We set out 15 ditty poles today, I was finially able to get away to do it. We tried our first spot for bluegills and to my surprise we struck out, zip, nuneo, zero, this spot has never skunked me since I was a kid but this was the first time. We got a heck of a storm last night and the water was up 6″ so maybe that was it, probably is. The second spot we got all the bluegills we wanted and got about 40 in a halfhour. We set and baited our poles then I did a small job for a neighbor. After we set our poles and on the way back to the ramp I said we’ll go back and check them after I get this job done to see how their biting. I knew if there was a good bite we’ed have fish on. The poles were in the water 2 1/2 hrs and we got 5 fish and 4 bare hooks, so nine strikes. The waters on a slow drop but the fish are still back in the timber, if it were a faster drop they’d be gone, all except the smaller ones. With the 3 1/2″ of rain they had upriver a couple days ago the river will be up here another 2′ around this weekend and were looking for the fishing to get even better. The rivers at around 9′ now and it forsure will hit flood stage this weekend.
Were going back out in the morning to check the poles again and I know we’ll have fish on because they’ll sit all night, we probbaly got fish on right now. The pre-spawn bite is close to being over we think but we won’t know forsure until tomorrow morning because of the size of the bluegills we useing. If we get bigger channels of 4 pounds and over the bites still on because were useing 4″ to 6″ bluegills. As soon as the pre-spawns over the bigger ones leave this area. We ran out of bait the last 4 poles because I didn’t put enough in the bait bucket and I thought I did so we used cut bait on the last hooks cutting up a bluegill and useing that.
When we ran our poles 2 1/2 hrs later we had 5 fish on and all were on the cutbait plus one bluegill and it was around 5 pounds. The smallest was like last weeks catch at about 1 1/2 pounds, a 2 1/2, a 3,4 and a 5, So the bigger channels are still in there, especially if were hooking them in the afternoon, but we’ll see whats going on forsure in the morning. All the smaller ones had stomachs about ready to burst so their feeding heavy. I got a feeling were going to have to get more bluegills tomorrow and I’ll get some pictures and post if I don’t forget the camera.