Fishing Beats Not Fishing – Go When You Can

The Lower River was tough for us yesterday. With a front coming in, (I know it’s still hot), full moon, and higher than expected water levels… I have no excuses. For me rule one of fishing has always been, “Go When You Can. ”

A buddy texted me mid-day and asked if I wanted to go. I was in the shop trying to get a test mold done before making a custom mold for a customer, but I haven’t put a line in the water for a couple weeks. I asked him what time, did some quick mental calculations if I could finish what I was doing, and said, “You Betcha!”

The last time we had been out I flipped several fish in one area on a dark watermelon RFT including one just shy of five. This time I flipped only one. A little over 2 pounds. My partner flipped one that was maybe 3-1/2. Later he picked up a couple dinks on a popper, and stuck two more keepers throwing a Square Back Minnow in watermelon red flake with just a tiny pinch of purple flake. I also had a couple dinks try to take it when I was burning it back to the boat.

We had stripers rise busting shad right around the boat once, and I canonballed a shop made (not from my mold) blade bait into them and they sounded. KAPLUNK!-GONE! Fortunately, they came back up close by pretty quickly and I managed to pick off a small one before they disappeared again. I did hear busting a couple times, but never close enough to make the cast. Not even with that long casting blade. Stainless blade with metallic blue powder coat on the top half, and clear powder coat on the bottom half to preserve the shiny silver color of the stainless. Basically, metallic blue and chrome. A classic striper color.

Net total. Six largemouth and one striper. Biggest might have gone 3-1/2. I suppose that’s not bad for a hot summer afternoon, but it was a lot slower than we have been doing this year.

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