5/18 report

[Fishing Tiger]

My guests had booked for 3 days starting Monday but I had to call Wednesday the 17th due to wind. They really wanted to fish yesterday the 18th. I told them with a NE wind it would be marginal. Safe but not pleasant and agreed to take them. I didn't want to mow the yard anyway. Doing it today 😒

We stayed behind Rattle Snake and just plowed the calmer water to scratch out their limit. Surprisingly there were still a few bigger fish back there. We had one 27 incher.

The program was Bandits 70 to 80 back at 2.0 mph. We caught on almost every color but I guess Blue Chrome and Perch were the best, but that was probably because we pulled more of them. Temps were in the mid 50s top to bottom. We are still catching on Nascar Stinger and Scorpion spoons, but they tended to be the smaller fish.

We did have a pig Smallmouth on a Bandit. It literally looked like a football. The guests really liked that. They went home with a cooler full of fillets and were verry happy and are talking about when they can come back.

[fishfinder]

As long as the crew is happy that has to make you happy. Nice job A picture of the smallmouth would be nice. Do they hit bandits often?

[Fishing Tiger]

I post our pictures on the face book page. Feel free to follow us.

But unfortunately we did not get a picture of the Smallmouth. We were trying to get it back in the water as soon as possible.

I don't know about others but we seldom catch smallmouth on bandits. We do catch them periodically on Rogues and Long A's over deep rock piles.

[DW72]

Thank you Mike. I'm going out this afternoon. Headed home Wednesday. I'll post

[Fishing Tiger]

The best of luck.
The afternoon bite was good, but with this dark moon early seems to be better right now.
Catch a mess!

[DW72]

10-4! Will let you know buddy.

[DW72]

Arrived at Catawba at 2:00. Strong NNE blow. BIG whitecaps. Went to hotel. Guys here had just come off and said 4-5 footers out there. Will chase em early tomorrow. To start will probably search around West of Green and/or Rattlesnake.

[Fishing Tiger]

With this west wind you may want to work the East side of the Bass's until the wind lays in the afternoon.

[DW72]

Good point Sir. Will see how she looks soon enough! 🙂

[itsbob]

We also fished Thursday but was east of the bass islands.Was also concerned with the East wind forecast.Got an early start and found some good marks to start around 730.But we were headed right into solid 3fters out of the East.I wanted to change out the rubber bands on our 6 inline boards but John suffers from lack of patience.So instead of doing it at the dock, had to do it as we started to troll.Since John brought along his buddy Terry,John started to set out the lines.He started complaining that the releases weren't holding on the first one he put out.Had planned on starting with 2 dipsey and 6 cranks.Was difficult to stand driving into those waves.Looking back should have started trolling with the waves.But I got both dipseys out at 60 and 65 in a 3 setting with a green and white spoon harness, then started resetting the board John couldn't get to hold.Got that board out again and was working on the second board when that first board pulled loose again The waves were making it difficult for our lines to hold.As I brought that loose board in again noticed my dipsey had popped too.Now I was getting pissed off.Finally got to the dipsey line and realized there was a fish on it.Brought in a 24" fish on the 60 lead, set it back out and changed the other side to 60 also.Then got back to getting the boards out again.I determined that orange OR 19 was too worn so changed it to a new one.Then one of boards had a fish.Got that fish in and kept trying to get the lines out and then dipsey on other side had a fish.Decided to change up to 4 cranks and 4 dipseys.So has 3 fish before we finally got all the lines out.Set the other 2 dipsey at a 1 setting at 50 and 45 with another spoon harness and a double willow harnesses.
Had the bandits set out at 100,90 and 80 with taco salad,white perch,humble bee and blue chrome.They all caught fish with taco salad at 100 catching the best on the boards.The green spoon harness on the dipsey at 60 on 3 setting caught best overall.The double willow caught only one of the two small sheephead we caught all day No shorts and finished up with our 18/55lbs by 1130.Speed was around 2.0 mph.Was much easier when we turned and went with the waves.Had those fish for dinner at the Crow's nest and I also bought home fish had cooked up at Jolly Roger the next day.