Laker Opener on Charleston

[Dartee]

Well it was time for my annual laker opener fish with my Father-law.

Sat Am 4:30
Alarm goes off, I up in aflash and shut it off before the wife wakes up (ssshhhh).
Get dressed, water on the face , grab my stuff and head to the kitchen for a quick bite and coffee. Fill the thermos with java, grab the lunch and snacks (ready the night be for) and head out the door.
Down the road I head (gear already loaded the night before). I get to Athens and the rain begins (glad I got my rain gear). I get to the in-laws @ 5:50. In the boat my gear goes. Since its now raining and looks like it will continue for awhile we quickly descide to put the top up as soon as the boat is out of the garage.
Off to the lake we go....

6:30 Am we are on the water, top up and seats dry (everything else is already dripping wet.
There are a fair # of boats on the water but not bad..the rain had kept the fair weather fisher people home.

6:45 ..1st fish in the boat a small laker. Bait of choise was a small brass quickfish. 30 ft down over 75-110 FOW.
Soon after we get several knock-offs then nothing for 10 -15 mins.
Time to check the lines
I check mine....a small shaker
Father-inlaw checks his ...another shaker
7:30
Fish are hitting very light..time to watch the lines closer..
2 more small ones.
8:00
I change my lure to a gold humpy spoon (yes thats the name of it).
Before I can sit down fish-on..another small one.
This time I set the lure about 80ft behind the ball... Fish-on..this one was about 4lbs.
My Father in law changes bait and length from the ball and now he also has a nicer fish @ 6lbs.

By 11 there are 4 fish in the box (4,6,7,7 lbs) time to call it a day.
From 6:45 to 11 we had 19 fish in the boat, a half dozen knock offs and a few out of arms reach releases. The largest was about 10lbs (natural) and the smallest less the 1/2 a lb. The kept fish were all stockers.

Got back to the Father-inlaws place, clean up, hang the wet gear, clean the fish and have a brown pop or 2...Dinner was Lake Trout coated Roasted Garlic & Butter Fishcrisp...Cronsy (sp) style mmmmm Good.

Sorry no pics on a count of all the rain.....must have been a Fish-Hawk gathering (hehehe )

Sunday
up at 5:30 (only a sprinkle out)
breakfast and head to the lake
6:30 the boat is launched, no rain but a wind out of the northeast. Not many boats around.
7:30--1st fish on a very light hit.. then a shaker.. looks like a repeat of Sat.
8:30--1 more fish
Wind now out of the east and starting to kick up white caps.. the smaller boats have now dissapeared.

By 11 there are 3 fish in the box and 8 had been to see the boat plus several knock offs.

We stick it out till 1pm with only 1 more knock off..By this time the wind is howling, even with a drift sock at each side the boat is next to impossible to control. Back to the park launch we head...as we get closer to the park the water is now looking like Quinte in the fall

Even with the wet and windy weather this has to have been the best opener we have ever had...

[wolfe]

Despite the nasty weather, you did very well, Dartee.

My brother found a bait he likes for lakers called the Crippled Minnow...a spoon with a nice, single hook. Have you had any success with those?

W.

[DV_8]

Nice job Dartee!
We were suppose to go on Saturday but we said the heck with it. Didn't feel like fishing in the steady rain all day. So we decided to go on Sunday. I think it was a good move since we didn't have to worry about the ususal big crowd on opening day. We didn't get on the lake til' 07:30. Not even five minutes both lines go off and we're into a double header. A couple of 2 pounders so we decide to let them go. Later on I nail a five pounder and my buddy a three. In the box they go! A couple of hours went by before our next few fish. We ended up with 9 fish hitting our lines, two shook off at the boat, we boated seven fish between 2 and 5 lbs. Not a bad day considering the wind was pretty brutal. Can't wait to go back.

[Northern King]

Nice work Dartee. We had some success at Charleston this weekend, not quite as much as you MonsterHunter, Scott, a friend of ours and myself all managed a couple of fish each over the weekend. The biggest being about 4lbs. We had quite a few in the 2.5 to 3.5lb range. Trolling NK, Dartees, Suttons anywhere between 20 feet and 30 feet over 60 to 150 FOW. We did alright considering the weather was pretty nasty the whole weekend. I think I may give them another go this weekend.

[Dartee]

Despite the nasty weather, you did very well, Dartee.

My brother found a bait he likes for lakers called the Crippled Minnow...a spoon with a nice, single hook. Have you had any success with those?

W.

Tried a couple single hooked spoons with no takers on Sat..The only thing that would get a hook up were trebles (even with barbs pinched).

The baits that worked were , Solid brass Wobblers, dark green cleos, Nasty boys, a few on a Dartee, gold Prism Spoon (the humpy) and an old narrow "J" shaped spoon that din't catch a thing last year but has worked well yrs ago (it is a dull flat gray,,no flash at all).

I'm glad we used my father inlaw's boat since its an 18ftr with a full standup top..made things a lot more comfortable even Sunday with the wind.

NK
I hope to be out this coming weekend again (my own boat this time) if I can get around kids soccer games.

We fished the same 20-30ft down in 60-150FOW. Saturday we stayed out of the clusters if there were more then 4 boats around. Tried for some pike at noon Sat. but no takers just a couple very large rock bass.

Sunday the pattern was basically the same but instead of going with or against the wind, the majority of fish came when we went across (rougher but better results).

[Northern King]

Dartee,

Did you find that when you swithed to a 80 foot lead of the ball it made a difference?? I never thought of putting it back that far. I was going 30 to 45 feet back. I'll have to try changing it up a bit more.

Well I'll try to get into a few more this weekend. I just bought a new Shimano TDR 7' Medium rod that I really want to try out too

[JimmyBuffett]

Actually just to clariflyNK.... All my fish came from 20 fow and 50 ft back over 30 fow to 50 fow And my buddy who was fishing with me had out three colors on his lead core rod.

Dartee, The bite was extremely light on sunday and with that heavy chop, made it hard to see the hits. Congrats on a good outing as usual , would of had pics but batteries packed it in on the digi.

Cheers,

Rich

[Dartee]

Dartee,

Did you find that when you swithed to a 80 foot lead of the ball it made a difference?? I never thought of putting it back that far. I was going 30 to 45 feet back. I'll have to try changing it up a bit more.

Well I started the morning on Sat. with about 30ft back, 30 down and had several that were dragged. After I set back to about 80ft I seemed to be able to see the light bite better on the rod tip ( of course it may just have been I was paying closer attention) and had more releases as well. My Father in-law was running about 25 down and 30 back with the same initial result after going further back the releases started.

The fish were either coming up from under the bait (or all swimming toward the boat) since you had to crank like mad to get the slack in after a release.


MH
Sundays bite was pretty hard to detect with the chop and wind but we did have a few hits that actualy took line (and made the drag work) after the release, I like those ones, no guessing if there is actually a fish on.

[Northern King]

Dartee,
I actually didn't end up dragging any at all. I almost dragged one very small trout but I did notice a small hit and decided it would be best to check the line.
You may have had more success because of the longer lead off the ball. I found that I would hit a school of fish and try to troll over it and the fish weren't there on the second pass probably because it was breaking up the school. I think you were right about the fish swimming towards the boat when they hit as I had to reel in some slack after popping off the clip.