Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I was finally able to get out with my Grandson, Emerson who just graduated from High School.  I got to the ramp and it was foggy.  Full moon was about to set.



He met me at 5:30am and we were off.  We settled in our first spot and we were just a little off in our position.  We saw our first fish busting and decided to adjust our position.  It was a little slow start but I got a small one on the 75 plopper.  My net man got it and I noticed my old life jacket had torn.









Did I mention it was foggy?  after he got no bites with a plopper or wakebait, I got Em set up with a z-man hula stick and he was on the board!





The bite was slow and other boats were moving in, so we made a short and careful move in the fog.  We were floating to our spot and I decided to toss out my tiny popper near the shore.  I gave it a couple twitches and I turned my head and heard a splash.  I turned back and I had a nice smallie.  After a short, but strong fight, Em netted the fish.  It looked to be about 18 inches.  I got it unhooked (single hook in the tip of the mouth and treble near the gill plate) and when I lifted the fish, it was bleeding.  I dunked the fish and decided to just release it rather than taking a picture.  Not sure what happened, but maybe it nicked a gill.

We settled into our next spot.  Em caught one on a flatworm.





I had tried the plopper and hooked a nice fish that jumped and threw the hook.  I gave Em the plopper and he landed this chunk.  His first topwater smallie.





I caught maybe a couple smaller fish there, but it was time to move.  The fog was still so thick.  We made our way slowly to a mid-river area where the fog was finally clearing.  I put on a different color flatworm and on my first cast got blasted.  After a nice fight, we saw it was a catfish.



A few casts later, I got bit again.  This one was a smallie.





Then I hooked another cat.



And Em got a smallie.





The bite was pretty slow and it was getting hot.  We caught a couple more after moving around.







And Em caught a catfish with a bite on its side.



It was hot and we were planning to be off the water by noon, so we called it.  Final count was 7 bass and 2 cats for me and 6 bass and 1 cat for Emerson.  We were off the water by 11:30am.  Very cool looking foggy morning with Owl and Eagle calls.

Last edited by drxfish (Jul-12-25 8:19PM)