Headed to the lake

[Capt Cefus]

Gonna see if the seagulls are still there, and if they will show me the way to them thar stripers this weekend.   Momma has me doing a fair amount of honey-do's but as soon as the chores are done, I'm gonna get on the water and do some fun fishing.

For those that have never fished fresh water under seagulls ....   the gulls move to the inland reservoirs in the wintertime to engorge themselves on the baitfish that the stripers push to the surface as they feed.   The water has enough dissolved oxygen at the surface so stripers can stay shallow for long periods.   They will devastate bait wads and will eat even the tiniest of minnows.   The gulls see this happening, and will be whirling and diving on the leftovers.   When you see this... it's time to mozey over and throw a small fluke pattern in amongst them.  But don't blast over there with the big motor or you'll just push everything down again.   Ease over on the trolling motor and get a few long casts in and then hang on!   By small flukes, I'm talking 2 incher's.   A small Clark Spoon, like a 00 size will work well too.   I'm going to cut the bucktail back on some 1/4 oz WhoopAss jigs and see if they won't produce some strikes as well.   The weight of the head should get the lure a little deeper a little quicker.  And the big stripers will be hanging out beneath the schoolies on top.

[Capt Cefus]

Well the wind blew a steady 15 kts, with some stronger gusts all day long on Saturday.    White caps on the bay area just outside our cove.   Drove over the dam, and the main body of water looked like you could surf out there.   

There were a few folks out braving the wind and waves, but I decided to stay close to the McTrailer and get some honey-do's done to stock up on kitchen passes for a later date.    Except for the wind, the weather was beautiful all weekend.   After the wind subsided a little on Saturday night, we put some shrimp on the barbee, mixed a few cocktails and spent the evening by the firepit enjoying the mild spring temp's.

The good news is that Lake Hartwell is just a couple feet below full pool.   That's gonna make a lot of people happy, including me.   Now if we can just convince the Corps of Engineers to keep it that way for the summer, it will be awesome.