Daylight this morning once again found me uncovering my boat at West Neck Marina and getting ready for a trip to Albright's. I was the first one to launch. The water temp at the time read 77 degrees. It only had climbed to 81 when I quit at 2:45 this afternoon. The water was down a bit when I launched and had gone out a little more during the day, but I noticed, while flushing the outboard, that it had turned and was coming in a little. I see more northeast winds predicted yet tomorrow, though, so I think it's reasonable to assume that we may find it lower again when we launch our next tourney Saturday morning.
The first bait I started throwing was a hollow-body frog. I had three decent strikes, but I'm still batting .000 in hooksets. Once the wind picked up, I put the frog down and started throwing an assortment of other topwater baits, drawing strikes on nearly all of them. However, I didn't put a bass in the boat until I picked up my favorite Buzzjet Jr. It only accounted for two of the six bass I boated all day, though. The others all came on a Bandit Footloose in red craw. As it turned out, the white perch liked my choice of Footloose more than the bass. I easily boated a dozen or more of them today. I also caught one bluegill.
At day's end, I had boated six bass. The best four weighed 1-1, 1-3, 1-5 and 1-9. The other two were dinks but may have gone 12 inches--I just didn't take time to check them. It was less than a stellar day, but compared to some other recent trips, it was one of my better outings.
Action really picked up at the same time the wind kicked into high gear. I had strike after strike in a windblown cove before moving to windblown shorelines, where the action continued. It was one of those days when you heard that "smacking" sound on nearly every strike. I don't think I ever could get too much of that sound.
When I got home and fired up my computer, I found a couple of emails I'll share with you. The first was from Jeremy Gatewood, who had promised he would give me some more data on oxygen levels at different areas from his trip yesterday. At 0800 yesterday morning, he recorded a water temperature of 78.1 degrees and a dissolved oxygen (DO) reading of 7.8 ppm while coming in at Bob's Fishing Hole. He then went to Tulls Marina in the mouth of Tulls Creek where, at 0830, he recorded a water temperature of 78.4 degrees and a DO of 7.9 ppm. When he arrived at the mouth of Mill Landing Creek at 0900, the water temperature was 79.8, and the DO was 7.6--with the water slightly stained. He concluded his day by going to Back Bay. At 1130, in the middle of a grass mat, he recorded a water temperature of 80.2, with a DO of 7.8 ppm. This area is where Jeremy caught some of his fish last Saturday. He says he caught fish everywhere he went yesterday. He also says the outside temperature all day only got up to 82 degrees, with a 5-10 mph northeast wind.
These latest readings, coupled with those obtained this past Monday night at West Neck, leads Jeremy to the same conclusion first echoed by Chad Boyce, the local game-and-fish rep. The problem we've been having with dead fish must be tied to faulty livewells or anglers not running their aerators enough. I only would add a couple other possibilities: In some cases, we may be dealing with gut-hooked fish, because I'm hearing a lot of guys saying they're catching their fish on Senkos. It's also possible some fish are being stressed too much by long (and perhaps rough) boat rides from the point of catch to the point of weigh-in. In any event, I don't see much else we can do about the matter, beyond what we've already done and are doing. I just would urge everyone to be vigilant when you're on the water and have fish in your livewell.
Jeremy included one additional bit of information for me in the email from his trip yesterday. It seems he took fellow angler Tucker Blalock with him to Back Bay last night to fish the Tidewater Bass Anglers Wednesday night tournament. Tucker ended up boating a 4.22-pounder, his biggest bass to date, and he and Jeremy had a total weight of 12.22 lbs., which was good enough to win the tournament. In Jeremy's words, "If Tucker wasn't hooked before last night, he is now."
One thing I forgot to mention earlier: Dewey told me this afternoon that John Goodman had been out today and fished Back Bay. He reported catching a number of nice fish there.
And, finally, I had an email note from Charlie Bruggemann, who went to Ashville Bridge Creek early this morning to work on his frog technique. According to Charlie, his hookset rate now is only about 60 percent (wish I was that good). In any event, he found really clear water--"I could see the bottom at 2 feet," he reported. Charlie's tactic today was to follow up missed frog strikes with a Gulp shad. "Most of the time, they would pick it up," he said. He also tried to work a wakebait, but the weeds just were too thick. He wrapped up his day at 12 o'clock with a toal of 16 bass. His best four weighed 1-11, 1-13, 2-0 and 2-15. Concluded Charlie, "Weather was great, and I had an awesome day."
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