saltwatts
Well-known member
Headed out at first light with my wife on Monday. Started around Thief Neck trying to find a topwater bite, and couldn't come up with anything at all, so I switched to a shallow crankbait, and still came up empty. Tried some deeper points with deep crankbaits, CR, jigs, spinnerbaits. Nada. Tried to locate and fish some main lake ledges and humps, but that was a joke. I am still trying to learn how to use my electronics and read a map effectively. If anyone wants to take pity on a beginner and has any tips on that subject, I'd love to hear them! Better yet, let's go fishing together!
Finally, out of desperation, I decided to try a shaky head under some deep water boat docks. I had never fished a shaky head, but I've heard so many times that it will catch fish when nothing else will. Well, it did. My wife and I both managed to catch a few LM in the next hour or so, and she even hooked into a really nice one, but didn't get a good hookset. So, the day wasn't a total loss. We managed a few fish, and I can put another tool in my arsenal.
Tuesday was a bit better. We went out in the evening around 7:30pm, and since we'd had some luck with the shaky head the day before, we decided to give it a go again. We started out just fishing it around docks and laydowns and weren't having any luck. After about an hour of that, we came to a long sandy, shallow area between two docks. I was trolling to the next dock and decided what the heck, I'll cast up on this shallow area while we're moving. On the second cast with the shaky head, I caught a little 13" LM in about 4 feet of water on a very soft bottom with no cover that I could see. I thought, huh, didn't expect that guy to be there, so I stopped us there for a minute and we tried a bit more. Talk about being in the right place and the right time! I still don't know why the fish were there, because I never felt any cover on the bottom, and I never saw any baitfish, but over the next couple hours, we managed to land 9 LM, and had at least that many more bites. The best went about 2 1/2 pounds, but the average was around a pound. We had a blast. To a newbie like me, it was an absolute feeding frenzy. emoSmile
Finally, out of desperation, I decided to try a shaky head under some deep water boat docks. I had never fished a shaky head, but I've heard so many times that it will catch fish when nothing else will. Well, it did. My wife and I both managed to catch a few LM in the next hour or so, and she even hooked into a really nice one, but didn't get a good hookset. So, the day wasn't a total loss. We managed a few fish, and I can put another tool in my arsenal.
Tuesday was a bit better. We went out in the evening around 7:30pm, and since we'd had some luck with the shaky head the day before, we decided to give it a go again. We started out just fishing it around docks and laydowns and weren't having any luck. After about an hour of that, we came to a long sandy, shallow area between two docks. I was trolling to the next dock and decided what the heck, I'll cast up on this shallow area while we're moving. On the second cast with the shaky head, I caught a little 13" LM in about 4 feet of water on a very soft bottom with no cover that I could see. I thought, huh, didn't expect that guy to be there, so I stopped us there for a minute and we tried a bit more. Talk about being in the right place and the right time! I still don't know why the fish were there, because I never felt any cover on the bottom, and I never saw any baitfish, but over the next couple hours, we managed to land 9 LM, and had at least that many more bites. The best went about 2 1/2 pounds, but the average was around a pound. We had a blast. To a newbie like me, it was an absolute feeding frenzy. emoSmile
