Slip’s 2016 LOGS, STATUS AND STRATEGIES

[Slip Sinker]

The past few seasons it’s been season outdoing the last. Knowledge base on top of knowledge base. Building on some great info from this site and time on the water. I’m anticipating and looking forward to even better results with more citation fish. Anyway that’s the game plan.

Last year was the season of fishing TINY. Thin UL Lines loaded on tiny 50 series reels and light UL rods tossing tiny baits in front of fish targets…quantities of quality panfish and trophy SMB. Tossed the baits into thick cover with reckless abandon. Tiny presentations under slip bobbers thrown next to thick weed slop and weed pockets. Mid day fishing out of the kayak in less than two feet of water and tagging quality fish. Never really had another fishing boat come close to me fishing. it was like i had the lake to myself. looking forward to making some more good memories in the upcoming season.

Looking forward to any hints suggestions or comments from the BBG membership… sharing is the best way to learn and progress!

hope everyone a successful "2016 Open Water Season"

[Slip Sinker]

20160901- ...----~~<")))))><(--------------------------

[Slip Sinker]

New moon today!!! ... good time to be out on the water.

[Slip Sinker]

20160901—today Earl, Connor and I set off on a 99% fish activity level day with great expectations even considering the significant cold front conditions before us. Launching the jon boat we noted stiff northernly wind , mid sixties air temp and a 10 degree water temp drop (since last week) 5° temp overnight with the chilly upr 40’s low temp. these conditions alone increases the days trip of taking on a skunking.

We expected the fish to be somewhat negative and tight to cover as always when experiencing cold front conditions. That’s where they were. We started and ended the day vertically jigging the Lil Minnow tight and into heavy cover. Long casting the jigs produced very little response or bite as well as the slip/float/waxie presentations.

Earl missed a great opportunity of a Master Angler R.Bass that was every bit of 13” at the water surface shaking the hook.

We tracked the fish activity levels all trip long and noted the consistency of the data displayed on the “Fishing Points” app. Lunar major and minor peeks consistently coincided with the fish activity level of the day.

We found a reliable deep water jigging presentation for R.Bass jigging the rock piles and laydowns. The Lil Minnow was producing and we stuck with that success all day long.

I ended up with my best R.Bass day of my fishing career because of this pattern tagging (3) 10” class fish.

The jumbo Y.Perch tags on this presentation are recently pretty consistent with another 12” tagged fish. Many were caught including a 14” class fish during the week on a previous trip. I feel a Master Angler certificate coming shortly  using this presentation.

Earl became immediately hooked on this bait and caught many fish during the trip outnumber my totals.

Combining successful mastered presentations along with Lunar tables hopefully will produce more and larger catches in shorter defined periods of time for me.

Highlight R.Bass of the day!

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Best Bluegill of the day!

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Jumbo Y.Perch of the Day!

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Composite collage of today's catches

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[Slip Sinker]

20160902- ...----~~<")))))><(--------------------------

[Slip Sinker]

20160902—I thought id try a different approach today and see and explore different areas of the lake that may hold fish…. and test out the deep bite with the vertical jigging Lil Minnow.

I located a couple deep areas on the lake map adjacent to large shallow weedy flats that look good for spawning sites etc for the panfish. I located a few schools on the sonar and dropped the Lil Minnow vertically in the school and tagged a few B.gills straight away including a monster 9” class Bull.

I am getting so stoked on vertically jigging this bait!. A successful pattern has a way to do that to me. When I introduced Earl the other day to this presentation he too was hyped on the method and stuck with it the whole trip. Discussions and plans were brought up to use on other lakes where conditions would be perfect using this presentation.

Boat traffic started increasing during the late afternoon and I retreated back to shallow protected waters and continued with the action picking up a bonus Y.Perch and R.Bass

couldnt find the numbers today but still had a blast... and i added to Time On the Water... increasing that B.Gill knowledge base.

.Best fish of the day!! 9” Class B.Gill

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.Bonus Y.Perch

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.Some of Today’s CPR’ed Catch

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[Slip Sinker]

20160903- ...----~~<")))))><(--------------------------

[Slip Sinker]

started the walk to the launch and had to turn back... tomorrow's another day

[Slip Sinker]

20160904- ...----~~<")))))><(--------------------------

[Slip Sinker]

 

20160904—My hot go-to spots of last year and earlier this season have been severely choked with pads and weeds making fishing impossible. This forced my hand to discover new areas to fish with the kayak as well as the addition of vertical jigging to my methods… the vertical jigging is significantly adding to totals as well as quality during this period of the fishing calendar.

Today however I noticed the bite was off no matter what presentation… the activity level was just not there.

My goal today was then to just squeeze out a panfish limit of slot fish as if I was to harvest. It took a combined effort of presentations to achieve this. Some panfish (b.crappie) were in shallow and were tagged with the Lil Minnow long casting. Some were along the deep and shallow weed lines scattered taking more effort to tag.

I could not find but just a few B.Gills in shallow next to cover with the slip/float/waxie… the remainder were tagged vertical jigging the laydowns and deep weed edges.

A very nice r.bass was tagged vertically jigging a concrete rebar structure next to the bridge.

So a combined effort and moving around in the kayak from area to area scored the quantity of fish to complete the number limit of fish. all CPR’ed

Nice R.Bass

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Avg B.Gill caught vertically jigging the laydown top extending into deeper water.

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Collage of Slot Keepers all CPR’ed

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[Leo Nguyen]

Interesting. Moon phase is 1st quarter moon, and you already have a problem?

What's the observable water quality there? Weed growth? Food sources availability? Wind conditions on the day, and the prior day?

[Slip Sinker]

...yeah same water conditions from day to day in the same BOW... i really feel the difference in activity New and Full moon and the lunar periods in between. 

 i love fishing the Minor and major periods lunar tables for the day... im finding its like clockwork.

[Leo Nguyen]

Aquarium based fishes can be observed the same way. They're not exposed to the moon itself, but each phase, the fishes in aquariums behave similar to that of the wild. It's very unique to see.