Monthly Archives: April 2015

Georgia Bass Chapter Federation Top Six at West Point Lake

Caught in Top Six at West Point

Caught in Top Six at West Point

They say if you don’t like the weather in Georgia, wait a few hours and it will be different. That was certainly true at West Point last week. In the five days I was there for the Top Six we had everything from hail to warm sun shine, pouring rain to clear skies and cold, strong winds.

I went over to Whitetail Campground on Thursday afternoon, put the boat in the water and set up my van camper. The campground is straight across the lake from Pyne Park, the tournament launch site and it is very convenient to leave the boat in the water and go over each morning to the blast off, avoiding the confusion and mess of 100 boats trying to launch.

Friday morning I got up and started trying to figure out where the bass were and what they would hit. When I saw the water temperature was 61 degrees I tried a topwater plug and caught a keeper spotted bass so I fished it for an hour without another bite. After switching to a jig and a Carolina rigged lizard I started catching keeper spots on every gravel point I fished, but I knew they would not win the tournament.

I did catch a three pound largemouth on Saturday morning out of some brush on a point, the size fish that would make a difference in the tournament. But after trying that kind of cover for the rest of the day all I caught were more small spots, although I was throwing big jig and pig.

Sunday morning Jordan McDonald and Jennifer Spell went out with me to practice. Although they were both fishing with the Flint River team and I was on the Sportsman Club team we were working together. The first place I stopped, another rocky point with some brush, I hooked and landed a six pound largemouth and got real excited! Maybe that pattern would work.

About noon we went into a small creek up the river. Jordan had talked to a friend and was told running a square bill crankbait by wood cover worked, and the first stick he tried he landed a 3.5 pound largemouth. The next stick I landed a 2.5 pound largemouth so we were excited.

As luck would have it that afternoon at the drawing, Jordan and I were paired for Monday. The computer won’t pair two fishermen from the same club, but since we were on different clubs we got to fish together. We had a plan!

Monday morning we took off to the point where I had caught the three pounder since it was close. Although there were no largemouth there, spots were feeding and we stayed for almost two hours until we both had four keepers. The rain made us stay longer than planned on those small fish but we didn’t want to run in the pouring rain.

On the point where I had caught the six pounder we caught several spots, but no largemouth. So we headed to the creek up the river, hoping to cull all those little spots. But again nothing but small spots hit there. A little after noon we started fishing pockets in Yellowjacket Creek, the pattern Jordan’s friend told him about, and Jordan landed a 4.5 pounder, but I caught nothing but small fish.

At weigh-in Jordan had a little over 10 pounds and my five weighed an even seven pounds. Jordan was in a good position but I knew I was in trouble. The fisherman weighing in behind me had five weighing 22 pounds! And some others had 14 to 16 pounds.

The second day even the spots quit hitting on the first two places my partner from Savannah and I fished so we went to the creek up the river. We started catching some decent largemouth as well as spots there and I even landed a 5.65 pound largemouth on a Carolina rig. We stayed there until we had to go in.

I had five at just over 10 pounds and my partner had just under 10 pounds to go with the 10 pounds he had caught the day before. My big fish ended up being the seventh biggest in the tournament.

Jordan finished in 16th place out of almost 200 fishermen and I came in 32nd. Mickey McHenry on the Flint River team placed 15th. The Sportsman Club team was 15th out of 33 teams and the Flint River Team was 16th.

Although I was dead tired after all that fishing I am already looking forward to the other Federation Top Six at Hartwell in October and this Federation tournament at Eufaula next April!

Kid’s Fishing Tale

I ran into Glen Conkle last Friday at United Bank and he said he had a fishing tale for me. He knows I always love to hear fishing stories and he had a good one about his grandson, Turner Edmondson. Turner is ten years old and loves to fish.

Glen said he took Turner to a pond in Fayette County but he was not sure there were any fish in it. While he was rigging Turner’s rod and reel, Turner picked up granddad’s outfit, cast the plastic worm out and caught a five pound bass. After landing it he took his outfit, cast out, hooked and landed a six pounder. Then, after a couple of casts, he landed a seven pounder.

They caught 28 bass that day, so there are fish in that pond! Turner really bragged about beating granddad since he caught 15 of them and the biggest ones, too.

No doubt Turner will remember that trip for the rest of his life. He won’t remember the shows he watched on TV, the games he played on his electronics or many of the other things he does for fun. But I bet he always remembers the day he caught three bass over five pounds and beat granddad.

It was great hearing about granddad taking his 10 year old grandson fishing. I saw something on Facebook last week that said “Teach a kid to fish and he will never have enough money to buy drugs.” That is true, but they will also stay so busy fishing they won’t want to do drugs and get into other kinds of trouble.

I know fishing and hunting kept me from getting into a lot more trouble than I did!

What Is Transitional Trout Fishing?

Transitional Trout
from The Fishing Wire

While the period between ice fishing and open-water action puts some anglers in limbo, it’s actually one of the best times of the year to wet a line for a variety of winter-weary trout, including rainbows, browns and lakers.

“Hungry trout cruising predictable shoreline areas add up to the best bank fishing you’ll ever experience,” says veteran guide and compulsive salmonid stalker Bernie Keefe. While Keefe plies pristine lakes and reservoirs in the idyllic high country around Granby, Colorado, his strategies hold water in fisheries across the continent.

The first step is finding an A-list trout lake or pond where the ice is beginning to recede from shore. “I look for open water off points, here and there along darker banks, and near tributary inflows,” he says, explaining that each of these scenarios offers trout a place to fill their stomachs after a long winter under the ice.

“This pattern is all about food,” he says. “Everything is hungry right now. Browns and lakers are totally focused on eating anything they can. And even though rainbows and cuttbows may be looking for spawning areas, they need to eat, too.”

Let’s start with shorelines and points. “Both of these areas offer increased bug life, especially spots with darker bottoms,” says Keefe. “But it’s important to understand the baitfish connection as well.”

Catch trout like this one

Catch trout like this one

Spring is a great time for shore-casting browns, rainbows and lakers.

Here’s how it works. “All winter, juvenile trout and suckers cruised the shorelines,” he begins. “They survived by darting toward the bank whenever a predator appeared, and by tucking themselves into inches of water, where large trout couldn’t reach them. Now that the ice is going out, this sanctuary is gone-and big, old, smart trout know these smaller fish are fair game.”

Which explains why Keefe’s lure of choice for such scenarios is a 3- to 5-inch-long, shallow-running slender stickbait, in natural shades of silver, gold or rainbow trout. Wielding a 7-foot, medium- to medium-heavy power Fenwick HMX spinning rod-paired with a Pflueger Patriarch reel spooled with 10-4 FireLine-he tiptoes quietly to the waterline and fires long casts parallel to the bank.

“Keep the bait close to shore, in about two feet of water,” he says, noting that a 5-foot leader of 10-pound test Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon helps fool line-shy fish in gin-clear water. “Make a slow retrieve interspersed with rodtip twitches that give the bait an erratic action, so it acts like a disoriented baitfish.” Keeping all casts tight to shore, Keefe methodically works any stretches of open water between the bank and main icepack.

Many shorelines drop quickly into deep water, but some offer slow tapers that create expansive feeding grounds for trout. When Keefe reaches such a flat, he makes long casts from shore, then wades in and gradually works his way out to about waist-deep water. “Obviously, a good pair of waders is critical,” he laughs.

Early mornings are prime time for Keefe’s shoreline stickbait pattern. “Cloud cover and ripples on the water can extend it, but it’s generally over by 9 a.m.,” he explains. “On our mountain lakes, you typically get glass calm conditions with full sun about this time of day.” When that happens, it’s time to shift gears. He rigs a 3- to 5-inch softbait such as a Berkley Gulp! Jerk Shad or PowerBait Minnow on a 1/8- to 3/8-ounce leadhead jig and tosses it out into deeper water a long cast from shore.

“Let the jig sink to bottom,” he says. “Lift the rodtip and, while lowering it, quickly reel in slack to make the jig swim just above bottom. Continue this cadence back to shore. Work your way down the bank, casting every few feet to pick off trout that have moved into deeper water to feed on crayfish and minnows.”

Once he’s thoroughly worked near-shore depths in this manner, Keefe moves on to fertile inflows ranging in size from small creeks to mid-sized rivers. “Tributaries are usually running high and a little darker than normal, and offer trout an abundance of worms and bugs,” he notes.

As main-lake ice recedes, hungry lake trout of trophy proportions prowl the shallows each spring on the hunt for baitfish.

Presentational options include various flies and jig-and-softbait combos. “Or, you can do it the really easy way and bounce an angleworm along bottom on a split-shot rig,” Keefe confides. Keys to successful worm rigging include threading the bait on a size 6 baitholder hook, and using just enough weight to allow the sinker to hop downstream with the current, without becoming anchored in one place. “Bouncing catches more trout than suckers, while anchoring gets you more suckers than trout,” he explains.

To present a worm rig, Keefe casts slightly upstream and lets the rig wash down-current until it sweeps toward the bank. Strikes typically register as solid taps, and are met with a quick and solid hookset. “Focus on the rivermouth,” he notes. “On a large creek you can work your way upstream, but the lower reaches are often the hot zone.”

Keefe notes that the timing of ice-out bites varies from lake to lake. “In my area, it’s starting right now in some of the high mountain lakes, and usually runs through the end of May on larger waters that are slow to lose their ice.” By following Keefe’s lead and monitoring the progression of ice-out on lakes in your area, it’s possible to enjoy first-class shore-fishing for trout all spring.

Contact Information
For more information or to book a trip with Keefe, visit: www.fishingwithbernie.com or call (970) 531-2318.

Fishing Is Good At Lake Oconee In March

At Oconee on Sunday 15 members and guests of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our March tournament. After casting in the rain for eight hours we brought 65 bass over the 14 inch minimum for keepers and they weighed about 140 pounds. Fishing was good, with 8 five fish limits weighed in. Only one person didn’t have a keeper.

Kwong Yu showed up for his first tournament with the club this year and won it all with five weighing 14.38 pounds and big fish of 6.15 pounds. Craig Zoellner, also fishing his first tournament this year with the club, was second with five at 12.12 pounds. Raymond English placed third with five at 12.06 and fourth was Zane Fleck with five weighing 11.61 pounds.

I thought I had a pretty good catch until everybody started weighing in the big stringers. Niles Murray had five at 10.53 pounds to come in fifth and my five at 9.96 pounds was sixth. My partner Jordan McDonald had four weighing 9.84 for a close seventh. We had a lot of fish weighing two pounds or more so the bigger fish bit pretty good.

I caught six keepers during the day, all on a Texas rigged Baby Brush Hog. Jordan caught his on a variety of baits. The fish were on secondary points and banks back in coves and in three to five feet of water. Niles said he and Raymond caught their fish in similar places but all on Carolina rigs.

Today is the last day of practice at West Point for the state Top Six. The tournament is Monday and Tuesday. I am hoping the fishing will be good but the cold nights this weekend have me worried. Bass moving toward the shallow bedding areas and fairly easy to catch often back off and feed less if the water temperature drops.

How Are Chinook Salmon Stocked By Wisconsin Doing?

Wisconsin stocked Chinook salmon outperform Lake Michigan average, new research shows
from The Fishing Wire

Today’s feature comes to us from the Wisconsin DNR, which is justifiably proud of the success of its Chinook salmon stocking program on Lake Michigan.

Getting salmon ready to stock

Getting salmon ready to stock

Wisconsin stocked chinook salmon outperform Lake Michigan average, new research shows A cooperative research project by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, DNR and agencies in other states used a mechanical process to insert tiny coded wire tags into the snouts of young lake trout and chinook. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Photo

MADISON — Chinook salmon stocked by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources survive very well and contribute substantially to the state’s strong Lake Michigan fishery, new research from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and DNR shows.

As the lake’s top predator, it’s common for both stocked and wild chinook to travel hundreds of miles to feed as they mature and at any given time during the summer, state anglers may catch chinook stocked by Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois or Indiana. However, the ongoing three-year cooperative research project shows Wisconsin stocked fish have an above average likelihood of surviving to harvest and are being caught in comparatively large numbers in an area stretching from Door to Kenosha counties.

At the same time, state anglers are benefiting from natural reproduction of wild fish from Michigan streams and tributaries to Lake Huron.

“Wisconsin offers a world class recreational fishery and DNR’s Lake Michigan stocking efforts continue to play a key role in sustaining this resource and its multimillion dollar economic impact,” said DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp. “This study reinforces the importance of our high quality hatchery efforts while supporting the value of ongoing investments in our fisheries operations.”

Dave Boyarski, DNR fisheries supervisor for northern Lake Michigan, said the department has been working closely with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Fish Tag and Recovery Lab near Green Bay to tag chinook fingerlings as well as collect and analyze the tags from the heads of recovered fish. Chinook salmon tagging for the recent multistate project began in 2011 and the analysis involved some 46,000 recovered tags.

The coded wire tags resemble tiny pieces of pencil lead and are inserted through a mechanized process that has proven more efficient and less stressful to the fish than previously used hand-held methods. During 2014 alone, state fisheries managers in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan tagged and released more than 2.9 million chinook salmon bound for the waters of lakes Michigan and Huron. Wisconsin DNR’s Wild Rose and Kettle Moraine Springs hatcheries contributed about 824,000 of that total.

Illustrating the excellent returns of fish stocked by Wisconsin’s hatcheries, from 2011 to 2013 Wisconsin provided 38 percent of all the chinooks that were stocked in Lake Michigan. Yet from 2012 to 2014, Wisconsin stocked fish accounted for some 49 percent of stocked fish harvested throughout the lake and 57 percent of the stocked fish taken in Wisconsin waters.

The results of the analysis show the fish stocked by Wisconsin DNR appear to survive at better than average rates and account for a relatively large percentage of the stocked chinook salmon harvested throughout Lake Michigan, Boyarski said. In addition, anglers are benefiting from strong reproduction among wild chinook, which accounted for about 60 percent of the total harvest throughout Lake Michigan in 2014.

Brad Eggold, DNR fisheries supervisor for southern Lake Michigan, said the study demonstrates the benefits of Wisconsin’s investment in the Wild Rose Fish Hatchery where the majority of Wisconsin Chinook salmon are reared. The results also reinforce the importance of multistate cooperation and the involvement of anglers throughout the region.

“We greatly appreciate the opportunity to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife team to collect this data, which will inform our management efforts going forward,” Eggold said. “We also want to thank the many thousands of anglers and other partners who aided this effort by collecting the tens of thousands of fish heads needed for the analysis.”

Charles Bronte, senior fisheries biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the multistate effort was initiated in an attempt to understand the growth and survival of chinook, their movement throughout the connected waters of lakes Michigan and Huron and levels of natural reproduction. These measures are critical to the DNR for managing chinook in response to a changing base of forage fish.

“If we’re going to find the answers, we need this kind of coordinated research among all the states in the region that stock chinook because the fish don’t stay in one place,” Bronte said. “What we learn from this work will help guide best practices for producing healthy fish throughout the region, maximize returns and provide further insight into the conditions essential for these fish to thrive.”

Other important insights gleaned from the work include the fact that natural reproduction now accounts for some 60 percent of the chinook population from the combined year classes 2011, 2012 and 2013. However, lower lake levels and stream flows during 2012 and the subsequent harsh winter contributed to a reduction in successful natural spawning and survival for the 2013 year class of chinook, which was only 37 percent wild fish.

The team of experts said more work and more time will be needed to assess whether natural reproduction will rebound following the difficult 2013 cycle. Disruptions in the lake’s food web caused by invasive mussels and other species also bear further monitoring and will influence future management decisions.

“The study reinforces the importance of science-based management efforts and provides a wealth of information that we intend to share with our stakeholders,” Boyarski said. “In the months ahead, we’ll use what we are learning to examine our own management practices and implement strategies that increase the return on our stocking and management efforts going forward.”

To learn more about the research and the Lake Michigan fishery, search the DNR website dnr.wi.gov and search “Fishing Lake Michigan and “chinook salmon research.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Dave Boyarski, DNR northern Lake Michigan fisheries supervisor, 920-746-2865; David.Boyarski@Wisconsin.gov; Brad Eggold, DNR southern Lake Michigan fisheries supervisor, 414-382-7921, Bradley.Eggold@wisconsin.gov; Charles Bronte, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service senior fisheries biologist, 920-412-8079, Charles_Bronte@fws.gov; Jennifer Sereno, DNR communications, 608-770-8084, Jennifer.Sereno@wisconsin.gov