Quick Trip Report

Fellow IDOer “I TRY HARD” and I hit the rock piles on friday and saturday night. I went with tried and true baits. We caught about 25 fish on friday night. We fished from 9 pm until 4 am. It didnt get real good until about midnight. We didn’t get any real big fish but had three 27’s on friday. #12’s were the ticket. Rogue’s jointed shads, #5 shads none of em worked. Color pattern was important as well. Only two colors worked were pink and Blue Chrome. Saturday was even better for our boat. I think we boated around 40 fish from 7pm-1am. What a great weekend. Even had time to shoot some pheasants.

I saw a lot of boats fishing deeper water on saturday night. Anyone know if it was producing? I would guess the boats I saw were pulling in 15 fow.

It was my first time up and we ended up in a merry-go-round of boats near garrison fishing 6-11 feet of water. We only landed about 7 fish. Bent lip Shap raps in crawfish and of course the firetiger did the best (until some yahoo cut behind out boat and severed our lines…thanks). I learned a lot but I think the most important lesson I learned outside of avoiding other nimrods is that you have to know the waters. You need to have a plan on a few spots at least. We got stuck in the same area because that is all we knew.

I’m going to try some smaller lakes this weekend and see what I can find out.

I think it is more of a Conga line up in St. Albans / Garrison bays. I do trailer up there once in a while, after my dock is out. I do not worry about all the extra boats spooking the fish. A couple of years ago, on my favorite south end adjacent to the main basin reef I had a yahoo cut right in behind me. He was right over my plug & I pulled a nice one out right then. The best part was when my bro in law “accidently” hit their boat with a million c.p. spotlight when they breezed on past.
Use common sense, your electronics, and try some other spots.
My fall trolling pet peeves are:
1) Someone back trolling; It can get really busy driving out there and it is very confusing when someone is not going the way the appear. If you are to fast, drop a bag or rig some buckets off the bow to slow you down and front troll.
2)I love to pull boards. I do it all the time but they do not belong in a mess of boats working an area. You want to see busy, have an expensive (Salmo) plug out on a board find rocks and jam in in a couple of feet of water.
3) It’s a big lake so please don’t roar in to the middle of a trolling pattern and cork up. I stay away from you so you stay away from me.

Quote:

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3) It’s a big lake so please don’t roar in to the middle of a trolling pattern and cork up. I stay away from you so you stay away from me.

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Eddies did that out by Indian on Friday night. Also had a 20′ Lund running right over our plugs and they weren’t even fishing. They seemed to follow us around but not once did I see them dip the net. They left right after we pulled our 26+ right in front of them.