10-21-2013, 08:59 PM
[#0000FF]Hitting Willard in the late fall has been overdue on my list. Weather, low water and other convenient excuses have kept my tube off that lake. Silly me.
Hit the north marina area this morning. Launched at 7 am. Still darkish. Getting lighter later. Air temp 35 and water temp 51...warming all the way up to 52 by the time I left about noonish.
Water is way down but still not as far as when they drained it for dike repairs about 5 years ago. 4 feet of water off the ramp and 5-6 feet in the channel going out. But you need to stay in a straight west path for a hundred yards or more after leaving the marina to avoid shallow bars and rocks.
No other boats on the lake I could see this morning. But heard a few airboats on the other side of the dikes. Not much shooting though.
Started working plastics around the humps and bumps outside the north marina. Mostly too shallow for any great expectations. But once I worked out past 6 or 7 feet deep I began to see some fishy marks on my sonar screen...little fishies with closed mouths and upraised middle fins. I suspect some were crappies but maybe some shad.
Nary a bump for the first hour on plastics. Finally put out a minnow on one rod while continuing to pitch plastics with the other. As I reached my never fail kitty zone I put up the plastics and began fishing two bait rods.
Just after 8 am I got my first minnow munch and brought in my first cookie cutter kitty. Surprising fight in the cold water. A short time later I had another runner and set the hook in another kitty. While bringing it in the second rod went off. I hurried to net the first cat and then fought the second one in...to join the first one in the net. Double time.
As I continued to move toward the north dike, dragging my baits behind me, I had a couple of other tentative inquiries but I had gotten out of the ZONE. But I knew I could come back if I didn't find anything along the dike.
The first thing I found at the dike was that the tide was way out. Lots of exposed sandbar between the bottom of the rocks and the water's edge. No casting to the rocks today.
However, I did manage to pick up a couple more cats...intermittently. One on a minnow and the second on a orange and chartreuse tube jig with a piece of crawler on it. Then it went quiet in that area and I motored back over to the ZONE.
As soon as I got a minnow out on one line I made a cast with the jig. MUNCH on the minnow and POW on the jig. A couple more kitties. These were followed by several more on both minnows and jigs. I was pleasantly surprised at how hard they hit the jigs and how hard they fought in the cold water.
I had set a goal to be off the water by noon...or when I had a limit of cats for the hot oil. I had released a few cats and had kept 7 and then it got quiet. I wondered if I would leave with that number. Then I got the last one on a jig and was on my way back to the ramp by 11:45.
A solitary bank tangler was soaking bait off the south point of the marina entrance. He claimed that he had several bites and had one nice catfish almost in...before losing it. But he was only fishing in about 3 feet of water so I wonder...??? I was unable to get any hits in water shallower than 7-8 feet...and I had to cover a lot of underwater real estate to find a precious few fish.
Praise be to Mama Nature. She is staying on her meds this week. I might just hit a couple more fall spots real soon.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
Hit the north marina area this morning. Launched at 7 am. Still darkish. Getting lighter later. Air temp 35 and water temp 51...warming all the way up to 52 by the time I left about noonish.
Water is way down but still not as far as when they drained it for dike repairs about 5 years ago. 4 feet of water off the ramp and 5-6 feet in the channel going out. But you need to stay in a straight west path for a hundred yards or more after leaving the marina to avoid shallow bars and rocks.
No other boats on the lake I could see this morning. But heard a few airboats on the other side of the dikes. Not much shooting though.
Started working plastics around the humps and bumps outside the north marina. Mostly too shallow for any great expectations. But once I worked out past 6 or 7 feet deep I began to see some fishy marks on my sonar screen...little fishies with closed mouths and upraised middle fins. I suspect some were crappies but maybe some shad.
Nary a bump for the first hour on plastics. Finally put out a minnow on one rod while continuing to pitch plastics with the other. As I reached my never fail kitty zone I put up the plastics and began fishing two bait rods.
Just after 8 am I got my first minnow munch and brought in my first cookie cutter kitty. Surprising fight in the cold water. A short time later I had another runner and set the hook in another kitty. While bringing it in the second rod went off. I hurried to net the first cat and then fought the second one in...to join the first one in the net. Double time.
As I continued to move toward the north dike, dragging my baits behind me, I had a couple of other tentative inquiries but I had gotten out of the ZONE. But I knew I could come back if I didn't find anything along the dike.
The first thing I found at the dike was that the tide was way out. Lots of exposed sandbar between the bottom of the rocks and the water's edge. No casting to the rocks today.
However, I did manage to pick up a couple more cats...intermittently. One on a minnow and the second on a orange and chartreuse tube jig with a piece of crawler on it. Then it went quiet in that area and I motored back over to the ZONE.
As soon as I got a minnow out on one line I made a cast with the jig. MUNCH on the minnow and POW on the jig. A couple more kitties. These were followed by several more on both minnows and jigs. I was pleasantly surprised at how hard they hit the jigs and how hard they fought in the cold water.
I had set a goal to be off the water by noon...or when I had a limit of cats for the hot oil. I had released a few cats and had kept 7 and then it got quiet. I wondered if I would leave with that number. Then I got the last one on a jig and was on my way back to the ramp by 11:45.
A solitary bank tangler was soaking bait off the south point of the marina entrance. He claimed that he had several bites and had one nice catfish almost in...before losing it. But he was only fishing in about 3 feet of water so I wonder...??? I was unable to get any hits in water shallower than 7-8 feet...and I had to cover a lot of underwater real estate to find a precious few fish.
Praise be to Mama Nature. She is staying on her meds this week. I might just hit a couple more fall spots real soon.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
]. So how long was the big kitty?
