Well, my wife is a lot better at these things with our sons than I ever was. She took off work today to be with him at the hospital - 6:00 a.m. and I was able to keep my fishing date with Dell. I love that woman of mine! :)
We met at my home around 7:00 a.m. and loaded up the ole' G3. There was a bit of a fog cover hanging over the farm fields behind my backyard. Ah... Topwater!
The launch only had three other trailers parked in it when we arrived. This clued us in on knewing that not too many anglers were on the water. Many of the anglers in this area are now targeting the flatheads with bluegill. In fact, we noticed about five crushed and weathered bluegill in the strewn about the parking lot... LOL.
We headed north b/w the dams and the water surface was rather smooth. Hmmmm... No generation yet? As we headed up the channel, we saw the local two immature eagles fly out of a tree and off to the east. Cool beans! They have a pretty large wing span already, but no white feathers showing. They may have some by next year, though.
As we were entering our fishing area, the loud siren and lights lit along the shoreline indicating danger and they started dumping water like there would be no tomorrow for generating electricity. I've never, ever seen them dump so much water during a 4.38' river level... Never!
They had 6 gates opened and pouring water south. My normal fishing area was totally trashed and out of the question. I also noticed that not a single angler was fishing from the deck of the dam. There was no one there because no one could fish in these conditions.
This was the second day since Friday that I saw the power company doing this... it's insane! Every time the siren would screech, Dell would ask me, "T, what's that mean!" I would yell back to him, "Mo Water, Mo Electricity, Mo Money!" :D
Dell caught the first fish with his crankbait. He's getting pretty good with those plugs. It was a nice 14.5" walleye. Not a keeper, but a nice healthy fish. He followed up with a couple of nice smallies in the 12 -14" range.
I rotated b/w using a spinnerbait and a crankbait w/o much luck. It took me almost 90 minutes to catch my first smallmouth. I was constantly fighting the trolling motor in that wicked current the whole time. Hoping that Dell would benefit.
Once I finally settle in, I started catching bass. We hit one spot that produced 7 straight hits and one double for us. These weren't monsters, but they were in the 13-14" range and fought tough in that difficult current.
Dell landed another 14" walleye on his plug as we entered a great cattie area. He tossed his infamous Pop'R (Blump... blump... blump). He actually got a catfish to rise and take that darn popper! That was a good laugh. :p
We were fishing in and around every ledge, boulder, chunk rock, and eddy we could find. That MK 101 did a wonderful job moving and holding us. I love 'em!
We finally got a nice one to hit a spinnerbait. We were holding in about 4' of water behind a rock ledge and I tossed my spinnerbug about 20 yds. upriver towards an outcrop of rocks. WHACK! This bass hit that spinnerbait so hard that she not only bent the shaft straight, but she also turn the hidden weight on a right angle and bent the hook even more... A vicious hit!
She measured 17.5" of pure energy!
I needed to leave early today which was okay. The humidity (65%) was just plain awful. Although the air temp was only 77 degrees, it felt a lot hotter with all that moisture held in the air.
The water temp was 84 degrees, very stained to dirty, and the level was 4.38' in Harrisburg, Pa. In the area we were fishing today, the gauge doesn't mean much to use. The levels are controlled by the dams. The water was up since I fished last Friday and that allowed us to search areas that we normally would not have access. In fact, that one area where we got those numerous strikes provided us a golden opportunity to catch fish that see very few artificial lures... Nice! :cool:
dadTB
