Tony Buzolich
04-28-2014, 04:53 PM
Have you noticed the days are getting a little longer? This morning I woke to light at 5:30 and thinking it was much later quickly called my buddy Bill and asked if he wanted to go. "Hell, I'm already here at the ramp" he says. So I grab some coffee, kiss my wife good bye, and off I go racing to get on the water before that sun gets too high and I loose the prime couple of early hours. I'm at the ramp by 6:20 (later than usual) and Bill has already made a pass in his boat and taken a one schoolie as I motored up to see what's happening.
I decide to head south and bypass several nice runs and head to where they were last week. The first thing I noticed was the water had dropped again by more than a foot. The mud flats that had 2' or 3' of water on Thursday now had only 1' or 2' and that's way to shallow for this time of day. I drift a little ways and the water deepens near the wing dams and I get my first grab. Solid, heavy, a couple of head shakes, and gone just that quick. I look at my leader and the fly is broken off or at least gone. Damn. probably my own fault for using this Berkley Big Game stuff than Dan likes so well. I don't.
I move on working the walls as usual and finally pick up a small schoolie. Legal but not worth a pic. I keep remembering last week when I got into them in the same spots, and they were eating. But not today it seems. I keep at it dredging the water knowing I'm either going to get a grab and a fish or a snag and probably loose another fly. Today I lost several flies, but that's fishing.
When striper fishing it's normal to cast toward the bank while drifting, let your fly sink briefly, and then begin stripping rapidly back to the boat. When I refer to "dredging" I'm doing the same thing but instead of only counting down to 3 or 4 while the fly sinks, I'll often count to 8 or 10 knowing I'm right on the bottom or near to it. This has often been very productive for me. Often too at the expense of flies.
As I work my way farther downstream I begin running into more and more boats trolling and drifting minnows and I don't like crowds so I head back up. Just below the mud flats I pick up another schoolie of about 3-4 pounds and this brings on a bit more encouragement and I continue re-hitting several spots that I'd already worked on the way down. A couple more come to the boat and I decide to call it a day. Not a totally bad day, just a slow day.
As I get to the ramp I decide to go upstream and make one more pass on my favorite wall before pulling the boat out. It's almost 10:30 and the sun is well up but I just want to make one quick pass and see what happens. Sure enough WHAM ! Solid and heavy and it's taking line like crazy. I get the boat away from shore and now have the fish on the reel and can work from the drag. Several good runs over under and around the boat but this one wants to stay deep (always a good sign). After a few minutes she comes up and I get a few pics before bringing her to the net. Not a real MO but definitely a good fish (about 12#) and great way to end a slow morning.
Tony
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/buzolich/004_zps96664a97.jpg (http://s22.photobucket.com/user/buzolich/media/004_zps96664a97.jpg.html)
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/buzolich/002_zps6b8fff9a.jpg (http://s22.photobucket.com/user/buzolich/media/002_zps6b8fff9a.jpg.html)
I decide to head south and bypass several nice runs and head to where they were last week. The first thing I noticed was the water had dropped again by more than a foot. The mud flats that had 2' or 3' of water on Thursday now had only 1' or 2' and that's way to shallow for this time of day. I drift a little ways and the water deepens near the wing dams and I get my first grab. Solid, heavy, a couple of head shakes, and gone just that quick. I look at my leader and the fly is broken off or at least gone. Damn. probably my own fault for using this Berkley Big Game stuff than Dan likes so well. I don't.
I move on working the walls as usual and finally pick up a small schoolie. Legal but not worth a pic. I keep remembering last week when I got into them in the same spots, and they were eating. But not today it seems. I keep at it dredging the water knowing I'm either going to get a grab and a fish or a snag and probably loose another fly. Today I lost several flies, but that's fishing.
When striper fishing it's normal to cast toward the bank while drifting, let your fly sink briefly, and then begin stripping rapidly back to the boat. When I refer to "dredging" I'm doing the same thing but instead of only counting down to 3 or 4 while the fly sinks, I'll often count to 8 or 10 knowing I'm right on the bottom or near to it. This has often been very productive for me. Often too at the expense of flies.
As I work my way farther downstream I begin running into more and more boats trolling and drifting minnows and I don't like crowds so I head back up. Just below the mud flats I pick up another schoolie of about 3-4 pounds and this brings on a bit more encouragement and I continue re-hitting several spots that I'd already worked on the way down. A couple more come to the boat and I decide to call it a day. Not a totally bad day, just a slow day.
As I get to the ramp I decide to go upstream and make one more pass on my favorite wall before pulling the boat out. It's almost 10:30 and the sun is well up but I just want to make one quick pass and see what happens. Sure enough WHAM ! Solid and heavy and it's taking line like crazy. I get the boat away from shore and now have the fish on the reel and can work from the drag. Several good runs over under and around the boat but this one wants to stay deep (always a good sign). After a few minutes she comes up and I get a few pics before bringing her to the net. Not a real MO but definitely a good fish (about 12#) and great way to end a slow morning.
Tony
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/buzolich/004_zps96664a97.jpg (http://s22.photobucket.com/user/buzolich/media/004_zps96664a97.jpg.html)
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/buzolich/002_zps6b8fff9a.jpg (http://s22.photobucket.com/user/buzolich/media/002_zps6b8fff9a.jpg.html)