Morning With Pops 4/1/15

My dad recently came back from spending 3 months in Louisiana and he has been absolutely dying to get back to fishing. First opportunity was yesterday morning. We dropped the boat in the water at Wimpy's around 0600 and made our way down river hoping for some top water action. First stop it was still dark out, not sure if it was too dark for fish to bite or not, but we'll see. Sent out my first

cast getting my wood wet. After the 4th twitch I thought I heard a small spalsh . . . . . tried finding my plug out there in the darkness and I saw a huge wake where my lure was and then it hit me. Holy crap I got a fish following me. Heard and saw the second splash on my plug and then KABOOM!!! the water exploded and I slam that hook into the first fish of the day. Fish put up a great fight pulling drag and everything. My dad got the net around her and we put a solid DD fish on the boat on the first cast.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x576.

A great looking and fat 31 inch fish. I know its bad luck to catch a fish on your first cast, but the day could end here for all I care it would be a great one. Kept plugging down the shore line for not much more attention.

One thing that was very noticeable was it was ridiculously cold compared to what it has been recently. Towards the end of our first drift I get one more hit on my plug and that sends my plug flying through the air. The second it lands back down the fish takes it down and I slam into a good schoolie. Got him in and I was able to Katch and nice 4lber for the box.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x576.

As I was fighting the fish I saw the Intimidator boat fly by us. I tried holding my rod down to make it less obvious that I was fighting a fish, but I saw him glaring right at me and he knew. Didn't really want the guides to know I'm catching fish up here, but there was no avoiding it at that point.

Kept working out way down river looking for more top water action. It never came around though. After we switched to throwing the jerkbaits we were able to stick a couple of bass here and there.

Made our way all the way out to the SJ looking for stripers. After a few hours of searching for the first time this entire season we actually find a school of active fish. Nothing big, but were sticking shakers and small schoolies on back to back cast.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x576.

Just as the excitement started with about 4 fish to the boat a bass boat come by and flies by right inbetween us and the shore going right over the top of our school and ending the party. WTF!!! . . . . . . . . oh well nothing we can do about it now. Moved on with our search and did manage to stick a few more shaker stripers with some bass inbetween. Ran back up trying a few points on the way back and did a little bit of trolling from spot to spot, but no more action came around for us. Got off of the water around 1300 and called it a good day. We'll be back out this evening trying for more. My dad is thinking of nothing else besides fishing so you will probably be seeing a lot of reports from me in the near future.

Till Then
Mark

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x576.