* TIPS *

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime!

Captain Jerry




WEEKLY FISHING REPORT FOR:


8-25-08



Please use my cell phone(704-678-1043) when trying to contact me. Sometimes I am slow to answer emails. My business phone is always open at 704-629-9288

Captain Jerry





HIGH ROCK LAKE

We fished the rock sat. and caught the limit. The bite slowed down after all the traffic got onto the lake after lunch.

LAKE WYLIE

The catfish bite is good and the perch bite is fair. Bass is slow. No change in this report.


LAKE NORMAN


The catfish bite is good most days. A few big ones are starting to show up on the end of our lines. As it starts to get cooler this bite will only get better. Bass fishing is slow.

MOSS LAKE



No report


Captain Jerry





Mtn Island

White Perch bite is hot right now - catch all you want drifting in the creeks. Catches of 50-100 are the norm right now if you want to catch some good eating white perch. Catfish bite is fair, with a few channels and blues being caught drifting cut perch, shad and bream.





BAITFISH BAITFISH BAITFISH

When I am fishing an area I check my depthfinder for bait fish in a TIGHT BALL because I know that the crappie will be close by feeding. This also tells me how deep to troll. If the baitfish are holding in 10 or 12 feet of water I know the crappie are feeding in that water range. So I adjust my trolling speed to pull my jigs right through that zone. In the winter months when the water temp. is 45-52 degrees I will start in the mouths of major creeks looking for balls of bait fish, once I find them I will target this area to troll. If I can not find the baitfish, I will check the main lake channel for baitfish. If they are present, I will troll this area. I hardly go deeper than 15-17 feet trolling. Even in 40 feet of water the fish are usually somewhere between 4-17 feet suspended. I have found that you can catch crappie as shallow as 4 feet in January over 40 feet of water. You just have to set a few lines to that depth and check to see if they are there. They will not show up on a depth finder that shallow. So I set a few lines out and troll. Bright sunny days the crappie will school together. On cloudy days they seem to spread out more and your trolling chances are much better under these conditions. Lots of times on bright sunny days in the winter I will fish docks with jigs because my catch ratio is better doing this. There is another way to catch some very big crappie in the winter. Take a white or smoke bass grub and put it on a 1/8 oz. jig and cast it along the mouths of creeks where you see mussel shells. I have caught some giant crappie doing this. Fish it just like you are worm fishing for bass. You may not catch many but what you catch will be worth your time. Most of them range from 1 to 3 pounds. Lake Wylie is a good lake to do this on because of the mussel beds in this lake.

Captain Jerry


CRAPPIE TROLLING


When I troll for crappie, I use this setup. I use 10 rods. Six out the back of the boat and two at front of boat on each side. I put 6 pound test line on each reel to make things equal. From experience I know that there are 3 types of cast that catch crappie. The first is a long cast( as far as you can cast it) The second is a medium cast or about 40-50 ft. and the third cast is about the length of your boat. My basic setup for me is that I will pull a 1/32 jig on 4 rods and a 1/16 jig on 6 rods. I will mix them up when I first start using different colors until I find what the fish want. (I always start out with my speed on 1.0 mph.) If they are deep (12-18 ft.)I will use 1/16 jig on a long cast. From experience I know that my long cast jigs will run about 10 ft. deep running at one MPH on my GPS. If the fish are shallow I may run 1.1 to 1.5 MPH on my GPS to pull up my jigs into where the fish are holding. This may mean that I have to change my jigs to a 1/32 or even a 1/28 or 1/64th jig head to get the desired depth I want to fish. You can also shorten up your cast and speed up your troll motor to get this the desired depth you need. The fish will tell you when you get it right. Do Not forget about color. This can mean the difference in a great day of trolling or just going through the motions. Change color until you find the right color the fish can see. They may be more than one color but there will always be one that is best. IF YOU START OUT AND YOU ARE CATCHING FISH AND THEY STOP BITING AFTER A FEW HOURS, CHANGE COLOR. THE SUN MOVING ACROSS THE SKY HAS A BEARING ON COLOR. THEY MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SEE THE COLOR YOU STARTED OUT WITH EARLY IN THE DAY SAY AT 12 NOON. FIND A COLOR THEY CAN SEE AT MIDDAY. THEN IN THE EVENING WHEN LOW LIGHT STARTS TO CREEP IN AGAIN SWITCH BACK TO YOUR MORNING COLOR THAT WAS SUCCESSFUL. REMEMBER COLOR, SPEED AND DEPTH ARE CRITICAL IN THIS SETUP. MORE ON THIS LATER.

CAPTAIN JERRY


JUST A NOTE

Fast trolling and Power trolling for crappie is taking the day. Each has its good and bad. When the CRAPPIE go deeper I will power troll. Usually this takes place in winter and late May. When they are shallow, 3-6 ft. and in coves, spawning, I speed troll. (some times I just tight line around piers) If one of you guys are a power troller, share some knowledge with others. One guy I know uses 5 oz. sinkers on 12 pound(yellow) test line with rig of 4-5 jigs tied on to main line. his poles are 16ft. All (8) are out the front of the boat. He runs as fast as it takes to keep his line vertical and varies his depth from top to bottom. He finds BALLS OF BAITFISH on the main creek or lake and trolls thru them until he catches some crappie. He sets his poles to the right depth after he catches a few fish and trolls in an S fashion if he has more than one bunch of baitfish present. The best deal is that you find 2-3 sets of baitfish a few 100 yds apart. Then you can troll a longer way before the turn. Most times, I usually catch more fish going with the wind than trolling against it. It may vary with you. (In the winter my depth is around 15 ft. on main lake and in the first portion of creeks) I hope this helps to get you started trolling. You will catch big crappie doing these methods.

Captain Jerry