NTTC Tournament Cooper Lake 1-15-11

Mickey and I fished the NTTC Tournament on Lake Cooper this morning.  It was my first time on the lake and it sure is a good one.  First spot produced around 40 fish in the first hour and a half of the tournament!  Most of the fish were in the 10-15 pound range.  We had more doubles and triples than I've had in a while.  It was fun trying to keep the poles in the water and get the fish released. We only managed to fish 3 spots during the entire tournament because the bite was so good.  We just couldn't get the really big bite to move us up in the standings.  Our 5 biggest weighed 85 pounds and we finished in 5th place.  Looking forward to the next tournament at Tawakoni.  Had a great time!

Ray Roberts 1-8-11

Took Dwight and his crew out on the day before the big cold front on Ray Roberts.  Dwight took a sand bass trip with me last spring and wanted to tangle with some blues this winter.  Today the fish were piled under shad in 50-72ft of water.  The fish were active and feeding on the drop offs, but not feeding on the deep flat.  They were on the flat but would not touch a bait.  Today the fish really seemed to prefer buffalo over gizzard shad and perch.  I think they just wanted something different than the threadfin they were eating.  One of the 8 pounders we cleaned had about 20 threadfin in it's stomach that were not digested yet.  They are definitely eating well this winter.  We tried shallow a few times, but the active fish were mainly at the 50ft mark.  Water temp was 47-49 degrees and a 5-10mph northeast to east wind.  It was a tough day on the water, but we managed 26 nice fish.  Had a blast with this group and look forward to our next adventure this Spring. 

Texoma 1-1-11

Fished with buddies Steve and Mickey today on Big Tex.  We decided to try dragging today since Steve and I had success in Alabama with this technique. 
Started the day marking loads of bait and nice yellow arches on a drop from 60 to 82 ft.  Got all the rigs out and it was about an hour before we got the first fish, 25 pounder.  From there the bites were few and far between all day long.  We caught about 8 nice keeper blues from 4-9 pounds and then Steve locked into a hog in 78 ft of water.  Finally, we hooked one of those yellow arches that were showing up on the graph!  It was fun videoing Steve play the fish to the surface for our "net man" Mickey to dip her up.  Had a great time today with two good friends.  Pic of Steve and the 62 pounder

Grand Lake 12-27-10

I went fishing with Jerry Kropff on Grand Lake in northeaster Oklahoma while up visiting family for the holidays.  On the way there the truck said 12 degrees, but it did warm up to the high 30's later in the day.  Jerry was very kind to have the bait already caught and ready to go fishing when I got there. 
Jerry spent some time graphing a few locations and finally decided an area with a steep drop off into a channel looked good.  It wasn't long and we had the first fish....then we missed about 14 bites in a row.  We tried rigging the shad different ways and downsizing hooks, but still had trouble.  The bite was just not aggressive the day of the cold front.  We fished a total of 3 spots and caught 26 blues, most in the 4-8 pound range.  I did catch a 16 pounder to end the day.  It was great fishing with Jerry and learning from one of the greatest catfisherman.  I look forward to the next adventure.  Thanks Jerry

Ray Roberts 12-18-10

Took the Hughes crew out this morning for blues.  Started out fishing a drop off  from 38 to 72 ft of water.  We caught most of the fish on the shallower part of the drop, but they moved deeper as the morning progressed.  MG had the hot corner of the boat to start the day.

 Then the guys got in on the action.

Water temp was 50-52 and most of the fish were caught between 50 and 72ft of water.  They kept 15 good fish under 10 pounds, released around a dozen in the teens and a 20 pounder.

On the way in we decided to try for some sand bass and ended up catching about 90 in an hour.  Many of them were good magnum sized fish.  We all had on different styles of slabs and chartruese flies from Flies-by-Night.  We caught the fish in 40-44ft of water betwen 2 and 3 in the afternoon.  It was a blast guys, looking forward to the next trip.

Since the fish are deep this time of year you must burp the fish if you are going to release them to live another day.  This is especially true when we are chasing the big blues.  Typically, we have used a piece of 1/2 pvc for this, but last weekend I had to burp some smaller fish because my clients did not want to keep more fish than for dinner.  If a piece of pvc was put down a 4 pound fish the fish would be damaged and bleed.  The purpose of doing this is to relieve their air bladder that becomes bloated and enlarged when brought from deep water.  If they are not burped the fish cannot go down and will eventually die.  So...I looked around the garage and found some hard plastic tubing about the diameter of a pinky finger.  I tried it today on all sizes of fish and it worked great.  I just cut a 2 foot piece.

Ray Roberts 12-11-10

Today I had first guests Steve and family out for blue catfishing.  We decided to head out at 6am because the wind was suppose to chance from the south to north and blow in the 30's by mid morning.  As soon as we got to our first spot to graph the area bam strong north wind.  Oh well, we were already out there and the crew was willing to make the best of the day.  They wanted to catch some eaters and also chase a trophy, so we threw out some jugs to start the day.  Then we anchored up on an area I marked some good fish on a drop off from 34 to 58 ft of water.  About 5 minutes after getting all the poles out the back pole goes down and Steve reels down on it.  He boats a personal best 10 pounder....however that fish managed to run up and tangle 3 rods, so we had tangled line everywhere.  We threw a different pole out off the drop where the 10 came from and down it goes again...and again...and again.  This was not helping get the other rods untangled catching these fish, but it was fun :)  The bite was quick for about 45 minutes and then just stopped.  We decided to check the jugs since we were getting some good rollers as the wind picked up.  I think we only had one jug that didn't have a good fish on it.  I had put the jugs out on a gradual point starting at 15 ft and ending in 42ft.  As we moved up the slope to shallower water the fish were getting smaller and then wham in 28 ft of water we had a 29 pound blue on.  The guys got a kick out of seeing that fish.  We put it in the live well to get energy back and then she was released for another day.  It took a team effort to pull the jugs and fish in with the wind. 
After picking up the jugs, we fished about 6 different areas marking great fish, but the bite just got lighter and lighter as the day wore on.  At the end we were catching fish that we didn't even know where on there.  We'd go to leave and have a few fish on.  The guys were troopers catching a mess of fish in adverse conditions today.  We all had a great time with good conversation.  The guys learned how to tie knots, different rigs, graph reading, baiting hooks, patterns etc.  Look forward to the next trip guys.  Thanks  I'll post the pics when they send them to me.  It was too difficult to use more than one camera today in the wind.

Most of the fish were caught in 44-68ft of water.  Very different from 2 weeks ago when they were in 2-15 ft of water.  This cold front has moved the bait out in the deeper water.

Galveston 12-3-10

Todd and I went to Galveston for the annual PE convention and decided to try out luck fishing off a pier.  Neither one of us have ever fished from the shore in saltwater, but thought we'd give it a try.  We bought some frozen shrimp from Academy(mistatke), but it would just crumble off the hook.  A guy next to us told me where a place down the row sold shrimp for fishing so I went and bought a few pounds.  Instantly, after throwing in the fresh shrimp it was fish on.  We had a good relaxing time fishing for a couple hours then it was time to get cleaned up for a nice seafood dinner.  We probably caught around 40 fish.