Pulling out all the stops using a strategy that included a specific fishing plan which consisted of launching at Gainesville Marina to access various fishing locations within reach of my boat. We offered several techniques until we finally hooked up in front of the Chattahoochee Country Club marina just outside the no wake buoys. It was a pretty good fight with the striper trying to swim under the boat. We did get him in for a short visit posing with anglers and measuring for inches before getting released back into the lake. It took about a minute helping him on the side of the boat until he splashed me in the face on his take off under the water. Adios until another day. 

Let’s talk a minute about the strategy and fishing plan. The strategy was to deploy a massive spread of different techniques including weighted and unweighted Planer Boards and Flatlines, a transom bait, a couple of Downlines, a long range balloon 150′ from the boat and two directional bobbers. We had a total of 11 rods out with a myriad of bait including a mongo 15” Gizzard Shad on a balloon, dollar bill sized Gizzard Shad, Blueback Herring and medium shiners. The fishing plan was to fish the big water on the way from the marina to the humps at Simpson Creek; then in the channel at the river bends at LM 45 to 47; after that was to head north to points at lake markers 49 & 51; next was Gainesville Creek starting at the power lines on the right all the way to the back; next was on to LM 55 starting at the mouth of the Chattahoochee Country Club. This striper came on the outer Planer Board with the dollar bill sized Gizzard Shad. The weigh in time was closing in on us and we still needed a kicker to go along with our 26” striper so we reduced the spread down to a rainbow Umbrella Rig on the port side and a white trash paddle tail swim bait on a 2oz bucktail jig 7 colors out on Lead Core on the starboard side. There were no takers as we meandered back to the ramp with just enough time to make it to the weigh in. All in all we used 13 rods today. A lot of fun today helping out Team Fish Hunter. The weather was perfect. Water temperature remained at 72.5 degrees.