Picture perfect morning today on Lanier as Don, Mike and I were picked up at Vanns Tavern by Capt Pete in his pontoon boat all decked out with Striper rod holders and a state of the art trolling motor.

We carried rods, bait tanks and equipment from my truck to the courtesy dock and loaded everything up.

The initial plan was to use planer boards with herring. Our destination was the back of Flat Creek. We stopped the big motor as we neared the reef pole in the very back of Flat and deployed the trolling motor. We were getting into position to put out the planer boards, two on either side with a weighted freeline out the back 100′ from the the back of the boat and 50′ behind the round float. I had brought two dozen herring along with two dozen large shiners so we would have plenty of bait in case we also wanted to put out some Downlines. As soon as we started getting the lines out our first board got hit but it was only a spotted bass but we got the stink off the boat. Ás we were nearing the mouth of the creek we got another strike but it got off before we could get it into the boat. At this point we decided to actually go in to the narrow creek because we saw a plethora of bait on the Lowrance downscan. As we passed the third dock the starboard planer board started screaming drag. We did manage to get that Striper into the boat. Pete grabbed the rod and started to reel as Mike grabbed the net.

We continued further up the creek but we’re unable to hookup another Striper. We then decided to head out of the narrows and try our luck at Downlining.