08-12-2014, 04:08 PM
[#0000FF]I saw somebody riding a bike on the dike. Wondered if it might be you.
Glad you found a few. I couldn't get a bite in shallower water but I didn't go in closer than about 5 feet deep.
There were a few individual small shadlets on top and the terns made a few dives. No real wiper popping but I did see two surface takes. One was a small one close by. The other was a big boy that followed a zig zagging shad almost into my tube with me. It blew up on the little guy just a few feet from me and I actually got a few water drops on me. Cool. But nothing would hit either cranks or plastics.
I have been seeing schools of shad on sonar, both at the north marina and yesterday out of the south marina. But, there is a combination of murky water and predator prey population factors at work. The low water allows the wind to muddy up the water and reduce visibility for sight feeding predators. That slows down their ability to find schools of shad and to herd them into a "meat ball". But it also makes it easier to feed on them subsurface when they find them...and keeps them so well fed they don't need to go topside.
Once the turbulence of the monsoon season settles down and the water clears and cools there is likely to be more surface action. And it sometimes comes right onto shore in shallow water. I have fished boils from my tube where the water was shallow enough to stand up. And along Eagle Beach at the north marina I have seen wipers chase shad right up onto the shore. Your style of fishing...bike and cast...is a good way to cruise the dikes and watch for slaughter city.
Where is all the water going? Drive around the area and look at all the corn fields and pastures. This is the time of year for heaviest water suck. Gonna get much worse before it gets better. Wanna schedule a walk across the dry lake bottom to map out the structure...for some year in the future when there is water again? We can carry slingshots for the fish. Won't need fishing rods.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
Glad you found a few. I couldn't get a bite in shallower water but I didn't go in closer than about 5 feet deep.
There were a few individual small shadlets on top and the terns made a few dives. No real wiper popping but I did see two surface takes. One was a small one close by. The other was a big boy that followed a zig zagging shad almost into my tube with me. It blew up on the little guy just a few feet from me and I actually got a few water drops on me. Cool. But nothing would hit either cranks or plastics.
I have been seeing schools of shad on sonar, both at the north marina and yesterday out of the south marina. But, there is a combination of murky water and predator prey population factors at work. The low water allows the wind to muddy up the water and reduce visibility for sight feeding predators. That slows down their ability to find schools of shad and to herd them into a "meat ball". But it also makes it easier to feed on them subsurface when they find them...and keeps them so well fed they don't need to go topside.
Once the turbulence of the monsoon season settles down and the water clears and cools there is likely to be more surface action. And it sometimes comes right onto shore in shallow water. I have fished boils from my tube where the water was shallow enough to stand up. And along Eagle Beach at the north marina I have seen wipers chase shad right up onto the shore. Your style of fishing...bike and cast...is a good way to cruise the dikes and watch for slaughter city.
Where is all the water going? Drive around the area and look at all the corn fields and pastures. This is the time of year for heaviest water suck. Gonna get much worse before it gets better. Wanna schedule a walk across the dry lake bottom to map out the structure...for some year in the future when there is water again? We can carry slingshots for the fish. Won't need fishing rods.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]