Friday Fishing/Forecast

Anybody planning on fishing tommorow? Considering a shakedown run, but on the fence with this forecast. Seems to change by the hour, but at last check iWindsurf is calling for winds SSW in the mid teens gusting close to 20mph. I like the direction - just unsure if thats too much for this time of year. I run a 23ft Center Console. Its pretty heavy and handles the water well, but it would be first trip of year for us. I'm always a little leary early in the year when the water is cold and you never know what may have failed over the winter. Just wondering if anybody else is planning on going out.

I would most likely launch out of Mazuriks and work the area between there and Mouse trying to huddle out of the wind. Maybe not the hottest spot right now, but thinking that area should be holding some fish.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

I'll be out, probably in the reef complex

Plan to launch the boat at Catawba tomorrow around 10:00 am. Will run to "E" can or "F" can and troll with the wind. This approach has worked well for me on early spring trips. Check recent posts for presentations. Ch. 68. Starting in close with a southerly air flow, the lake should be fishable unless Mother Nature has other ideas.....

A friend and I are going out with Sassy Sal tomorrow jig fishing since my boat is not in due to the recent wind forecasts.

I called this afternoon, asking if they had been out or were catching fish. She said they hadn't been out, but "their neighbors had and were limiting each of the past two days".

I assume this is drawbridge??

Anyway. Time to hook some Eyes.

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Originally Posted by Dr.Ed

Plan to launch the boat at Catawba tomorrow around 10:00 am. Will run to "E" can or "F" can and troll with the wind. This approach has worked well for me on early spring trips. Check recent posts for presentations. Ch. 68. Starting in close with a southerly air flow, the lake should be fishable unless Mother Nature has other ideas.....

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In light of the much improved forecast now in last couple hours - I'm thinking I will also launch out of Catawba and follow a similar protocol. Is Dr. Ed also your radio handle? I will look for you on ch 68. Maybe we can work together if your interested. I plan on heading out around 7 or 8.

We were planning to fish today,Friday also until looked at windsurfing and saw the NE wind all day.Called it off.

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Originally Posted by itsbob

We were planning to fish today,Friday also until looked at windsurfing and saw the NE wind all day.Called it off.

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Yeah, they totally blew that forecast. All week everyone was calling for winds out of SSW, including iWindsurf. On Thursday afternoon they actually changed it to South winds in the single digits for most of the day.
This obviously would have been best case scenario for us in Western Basin. At 8pm Thursday night iWindsurf still reflected the south winds in the single digits, so I went out to load and prep the boat. When I came back in house at 11pm the forecast had completely changed. Somewhere in that 3 hour period of time iWindsurf changed their forecast of best case south winds single digits to worst case winds out of NE in teens. All other weather outlets continued with the south wind forecast. Hoping that this was somehow a mistake or that my app was messed up we made the trip Friday morning. And of course it was a NE wind all day long. So iWindsurf was only weather outlet to get it right, and they didnt until only hours beforehand. I realize its April and its apparently very difficult to forecast, but how can all major weather outlets still get it so wrong? Even Friday morning Accuweather, NOAA, and weather.com all still calling for wind to switch and become SE, then eventually SW. Needless to say never happened. I know it made a rough day on water for many. We decided to launch but huddle around Catawba to try and stay out of it. Managed a few. Couple decent ones 25 -25 inch. Folks that were brave enough to head down to the reef complex did much better. I didnt wanna be out in that wind on first trip of year. Needed to test things out and make sure boat was ready. Made lots of changes over winter including some repair work on the keel. Took the safetey first approach and still managed to get a few fish. Did have great marks on west side of Catawba, just couldnt get too many on line. The ones we did catch all came on Bandits 60 and 65 back. Custom colors by Domka of which I cant recall names. Mostly darker greens and blues. Speed was 0.8 to 1.5 depending on direction we were going. Caught fish trolling both with and into the wind.

Funny thing us I watch winder finder most of the day and actually showed the sw pushed as far north as the bass islands that area showed to be theffective area where the switch was occurring and to be calm.....and the NE winds were out farther n and e.

But talking to the ppl on the water they were dealing with cold strong ne winds all day.

So forget getting the forcast right, even the live reporting was not what was actually going on...... not sure where these places get their info or data from but it feels that sometimes they just heed to look out the window.

Can't wait till the weather buoy gets back in, at least the live info from it is correct

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Originally Posted by branhamautomotive

Funny thing us I watch winder finder most of the day and actually showed the sw pushed as far north as the bass islands that area showed to be theffective area where the switch was occurring and to be calm.....and the NE winds were out farther n and e.

But talking to the ppl on the water they were dealing with cold strong ne winds all day.

So forget getting the forcast right, even the live reporting was not what was actually going on...... not sure where these places get their info or data from but it feels that sometimes they just heed to look out the window.

Can't wait till the weather buoy gets back in, at least the live info from it is correct

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Based on the steam from the cooling tower, the wind definitely switched to out of the Southwest later in the morning. It seemed to still be blowing pretty good. It seemed to get a little calmer when it switched, but the waves were still mostly out of the Northeast.