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]

20161013- ...----~~<")))))><(-------------------------

[Slip Sinker]

Just double checking when the Cold Water period in the in-Fisherman calendar starts… so at 55° begins the period… excluding the Change-over period which many lakes do not experience I am still in Post-Summer and the bite is still hot. Yesterdays temps were low 60’s for surface temps. many quality fish were up against the bank.

[Slip Sinker]

20161017- ...----~~<")))))><(-------------------------

[Slip Sinker]

Fishing a small natural private lake we headed for the north shore offering some wind protection. Connor launched his slip/float/circle hook/crawler set-up close to the banks and docks and picked up a few quality P.Seeds in the 90%+ Master Angler rating. Drawing my attention I started slip/floating and also picked up a few nice p.seeds. Earl continued picking up some preds with a nice fight from a junior pike. B.crappies and decent b.gills were basically absent from the bite.

Shortly after feeling the bite was slow despite the nice p.seeds in the shallows we wanted more action that seemed to be missing. Where were the b.gills? so we headed towards the deeper weed lines and clumps and first deep breaks. We started picking up thin bites of some nicer b.gills and b.crappie. still feeling we were not on the hot pattern on a supposedly hot bite day considering the 83 percent lunar rating for the day. More than Half of the trip was spent with little bite reward when Earl noticed fish dorsaling at the surface in the calm water over the 30’ basin. Closer inspection revealed they were schools of b.gill and b.crappie at the surface.

The schools were tight and the fish were in large numbers. We started picking up the tags with shallow run swim jigs fishing over the deep basins. Fishing for bass in the late fall years before the b.gills were in my focus I noticed this behavior from the b.gills when moving from spot to spot. Whether warming in the surface water or feeding on some type of insect hatch was not determined but they were active and catchable. We were un anchored and positioning with the trolling motor to casting distance to the schools. A nice pattern to add to the arsenal for the post summer period.

One of my (3) 9” Class B.Gills

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Biggest B.Crappie of the day

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All of my 38 Panfish caught today were again successfully CPR’ed to fight another day.

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[Slip Sinker]

20161019- ...----~~<")))))><(-------------------------

[Slip Sinker]

20161019-today we had a terrible time finding the fish in the upper reaches of the reservoir. Most of our recent successes lately have come on some local area natural lakes. With cooling water temps the post summer period is nearing a close by approaching that 55° mark. Water surf temp registered 57°

Our strategy at the beginning of the trip was to locate the large quantities of Springtime B.gills that we located deep into the shallow cuts. We thought that just maybe the B.Gills found comfort in the deeper holes and cuts close to the bank where they would hold up for the upcoming cold water periods. We couldn’t find gills or b.crappies our main targets for the day.

Casting parallel to large laydowns we tagged a few identical perch around the 10” mark. Then I hooked into a freight train of a SMB that took my micro-lite spin rig for a wild ride. The 8# GLISS held tight and I was able to bring the fish quickly to net. The SMB measured just over the 17” mark… quickly took a snap eased the 1/32 oz 1” swim jig from its mouth and gently released it to the lake to fight again… smb’s are truly remarkable specimens with that massive ability for the fight… a great way to test the integrity of one’s tackle system.

Exploring the laydowns further upstream found no biters. We then retreated back to the launch hitting a few of my summer hot spots along the way. Vertical jigging tagged a small R.Bass and a B.Crappie for Earl as well as the best Y.Perch of the day. Many of the other spots were excused from the casts because of extensive leave litter on the surface… casting was impossible. Then We hit the creek channel as it approaches the bank further down the reservoir and came up empty even though fish were spotted on the sonar. 

Nice SMB on the 1” Apex 1/32 oz

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One of a few Nice Y.Perch on the Lil Minnow

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[Slip Sinker]

20161020- ...----~~<")))))><(-------------------------

[Slip Sinker]

ONE YEAR AGO TODAY -- 20151020—

Discovering and validating fishing smaller baits and thinner lines resulting in more and larger SMB.

 

[Slip Sinker]

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[Slip Sinker]

20161020—we had a short time to fish before sunset so we had to make the most efficient use of our time… we selected a small natural lake where there were larger concentrations of avg sized fish. B.Gills and B.Crappie were the main target species and long-casting the UL swim jigs were the first choice method.

We decided to try locating the fish in the deep basins first and found schools of fish in 20-25’/30’ FOW with surf temps at 57°. Long-casting and vertical jigging could not entice a fish. We headed shallower hitting the deep drop-off breaks, deep weed lines, shallow weed lines and shoreline breaks. One lone small Y.Perch was the best showing for the effort. We were getting a beating 2 trips in a row and the panfish were winning. 45 mins with one fish to show was pitiful.

One other boat was out on the small lake and from a distance we could tell they were bringing in B.Gills at a very slow pace. Judging from their position I estimated they were on the deep break where it abruptly drops to 25’ FOW from 10’. After a short discussion with the other boat we discovered they were vertically jigging wax worms on tungsten jigs.

One of the last times fishing this lake we noticed large concentrated schools of panfish just under the surface with dorsal fins just breaking the plane. As the wind was dying down we started spotting the large schools and proceeded to Long-Cast the tiny jigs past the schools near the surface and began tagging the B.Gills and B.Crappie in a fast and steady pace. We moved with the trolling motor with the schools of fish as they dimpled the surface with their fins. What a great pattern this turned out to be!

We continued tagging fish up till sunset with a nice double tag of 12” B.Crappie on synced casts.

One of the BFOTD!

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Beautiful; B.Crappie

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Some of today’s tags all CPR’ed

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x

[Slip Sinker]

20161021- ...----~~<")))))><(-------------------------

[Slip Sinker]

-----OFFICIAL START OF THE COLD-WATER SEASON... MID MICHIGAN---