week of October 15, 2012

Couldn't stand it so I was out at Fork again this week.  I spent two and a half days with Dale and one half evening with Rhandy.  The first two days the real problem was weather.  Tuesday was about 15 degrees colder than the weather doofuses had forecast, plus a stiff 15-20 mph breeze.  It was chillier than I was prepared for, but we did catch some fish.  I think we ended up with 12 for the day but I think Dale caught more than half of those.  My biggest was about 4 and a half pounds on a fluke with a Carolina rig.  We tried some spoons and crank baits, but never had any big success with them.

Wednesday the wind howled out of the south most of the day between 20 and 30 mph.  Lesser men would have stayed in, but Dale had a good plan and we actually caught more fish than Tuesday.  We put in over in Chaney Branch, on the south side of the lake, and hung around the southwest corner of the lake, which probably had the best wind break.  We still had to tie up to stumps most of the day, but we found some good spots and had some fun.  We even had some schooling fish come by early and we caught bass and sand bass at about a ratio of 1:3 on deep crank baits.  I even caught a drum on a fluke.  We didn't use much gas, but we ended up with 14 fish for the day with the biggest at about 4 pounds.

After about an hour off Rhandy came by and we also headed over to the SW corner of the lake to put in over at Wes's ramp in Leafy Branch.  The winds had died down a bit, so we headed over to one of Rhandy's favorite spots and he caught two fish on his first two casts.  The first one went around 6 pounds.  After that, they shut off big time.  We eventually motored over to another spot and I had a big fish break me off.  It was stripping off drag from the get go and broke me off right above the hook.  I'll get him later, and his little dog, too!  I caught a small one on the next cast, then again, nada.  About 6 pm the front came through and the wind picked up out of the north.  We tried a deep spot, and almost got thrown from the boat by 3 foot rollers.  That was a short stay.  So we headed back to Leafy Branch and threw crank baits back into the pocket
with no joy.  I finally called beer thirty about 30 minutes after dark and we drowned our troubles in Murphy's Stout.

Thursday was much cooler but the wind had slacked off at last.  Unfortunately, the fish had slacked off, too.  I think Dale had 2 bass for the morning and we both caught a few bar fish and sandies throwing spoons on a deep road bed.  Nice weather, no bite, 30 mph winds 14 fish.  Hmmm.  Too bad I like my comfort.