After making a good decision to wait till the sun popped up to take the chill off , we arrived at the Dandridge Ramp on Douglas Lake at 9 AM to do a little practice for next Saturday`s Blue Ridge Bassmasters first tourney of the year. As we crossed the bridge my buddy said "is that ice ?". I didn`t look since I was trying to keep my eye on the oncoming car to see if we were going to clear each other on the extremely narrow bridge...I thought maybe it was just a little skim ice around the edge of the bank. We pulled down to ramp and surveyed the situation and saw a mile wide stretch of lake that was solid ,thin, ice up and down the river as far as you could see.
For years the club has kicked off the year fishing Norris the 3rd-4th weekend of February and more times than not have had a fairly good day of fishing(never ice). Well our new TX Director decided the veteran club members had a distinct advantage since we fished basically the same schedule for the last 2 years.So he decided to shake things up and picked Douglas and the Feb 17th because of the moon phase. After much whining and arguing at the last meeting the club decided to honor his schedule without change. The previous 2 years schedules had been set up mainly because of the 12 years of Club Tx history as the best place to fish at those times of the year .
We backed the the boat in and cranked the engine ..I noticed the water pressure guage was pegged out and after idling for about 15 minutes it finally came down to normal..so we dropped the boat off the trailer and then I realized the steering was frozen...5 more minutes of gentle persuasion and sun and it finally loosened up.
If I hadn`t gotten up at 4:30 and driven an hour and ten minutes up the interstate ..I would never have even put the boat in ...But being the weekend warrior that I am ( translate DumA--) ....We proceeded to break 1/2-3/4 inch ice to the nearest reasonable looking rocky outcropping on the sunny side of the lake (1/2 Mile away) and found a narrow slit of open water . When the water on Douglas is down 49 feet ,youhave 3 types of structure to fish,.....mud ,shale naked banks, and a few bluffs.
We finally moved down enough to find some unfrozen water at the mouth of Muddy Creek....we went back in there with a million gulls and tried a little bit of everything to no avail..Main channell water temps were 34-35 degrees...the mouth of the creek was about 36-38...and the very back of the creek in 5 foot of water was 40...after having the sun on it for 7 hours.....fished from 9:30 till 4..... 0 bites
Needless to say ...I can`t wait till next Saturday emoBang emoHoppingmad
For years the club has kicked off the year fishing Norris the 3rd-4th weekend of February and more times than not have had a fairly good day of fishing(never ice). Well our new TX Director decided the veteran club members had a distinct advantage since we fished basically the same schedule for the last 2 years.So he decided to shake things up and picked Douglas and the Feb 17th because of the moon phase. After much whining and arguing at the last meeting the club decided to honor his schedule without change. The previous 2 years schedules had been set up mainly because of the 12 years of Club Tx history as the best place to fish at those times of the year .
We backed the the boat in and cranked the engine ..I noticed the water pressure guage was pegged out and after idling for about 15 minutes it finally came down to normal..so we dropped the boat off the trailer and then I realized the steering was frozen...5 more minutes of gentle persuasion and sun and it finally loosened up.
If I hadn`t gotten up at 4:30 and driven an hour and ten minutes up the interstate ..I would never have even put the boat in ...But being the weekend warrior that I am ( translate DumA--) ....We proceeded to break 1/2-3/4 inch ice to the nearest reasonable looking rocky outcropping on the sunny side of the lake (1/2 Mile away) and found a narrow slit of open water . When the water on Douglas is down 49 feet ,youhave 3 types of structure to fish,.....mud ,shale naked banks, and a few bluffs.
We finally moved down enough to find some unfrozen water at the mouth of Muddy Creek....we went back in there with a million gulls and tried a little bit of everything to no avail..Main channell water temps were 34-35 degrees...the mouth of the creek was about 36-38...and the very back of the creek in 5 foot of water was 40...after having the sun on it for 7 hours.....fished from 9:30 till 4..... 0 bites
Needless to say ...I can`t wait till next Saturday emoBang emoHoppingmad
