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Long story - I am very verbose - sorry. If you skip the story, make sure u see the pics at the end.
1st, I have found out I am a terrible angler. Grew up fishing with my brother who really is the best angler I have ever seen, so I always caught a bunch of fish. Moved down to Tennessee 18 years ago and he moved to Cape Coral (he now has a charter service of course) and never had a boat so really have not fished in the past 10+ years as it is not easy to do much shore fishing on Tims (I live about 8 minutes away). Got a boat in January that turned out to be a great deal and around June I got back into fishing hot and heavy - thinking even tho I had a long "layoff", I knew what I was doing and was better than your average angler.
Not true. Turns out left on my own, I am really bad. Some of it is learning how to fish a deep water reservoir as I grew up fishing at a lake that was 40' deep max with an average depth of maybe 10-12'. As you know, Tims is 10' deep only inches from shore. I also never really fished for smallmouth before, always largemouth and crappie. But still, find the bait fish and find the fish, how hard can it be ? Turns out pretty hard. Bought a Lowrance HDS 5, a ton of new tackle and I thought I was set.
Summer fishing was not bad, but was mainly catching white bass and 10-13" smallmouth and largemouth. I want to learn how to catch smallmouth and just blamed it on the hot weather as I never had much luck. September rolled around and I happened to be in the right place at the right time, catching bass coming in for feeding frenzies. They would come off the incline about every 5 minutes, go nuts attacking the bait fish on a shallow for about 4-5 minutes, then go back to the incline - repeating this for a good hour and a half or so. Caught them this way twice in a row. Slayed them, I was catching a fish every cast during that 4-5 minutes. Mostly 12-14" smallmouth, but I did catch a couple of 24" largemouth.
I made the mistake of thinking I had the lake figured out when I was just lucky.
After that, fishing at least twice a week, usually 3 times, I rarely caught any bass and if I did it was small largemouth from pounding the shoreline - not what I wanted to do but got tired of not catching fish.
I scoured (still do) the internet for any and all smallmouth info I could find and was buying anything that was getting good reports bait wise. I do think some of my problem was I am too impatient, switching lures too quickly. Even got a downrigger and still could not catch a fish. I would troll for hours using live bait, bucktail jigs, lures etc - would troll right thru huge schools of bait fish and still couldn't buy a decent fish, usually ending pounding the shore line so I could at least catch a small largemouth. The more I became obsessed, the less I caught.
I did decide I need to hire a guide (still saving my money for it) just so I can learn what I am doing wrong. I believe I have the right tackle and am at least close to the right spots, I think I just need some fine tuning.
Dec 2 2011 - water temp was 57-58 degrees, sunny, little wind - water clarity good - was going to be the last warm day with little wind for a week or so, so I hit the lake around 10:00 am planning on fishing till dark, as usual. Was not having any luck so shot over to Holiday marina and picked up some live bait. They were "out" of tuffies, waiting for the truck so I bought a dozen shiners. I picked out about 6-7 smaller ones. The guy there was great and said if there were any tuffies in there I could have them for free. Turns out I got a couple of dozen and felt bad, so went in to pay him but he said they were on the house - was really nice of him.
So I trolled around for a while with the small shiners - maybe 3". Seemed a great size to me. Basically hitting every secondary point, creek channels etc and my usual no fish.
Getting late, I worked my way back towards the dock and hit my favorite area. I had switched to a Rapala DT and was working the shore line and the inclines. Came up to some downed trees that every body and their mother hits hard, huge tree and limbs going out to maybe 20-25 feet deep. First cast in the tree I actually caught a fish, I'm so bad it actually surprised me. Turned out to be a nice size blue gill. Not what i was wanting, but at least i wasn't skunked. Hit it a few more times as I drifted by and continued down the shore line. After maybe another 80-100 yards, I circled back, rigging up my crappie rig thinking since it was a nice blue gill, maybe some crappie would be in there also.
My crappie rig. I went down to Cape Coral to do some fishing with my brother over the summer (I caught tons of grouper plus a 10' shark. I have an edited video of me catching it on youtube, but there is an occasional bad word in it so I will not link to it. If you want to see it, search youtube for "dons big shark". Posted by sharkie576. Wow, catching a 10' shark is like catching a compact car - I had to rest for a good half hour after catching it and my arms literally were like jelly).
Anyway, while I was down there, my brother gave me a nice 8'6" ultraligght pole he used for crappie. I have never used a pole that long nor that sensitive before. Is amazing how you literally feel everything going on with it. But, I had yet to catch a fish on it. I have an old Shimano spinning reel on it for now and was using some 7 lb fluorocarbon line on it that did not seem very good - Cajun Line. It was on clearance for like $3.50 so thought I would give it a try before I bought some better fluoro. I was going to just tie on a LONG leader, maybe 10-12 feet, but the line kept breaking. I eventually just spooled the whole reel with it thinking i would only be catching crappie or bream on it anyway so still wanted to give it a try. I obviously had little faith in the line tho.
So I circle back around to where I caught the blue gill on the DT and was now using the crappie rig with a slip bobber and a small shiner. 1st drift thru I am about 3 feet deep and get nothing, not a nibble. Circled back again after drifting by and lowered the shiner to about 8-9 feet. 1st cast as soon as the bobber started to stand up, it took off running for about a foot and then went under so I pulled and set the hook. Wow, I am thinking I finally caught a crappie.
As mentioned, I had never caught a fish on this pole before and had zero faith in my line. I immediately tried to get the "crappie" out of the tree before he wrapped himself up and fortunately he came right out.
I am thinking to myself wow, this pole is something else. This crappie was putting up one heck of a fight. I did not know if it was because the pole was so light or if it was a nice size crappie. The fish stayed deep the whole time and i am still thinking how much fun it is catching a crappie on this pole. Standing on the bow, fighting the fish and trying to keep him from going back into the timer, he finally comes up high enough where I can see it - sure wasn't a crappie. All i could see was a huge thick black bass. I am sure my jaw dropped and my eyes got as big as half dollars.
Instantly I think of my line that I was able to break in my bare hands - all I could think was my line was going to break and all I would have is a fish story "sure you had a nice bass hooked and your line broke".
I immediately ran to the back of the boat and grabbed the net and got it - now this is the feeling I love when i am fishing. Yes I enjoy being on the lake, but I love the adrenaline rush when you get a nice fish.
Turns out if I wanted to catch a nice smallmouth, I should just go crappie fishing - pure luck obviously.
It ended up being 21" long and weighed just under 5 1/2 pounds. Now that is a nice "crappie" and one heck of a fight on a 8 1/2 foot ultralight pole.
And the only reason I caught it was because of the blue gill hitting the Rapala DT, so it was my lucky blue gill.
I am still saving for the guide tho with Xmas it will be a while, but I finally got a decent smallmouth
Here's the bluegill. He did have the hook in his mouth, I did not snag him. I just kept the lure there for sizing - tho he did have that one hook in his back, hooking himself there also when he was fighting obviously.</p>
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and my smallmouth. Been a long time since I have eaten a bass (I threw the 2 24" largemouth back) and surprising to me, I actually liked the smallmouth better than grouper - which was my favorite eating fish. Wife even liked it better. Great texture, great taste. I had something I had to go to when I got home, so picture was taken a few hours later, which is why it is so dark. He was caught about an hour before dark. Sorry for the long story. Hopefully I will be learning how to fish better and this won't be such an unusual fish for me. I don't expect 5 1 /2 lbers every time, but seems to me at Tims I should be catching 2-3 pounders pretty regular. If not, I'll just spend so much time out there sooner or later I will have to luck into some. I am guessing a trip (or 2) out with the guide will be invaluable info for me and hopefully give me an idea where I am going wrong. But until I save my pennies, I'll still be out there enjoying the lake anyway.
Side Note - if anyone ever happens to want to go fishing at Tims either for fun or better yet to show me a trick or 2, just give me a shout and all you will need to do is show up and I will supply the bait (if needed) and gas. My boat is not great, a 19' fish and ski, and the trolling motor is lacking (shaft not long enough and needs more power), but it floats and runs good. Obviously don't rely on me to put you on the fish or apparently to even know what I am doing, but I am always ready to go. I moved down here when I "retired" (diasbled vet) so not having grown up around here (I am from Ohio) and only meeting people thru my kids when they were growing up, I really do not know anyone to go fishing with besides my grown kids and they make me look good if that is possible.</p>
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Long story - I am very verbose - sorry. If you skip the story, make sure u see the pics at the end.
1st, I have found out I am a terrible angler. Grew up fishing with my brother who really is the best angler I have ever seen, so I always caught a bunch of fish. Moved down to Tennessee 18 years ago and he moved to Cape Coral (he now has a charter service of course) and never had a boat so really have not fished in the past 10+ years as it is not easy to do much shore fishing on Tims (I live about 8 minutes away). Got a boat in January that turned out to be a great deal and around June I got back into fishing hot and heavy - thinking even tho I had a long "layoff", I knew what I was doing and was better than your average angler.
Not true. Turns out left on my own, I am really bad. Some of it is learning how to fish a deep water reservoir as I grew up fishing at a lake that was 40' deep max with an average depth of maybe 10-12'. As you know, Tims is 10' deep only inches from shore. I also never really fished for smallmouth before, always largemouth and crappie. But still, find the bait fish and find the fish, how hard can it be ? Turns out pretty hard. Bought a Lowrance HDS 5, a ton of new tackle and I thought I was set.
Summer fishing was not bad, but was mainly catching white bass and 10-13" smallmouth and largemouth. I want to learn how to catch smallmouth and just blamed it on the hot weather as I never had much luck. September rolled around and I happened to be in the right place at the right time, catching bass coming in for feeding frenzies. They would come off the incline about every 5 minutes, go nuts attacking the bait fish on a shallow for about 4-5 minutes, then go back to the incline - repeating this for a good hour and a half or so. Caught them this way twice in a row. Slayed them, I was catching a fish every cast during that 4-5 minutes. Mostly 12-14" smallmouth, but I did catch a couple of 24" largemouth.
I made the mistake of thinking I had the lake figured out when I was just lucky.
After that, fishing at least twice a week, usually 3 times, I rarely caught any bass and if I did it was small largemouth from pounding the shoreline - not what I wanted to do but got tired of not catching fish.
I scoured (still do) the internet for any and all smallmouth info I could find and was buying anything that was getting good reports bait wise. I do think some of my problem was I am too impatient, switching lures too quickly. Even got a downrigger and still could not catch a fish. I would troll for hours using live bait, bucktail jigs, lures etc - would troll right thru huge schools of bait fish and still couldn't buy a decent fish, usually ending pounding the shore line so I could at least catch a small largemouth. The more I became obsessed, the less I caught.
I did decide I need to hire a guide (still saving my money for it) just so I can learn what I am doing wrong. I believe I have the right tackle and am at least close to the right spots, I think I just need some fine tuning.
Dec 2 2011 - water temp was 57-58 degrees, sunny, little wind - water clarity good - was going to be the last warm day with little wind for a week or so, so I hit the lake around 10:00 am planning on fishing till dark, as usual. Was not having any luck so shot over to Holiday marina and picked up some live bait. They were "out" of tuffies, waiting for the truck so I bought a dozen shiners. I picked out about 6-7 smaller ones. The guy there was great and said if there were any tuffies in there I could have them for free. Turns out I got a couple of dozen and felt bad, so went in to pay him but he said they were on the house - was really nice of him.
So I trolled around for a while with the small shiners - maybe 3". Seemed a great size to me. Basically hitting every secondary point, creek channels etc and my usual no fish.
Getting late, I worked my way back towards the dock and hit my favorite area. I had switched to a Rapala DT and was working the shore line and the inclines. Came up to some downed trees that every body and their mother hits hard, huge tree and limbs going out to maybe 20-25 feet deep. First cast in the tree I actually caught a fish, I'm so bad it actually surprised me. Turned out to be a nice size blue gill. Not what i was wanting, but at least i wasn't skunked. Hit it a few more times as I drifted by and continued down the shore line. After maybe another 80-100 yards, I circled back, rigging up my crappie rig thinking since it was a nice blue gill, maybe some crappie would be in there also.
My crappie rig. I went down to Cape Coral to do some fishing with my brother over the summer (I caught tons of grouper plus a 10' shark. I have an edited video of me catching it on youtube, but there is an occasional bad word in it so I will not link to it. If you want to see it, search youtube for "dons big shark". Posted by sharkie576. Wow, catching a 10' shark is like catching a compact car - I had to rest for a good half hour after catching it and my arms literally were like jelly).
Anyway, while I was down there, my brother gave me a nice 8'6" ultraligght pole he used for crappie. I have never used a pole that long nor that sensitive before. Is amazing how you literally feel everything going on with it. But, I had yet to catch a fish on it. I have an old Shimano spinning reel on it for now and was using some 7 lb fluorocarbon line on it that did not seem very good - Cajun Line. It was on clearance for like $3.50 so thought I would give it a try before I bought some better fluoro. I was going to just tie on a LONG leader, maybe 10-12 feet, but the line kept breaking. I eventually just spooled the whole reel with it thinking i would only be catching crappie or bream on it anyway so still wanted to give it a try. I obviously had little faith in the line tho.
So I circle back around to where I caught the blue gill on the DT and was now using the crappie rig with a slip bobber and a small shiner. 1st drift thru I am about 3 feet deep and get nothing, not a nibble. Circled back again after drifting by and lowered the shiner to about 8-9 feet. 1st cast as soon as the bobber started to stand up, it took off running for about a foot and then went under so I pulled and set the hook. Wow, I am thinking I finally caught a crappie.
As mentioned, I had never caught a fish on this pole before and had zero faith in my line. I immediately tried to get the "crappie" out of the tree before he wrapped himself up and fortunately he came right out.
I am thinking to myself wow, this pole is something else. This crappie was putting up one heck of a fight. I did not know if it was because the pole was so light or if it was a nice size crappie. The fish stayed deep the whole time and i am still thinking how much fun it is catching a crappie on this pole. Standing on the bow, fighting the fish and trying to keep him from going back into the timer, he finally comes up high enough where I can see it - sure wasn't a crappie. All i could see was a huge thick black bass. I am sure my jaw dropped and my eyes got as big as half dollars.
Instantly I think of my line that I was able to break in my bare hands - all I could think was my line was going to break and all I would have is a fish story "sure you had a nice bass hooked and your line broke".
I immediately ran to the back of the boat and grabbed the net and got it - now this is the feeling I love when i am fishing. Yes I enjoy being on the lake, but I love the adrenaline rush when you get a nice fish.
Turns out if I wanted to catch a nice smallmouth, I should just go crappie fishing - pure luck obviously.
It ended up being 21" long and weighed just under 5 1/2 pounds. Now that is a nice "crappie" and one heck of a fight on a 8 1/2 foot ultralight pole.
And the only reason I caught it was because of the blue gill hitting the Rapala DT, so it was my lucky blue gill.
I am still saving for the guide tho with Xmas it will be a while, but I finally got a decent smallmouth
Here's the bluegill. He did have the hook in his mouth, I did not snag him. I just kept the lure there for sizing - tho he did have that one hook in his back, hooking himself there also when he was fighting obviously.</p>
and my smallmouth. Been a long time since I have eaten a bass (I threw the 2 24" largemouth back) and surprising to me, I actually liked the smallmouth better than grouper - which was my favorite eating fish. Wife even liked it better. Great texture, great taste. I had something I had to go to when I got home, so picture was taken a few hours later, which is why it is so dark. He was caught about an hour before dark. Sorry for the long story. Hopefully I will be learning how to fish better and this won't be such an unusual fish for me. I don't expect 5 1 /2 lbers every time, but seems to me at Tims I should be catching 2-3 pounders pretty regular. If not, I'll just spend so much time out there sooner or later I will have to luck into some. I am guessing a trip (or 2) out with the guide will be invaluable info for me and hopefully give me an idea where I am going wrong. But until I save my pennies, I'll still be out there enjoying the lake anyway.
Side Note - if anyone ever happens to want to go fishing at Tims either for fun or better yet to show me a trick or 2, just give me a shout and all you will need to do is show up and I will supply the bait (if needed) and gas. My boat is not great, a 19' fish and ski, and the trolling motor is lacking (shaft not long enough and needs more power), but it floats and runs good. Obviously don't rely on me to put you on the fish or apparently to even know what I am doing, but I am always ready to go. I moved down here when I "retired" (diasbled vet) so not having grown up around here (I am from Ohio) and only meeting people thru my kids when they were growing up, I really do not know anyone to go fishing with besides my grown kids and they make me look good if that is possible.</p>
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