Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Herman and I were on the water shortly after 7a but I warned him that the minute we heard the T-Storm warnings, we were headed in! Luckily, we were off by 2p and the rains/winds held off until we got home.

We went up to the 1st stop and after I put the trolling motor down...nothing. It had been acting up all week (wire issue) and was shutting down a lot last Tuesday but today it was toast. We worked on it for a bit while we drifted and then I decided to go to Plan B. Knowing that the water is dropping, I decided to throw out the drift anchor and it worked pretty well for the most part. I had to run the big motor when we got too close or too far from shore but it was no big deal.

We did not catch any fish until around 11a or so. My 1st one was this 10.25" beauty!   



And a nice looking channel cat!



I caught a couple more dinks and lost two more on the Ned rig that I found on Monday (belonged to John). I think I am going to retire it.

At this point, all of the smallies were a dinkfest!

In total, I had a couple 11's, a 13, some 12's, maybe 5 or 6 of 'em. Herman had a chunky 12"er!



I'm going to tell a story that I hope Herman doesn't mind me sharing. I kept noticing that he was having trouble casting (at times) the spinning rod I lent him. Was it the reel? The line?  We kept talking about what to try to do and then suddenly, it dawned on us. He was holding the rod as if he was fly fishing (all of his fingers were forward of the reel)!! It was weird but once he readjusted, he cast just fine. We don't know why he did that and he kept mumbling about it for a long time until we figured it out. And it's not like Herman just started spin fishing either. It was one of those things!

Back to fishing. I threw a tube at the shoreline and it got picked up so I set the hook which pissed off the fish. I told Herman that I had on a monster smallie, but it ran differently so I said I must have a huge channel cat. But after it took off for West Virginia, we decided it had to be a carp!



A 28"er!!

What a run...and thrill! I think Herman enjoyed it as much as I did. And...he netted it perfectly!

So now it's noon and we pass a big rock out from the shore. We both threw at it with no success. I decided to throw back to it, in the V but not close to the rock. my lure got sucked back and it was game on! Herman expertly netted this beautiful 19.75" smallie!



I tried to make it 20" and everyone I've talked to said it's a 20"er but the Hawg Trough don't lie! 19.75". Still, a NICE fish!

A little later I landed at 17.75"er...





...that inhaled the tube!

We drifted for a bit more and the warning were now sounding so we called it a day!