Plo 12/11/15

[5th Tuition]

Another great day down south Crew today was Alan, Jason, and Capt. John. We picked up Mako Mike along rt2 for a buddy boat; and to have an extra boat looking for fish We knew Jeff (Justified) was going to be in the area as well.

Launched around 7:30am and I had my mind made up we were going to bypass any bird activity we saw in the river. Last week, we spent too much time jigging "shorts" before dropping my trolling lines.

Ran to my designated area and threw out the boards. Boat rods went next. We had some intel from the previous day and we ran East/West from the channel (80+ ft) to 40ft. Our first three hits were knockdowns It was early, but I started doubting myself already Was I running too slow, too fast, did I have my spread too high, or too low, what gives?

Stay steady I told myself. Have confidence in what you have out there!! Not long afterward, we started a slow pick of low 20 fish. We resisted throwing the just legal size in the box and we found ourselves with 3 decent fish in the box.

There were fish here, but not what we were looking for I swung around to get back to deep water and we saw birds working out near the channel. Now we had to get there before the action ended!! As I got close to the channel edge (56 ft) I started seeing better marks on the meter. Get ready, here we go.

It was constant action from west of channel, across the channel, over to the eastern side of the channel, and even after we turned north to get away from the fish, we were still in good marks and caught fish as we cleared lines.

We had our 8 in the hoax and had probably released 15-20 more mid to upper 20 inch fish. Todays fish weren't quite as big as Sundays, but rods were going down one after the other for a good 30-45 minutes.

After we had rods racked and stored, we broke out the jigging rods
I won't deny it; I'm a troller. I troll to get my fish; then play with them on the jig. Now I wish we had saved a few spots for the fish on the jig We were jigging 26-31 inch fish!! Jason had the largest (see photo). This was fun.

The bite slowed, and we saw a wonderful display of gannets feeding in shallow water (25 ft). There must have been 30-50 flying high, setting up, then diving almost like watching a giant Hawaiian wave crest and fall. They were diving 4, 5 ,6 at a time and just continually. Quite a sight to see. But; no fish under them, just bait

I ducked back to where the jig bite had been, and found a few more fish to bring over the side and release. Somewhere around 1:30, we decided to head for the barn and scout for birds on the way back to PLO. Nothing happening in the river, so we loaded the trailer and headed home.

I feel truly blessed to be able to fish with everyone who was down there. The radio stayed busy with Justified, Mako Mike, and me (5th Tuition) passing along information and and reeling in fish. Quite a day
5th

p.s. It was not constant action all day. The post reads that way, but you have to put in your time to find the bigger schools, then work them productively once you find them.