Lines in at 7am, air temperature 70° with no wind, downlining Lake Marker 55 to start the day. Water temperature was 73.7°. Didn’t see a fish. Moved to the power lines in Gainesville Creek. Saw a few small fish at 20′. Pulled lead core, no takers. Moved to Lake Marker 51. Saw several fish. Dropped downlines. Missed one scrambling for the rod. Fish moved out and so did we. Headed to Simpson Creek submerged island, no fish. Left there and went to C1. Just looked. Again no fish. Drove across Hooch channel to east side of lake to River Forks. Looked at humps and lake points still no fish. Wind starting to pickup. Left there heading for War Hill stopping just south of Little Hall Park looking at points. Water temperature was 72.9°. Wind really started gusting. Unable to control boat’s direction in open water with trolling motor so we headed further north in Chestatee River to convergence of Johnson & Lathem Creeks. Saw a lot of big fish. Pulled lead core to Taylor Creek and then back south to Hwy 53 bridge. Thought we finally got one when the reel sounded off, stripping out line. Just before getting catch in saw that it was a huge limb. Passed the rod off to Chris to finish the retrieve. My arm was exhausted. We decided to go with our experience and head way south to Browns Bridge. Decided to ride the right side of the channel going under the bridge. Water temperature was 74°. We started to see lots of fish but the wind was gusting to 20-25 miles an hour and our boat speed was too fast for downlining. I had to get out the wind sock to keep us at 1 mph. We drifted towards Port Royale houseboat docks with downlines out. Hooked a 21 3/4″ striper right off. Unable to anchor in high winds we kept going over and over our track from 40′ to 60′ to 40′ of water and hooked up another fish. It felt like a much bigger fish but got off close to the boat. It was time to pack it in and head for the weigh in at 2pm.

Lessons learned today: start with a plan; when fishing gets tough keep changing presentation; keep moving; give yourselves a time limit then stick to it; go with what you know; and always rely on each other’s experiences. Thank you Bob and Chris for another great time on the water.

We wanted to fish the humps near the dam this morning for some downlining fun with Pretty Boy Tree Guy Charlie Perkins and Lynn Gregory. We had just launched from East Bank ramp, got passed the no wake buoys and throttled up to plane off when I noticed the Lowrance screen light up with fish. I eased off, deployed the Ulterra and set it to anchor while we got our downlines ready. We followed our track back through the fish but no takers after 10 minutes and there were plenty of large arches. Today’s striper plan was to downline the drop offs near the humps at the dam. When we got to the humps there were plenty of arches all around. We put out two downlines then two more with a freeline herring. After a few minutes Tree Guy got one in with Lynn netting his game. 

While we thought that we would be getting on them it was frustrating to be all in them and nothing more to show for it. We went to plan bee which was pulling Lead Core. I put on the reliable white trash paddle tail swimbait on a 2oz bucktail jig and headed toward Shoal Creek. As we were nearing Sunset Cove a striper hit our white trash Lead Core and Lynn brought him in.

After that we went back to the humps by the dam but we weren’t seeing as many stripers as before. We decided move toward the dam and came across several stripers stacked up. We tried downlining, jigging with Ben Parker Junior and the larger shattered glass spoon and some top water but no takers. We decided to call it a good day and headed back to the ramp. GO TEAM LANIER 

Caught four fish today: two stripers, a walleye and a catfish all on Lead Core. We pulled a two oz. white bucktail jig with a white trash 7 1/2″ paddle tail swimbait on one and the other was a chartreuse blue 2 oz. lime ice paddle tail swimbait. Both were caught 6 & 7 colors out at LM18. One striper measured 25 1/2″ and the other was 25″. 

The catfish was caught in Mud Creek where the road bed meets the point. The walleye was caught in the back of Young Deer creek. Bob is doing the Oakwood Striper Club tournament tomorrow and now knows all the locations not to fish which should save him a lot of search time to get to some of the locations that produced today. All in all it was a fun day for me too, fishing on a work day.

There was a great turnout for the ALS Benefit for Don Brown held at the Wild Wings Cafe in Suwanee Georgia from 5 to 10pm today September 14th 2016. In attendance were his family, friends, racing buddies and striper club friends from the Lanier Striper Club and the Oakwood Striper Club. This event brought many together to support and celebrate Don’s life and struggle with ALS.

Dave and I went back to the road bed at LM18 today where I caught those 6 stripers last week but when we got there I could not find the road bed with all my fancy electronics. While resorting to the paper map to locate the road bed (red dots)we discovered every striper in the lake under the boat but they wouldn’t take any of our blueback herring so we decided to pull Lead Core through them seven and eight colors out. This was a good plan as we pulled in a couple of stripers within minutes of each other.

Soon after we basically got run off by sailboats. Our next target was the road bed in Mud Creek. After a short while of searching we found the road along with beaucoup stripers but with the washing machine waves pounding the boat making the bluebacks bounce up and down it became too difficult to stay on the road bed let alone offer a live bait presentation to the stripers.

We left Mud Creek motoring back to LM18 to try out the Mini Mack on Lead Core. It looked killer in the water with five chartreuse paddle tails on 1/2oz jig heads. And apparently a big spot thought so too. We got close to a five pounder to the boat.

Overall here are some of the other techniques we tried besides downlining, pulling lead and the Mini Mack: power casting and jigging a 2oz white bucktail jig with a chartreuse 7″ paddle tail swim bait, a medium Zara when the fish were busting on top, a Ben Parker spoon power reeling and jigging over a multitude of fish as well as jigging a Thompson spoon. We will definitely go back to the Mud Creek road bed next Saturday a lot earlier in the day.

​While it’s unusual that all things fishing came together today, with pleasant temperatures and no jet skiers in sight, we fished the road bed at Lake Marker 18. To find and stay on a road bed you need precise navigation equipment. Having a Lowrance Point One or a Humminbird AS GRP now that’s the ticket.

We set our downlines at 20, 22, 25 and 30′. As we came across several stripers holding between 25 and 35′ I put the trolling motor on anchor and we stayed in one spot catching six stripers and a catfish. Thank you Bob Fields for taking me fishing and catching. 

We hadn’t realized it until after we got back to Duggan’s dock that this was the first time the three amigos went striper fishing together. Dale Burrell, Jim Duggan and I had a blast today with pokes and jokes. You can’t find any better fishing buddies than these two cut ups. After a few mishaps getting bait like the bait store with late hours opens at 8am, bait store with no ice, after getting ice no cooler so ice melted in 10 minutes, tried to follow waypoints in rough seas without a Point One antenna, then getting caught on a shallow hump and losing not one but two lead core jigs, getting rained on but still managed to catch 2 spots at least 8lbs each yeah right. I am so happy to have fished with these great guys I just had to tell our story. Be sure to watch the video for proof of the monster spots caught today. Another great memory of a fun filled day on the pond.

No thanks to Team Lanier for bringing in any stripers. Reel broke as one striper hooked up on a Lead Core near the humps in front of Tidwell ramp, likely story. However several nice videos were taken of both Lynn & Bob bringing in stripers for the tournament.

Sorry folks no photos. Someone’s cell phone stopped working.

I think I counted a total of 10 boats fishing the entire day today on Lanier. It’s great to fish a weekday every now and then. Bob Fields, my sister Lynn and I launched at East Bank ramp and headed out to Young Deer creek by the community dock. We started trolling Lead Core 9 colors out using an 8″ blue back paddle tail since the sky was pretty cloudy. We hooked up right away.

After boating the striper, measuring it, and taking a picture we released it using the Seaqualizer. In the next photo you can see the striper at 40′ swimming away. 

While we were getting in position to do another run we saw a lot of stripers under the boat so I deployed the Ulterra trolling motor and set it to Spot Lock to remain directly over the stripers. We set out four downlines with bluebacks at various depths and were successful bringing in more stripers.

 We did this for about 30 minutes then we realized we were drawing a crowd of other boats all around us.

Since we were there first we needed these other boats to scatter so I put on some Tupac music and we watched them move away one by one. After that the bites slowed down so we left the area and went to fish the 100′ slot in front of Shady Grove Campground. We hooked up another striper 90′ down. Clouds were getting blacker and the wind was really picking up. It was too bouncy to downline here so we decided to pull Lead Core in Shoal Creek. No more luck doing that so we headed to the ramp which was a stones throw from us and called it a good day.

Went back to Chestatee bay this morning with friends Dave Saporksi and Dale Burrell as my crew. On arrival it was SRO. There were at least 16 striper boats downlining and pulling Lead Core in our target area. I managed to manuver around the various routes these boats were coursing pulling Lead Core at the usual seven colors out with a 2oz bucktail jig and one of Chris Manes newly made 8″ Lime Ice paddle tails. We boated three Stripers in 40 minutes all before 8 o’clock.

Right after our third striper my outboard started sounding 3 short beeps indicating an oil pump issue. I shut off the motor and deployed the trolling motor. While heading back to the ramp at 2 1/2 mph we brought out the Umbrella Rig as we limped our way back. No luck on the rig in Balus Creek. We managed to get back to the ramp okay.