all the 14" ones - I was finally catching (and missing) multiple fish and found a good pattern.

I am 1000% sincere and honest when I say i am happy you pointed that out. I could have just as easy brought those home to eat and whether I get caught or not, the very last thing I want to do is start breaking any regulations. I figure they are there for a good reason, to give us a better fish population, and they know a whole lot more about it than I ever will.
I still do not know why I thought it was 15" - pointing that out did make me go back thru and review all of the size requirements. I also have a book on the boat, but obviously have not been checking it.
Thanks again and hopefully sooner or later I will learn the lake well enough when a day like that is just an average day for me. I know I will sure have fun trying any way.

 

[mallardecho]

Let me see if I understand this;
You put in at the Rock creek ramp, ran all the way to holiday marina in Big Hurricane. Then ran all the way back up to Estill Springs past the blown out
bridge. Fished very little and then ran all the way back to Big Hurricane, fished until dark then ran all the way back to Rock Creek and fished all night.
Damn that is a lot of running on Tims Ford.

 

[donberry]

mallardecho - 12/19/2011 8:00 AM

Let me see if I understand this;
You put in at the Rock creek ramp, ran all the way to holiday marina in Big Hurricane. Then ran all the way back up to Estill Springs past the blown out
bridge. Fished very little and then ran all the way back to Big Hurricane, fished until dark then ran all the way back to Rock Creek and fished all night.
Damn that is a lot of running on Tims Ford.

unfortunately yes, that is pretty much it - tho I did fish my way back ti Huurcane.
I am sure I was wrong, but in my way of thinking I could go ahead and spend all night in water I was not familiar with and not seeing anything worth while on sonar, or I could zoom over to water I was familiar with and when I went to get the bait, was seeing a bunch of bait balls - I opted for familiarity and seeing bait on the sonar.
I had been "planning" this day for a week as it was supposed to be the last nice day before rain came in. I came across an article about fishing up river this time of year and he also talked about moon phase - how the striper would feed all night on a full moon then not early in the morning - with no moon they would feed in the mornings - and that day was going to be a high of 66, low of 52 with over a 3/4 moon. Supposed to watch my grandkids but told my kids I was going fishing and they would need to find someone else.
Got a little behind "un-winterizing" my boat that morning, then the Sportsman was closed, then Emma's. Then Holiday marina was out of shiners and had no worms for me to catch some small blue gill (I tried using some things I had on my boat but after a while I thought it was kind of silly i was spending so much time trying to catch 3-5" fish). When I went over to Holiday I was thinking I would just stay on that side and work my way back, but the guy there told me that yes, up the Elk is a great place this time of year for striper - and I have never caught a striper and wanted to. So after talking to him, I thought to myself that I should just go ahead and stick with my original plan as I did have all night to fish.Then I ran into that shallow water trying to get up the Elk, then found out I shouldn't have my boat up there to begin with and needed to get out while there was still light (I still bottomed out a few times)........whole day was pretty much shot and I had done very little fishing by then so was pretty disappointed -
The one thing I did not want to do was not catch any fish after I had been looking forward to this for a week.
I obviously do not know anything about striper, but I always read find the shad and you have found the striper - not sure where they were hiding, but i sure couldn't find anything there that night.
I did go thru a BUNCH of gas. I filled up as I always do before I hit the lake, topped it back off when I was at Holiday and the next morning I was getting back down to empty and was being careful with what I was using as I didn't know how long I would be out.
Sooooooo, not my best trip, BUT - I did end up having , for me, a good night with the smallmouth. I should have just stuck with them all night as I had found a good pattern, but I really, really wanted to catch a striper.
Decided for now I am just going to concentrate on learning smallmouth.

One thing the trip did do - I do want to go back up the Elk. My son has one of those 2 man plastic bass boats but his trolling motor died on him a couple of months ago and he never replaced it. So for Christmas, i bought him (read that me) a 50 lb thrust (he had a 36 on it) trolling motor. I am betting i will be able to make it a longgggg way up the Elk in that, so when they are running up there in Feb. and March it should come in pretty handy and hopefully I will finally catch a striper.