Jordanelle Report

[PrinceFisher]

I fished Jordanelle twice over the holiday weekend. Once on Thursday evening and then again the following Friday morning. I only caught two minature smallmouth due to the perch biting my nearly every cast. I'll bet that I got bites on 75 percent of my casts. I'd feel little ticks, little pulls and I'd set the hook. Most of the time I'd come up empty, but occasionally I'd reel in and have perch on the line. I tried different baits, but couldn't get into the smallies.

I tried fishing watermelon, cinnamon, and chartreuse 4" and 5" senkos weightless and craw-colored tube jigs below a sliding bullet sinker and nothing, nada, on big smallies. I was casting very close to shore and retrieving very slowly into deeper water, letting it contact the bottom quite frequently. What was I doing wrong? Should I have switched to spinnerbaits or cranks? Once my baits got fifteen feet or so from shore I probably retrieved too quickly since I seemed to quit getting bites the further from the shore I got.

Please give me some pointers as I'm sure the smallies have now moved into deeper water, or have they? I'm really interested in some summertime secrets for smallies at Jordanelle.

Thanks,

PF
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[cat_man]

You probably gave up right when you were hitting prime smallie water -- when you stopped getting hits you were leaving the little perchy schools and dropping below them to where the big smallies are waiting for a nice meal. Fish it slower in the deeper water and see what happens.
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[mustbblind]

sounds alot like my weekend better luck next time
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[mrs.ocean]

We went to Jordanelle on Saturday, and the same thing. Perch kept biting our line the whole time. The kids were having a blast. Ocean was getting really frustrated, though. Well, maybe next time.
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