Posted By: BAR
Labor Day crowd hampers fishing opportunity - 09/08/20 01:57 PM
This holiday weekend made it tough to fish. First, a lot of State Park lakes were over capacity and you couldn't get a day-pass to use the ramps. Then, there were quite a few jet skis, waver runners and boats floating, moving and anchored all over. I found an alternate private ramp to one of the local lakes and they asked for $10 to launch. Not too bad for unlimited amount of people, just $10 for the boat and nothing more. The ramp was a little shady but we go it done.
It was impossible to target largemouth bass and just as bad to concentrate on catfish. The trolling motor cruise for bass and the anchored locations for catfish were interrupted by the passing vessels. Just too much disturbances to get it done. I decided to go to some spots where I marked drops, rocks, slopes and potholes to target white bass. I drifted through these spots and if it produced I drifted back through until the bit let up. On the deep spots we dropped a brass spoon or Red Devil and just jigged straight up and down. At some of the spots, the white bass showed at the surface and we quickly switched to rods rigged with bucktail spinnerbaits with size 2's.
One annoyance was the spot poachers. We had 3 girls on the boat. They didn't know enough to be chill about hooking one and keep it in the water until a casual flip or net job put them in the boat. Then, an indiscreet hook removal and either drop in the well or back overboard. The girls would get all excited and "woo hoo" and have the fish waving around. Well, sure enough once they did that a few times the "spot poachers" - the other fishing boats - would encroach on us and try to catch the fish we were on. The only good part was that each time this happened I guess the fishermen didn't have the right lures or didn't know what they were doing. Of a half-dozen times a boat buddied up to us I didn's see any of them catch a single fish.
We did switch to crappie for a little while before heading in but it was so hot and sunny that they weren't biting.
Anyway, from 7:30AM-12:00PM we worked hard for our fish. The ramp was way on the other side of the lake so we had a half-hour ride to and from the ramp to where we wanted to fish. We managed 37 white bass and 1 freshwater drum. I have a self-imposed minimum of 12.5" to keep them, so we took home only a half-dozen, but everyone caught a bunch. My Dad is holding the fish in the pictures. How was your weekend?
![[Linked Image]](https://i.postimg.cc/T2VTLjPS/LDFish-2.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://i.postimg.cc/qq4SC5Bv/LDFISH1.jpg)
It was impossible to target largemouth bass and just as bad to concentrate on catfish. The trolling motor cruise for bass and the anchored locations for catfish were interrupted by the passing vessels. Just too much disturbances to get it done. I decided to go to some spots where I marked drops, rocks, slopes and potholes to target white bass. I drifted through these spots and if it produced I drifted back through until the bit let up. On the deep spots we dropped a brass spoon or Red Devil and just jigged straight up and down. At some of the spots, the white bass showed at the surface and we quickly switched to rods rigged with bucktail spinnerbaits with size 2's.
One annoyance was the spot poachers. We had 3 girls on the boat. They didn't know enough to be chill about hooking one and keep it in the water until a casual flip or net job put them in the boat. Then, an indiscreet hook removal and either drop in the well or back overboard. The girls would get all excited and "woo hoo" and have the fish waving around. Well, sure enough once they did that a few times the "spot poachers" - the other fishing boats - would encroach on us and try to catch the fish we were on. The only good part was that each time this happened I guess the fishermen didn't have the right lures or didn't know what they were doing. Of a half-dozen times a boat buddied up to us I didn's see any of them catch a single fish.
We did switch to crappie for a little while before heading in but it was so hot and sunny that they weren't biting.
Anyway, from 7:30AM-12:00PM we worked hard for our fish. The ramp was way on the other side of the lake so we had a half-hour ride to and from the ramp to where we wanted to fish. We managed 37 white bass and 1 freshwater drum. I have a self-imposed minimum of 12.5" to keep them, so we took home only a half-dozen, but everyone caught a bunch. My Dad is holding the fish in the pictures. How was your weekend?