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Started the morning off at the hump with a couple other boats. Perch, bass, and crappie were all willing biters. Perch made up about 75% of the catch and were healthy, fat 9-11 inchers. All my bites came on small jigs tipped with a worm. Finished the day at the hump and the fish were still biting nearly every cast.
Around 11am I headed towards Crane Falls in hopes of sticking some sturgeon on cut bait. I'm pretty sure I marked some laying in the river channel, but had no takers. Still have yet to get a sturgeon above CJ....after rereading older posts I don't think I'm going far enough upriver. I can't seem to find the deep holes everyone talks about. Can anyone provide suggestions/PMs?
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Sounds like you had a good day with the warm water fish of CJ. Those are nice sized perch. How were the crappy and bass for size?
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If your heading up river there is a good hole right by cove arm. Once you turn left going up just idle around an you'll find it. It's above the entrance into cove arm almost towards the upper end of the dike.
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This time of year, no need to fish the deep holes. I have caught plenty of sturgeon in that area in 25 to 35' of water.
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Thanks for the help. Found the hole today, but still no takers. Think I marked more dinos but they were in about 25' of water. How big of a chuck of cutbait are you guys using?
Strike crappie, perch, and bass are still plentiful on the hump. Caught two crappie and a handful of perch in the 11-12" range so size seems to be getting better. Most people were bottom fishing, but I had better luck fishing 5-8 ft down in about 25-30 FOW.
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I am one of those unusual anglers that has poor luck up there with cut bait. I do better with pickled herring along with 2 to 4 crawlers.
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ive never done as well upstream of the dam as i have in the holes down river from there. up stream pickled herring with either crawlers or cut bait( crappy soaked in the herring juice works well too
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Our usual routine is to first try to catch some fresh crappy, perch, trout or blue gill....then go after the gators with our new source of bait. Usually use half of the fish...head seems to do best for some reason. Once in a while squirt some of the commercial scents on [e.g. sturgeon feast] but not always necessary.
Holes both up and downstream from the dike can be productive, We usually drop our stuff out in the hole and then move in to shore as we let line out. Find a good place to tie up to shore and wait it out. Certain times of the year when grasses and moss are flowing heavily you might have to anchor out by the hole so as not to fowl up so quickly with the green stuff.
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