Fishing the Day After Christmas 2018
by Capt Juls on 12/26/18Woke up this morning, and went outside with the dogs for their morning ritual. I was greeted to a warmer than usual morning for the end of December. There was absolutely no wind, which made it feel warmer than it really was. The morning started out at around 32 degrees, and was expected to get as high as 40 degrees.
I wanted to go fishing. I shot Kevin Swartz a text and asked if he wanted to go today. He did. We would be taking his boat for the trip, while mine stayed put over in the building she's tucked in at.
We hit Mazurik's boat launch around 9am and headed east out of the launch. We would be fishing the east side of Kelly's Island today. We started a bit SE of the airport in 40 foot of water. The marks on the sonar were very good, and we hoped it would be a good bite.
Most of the marks were deep, but there were plenty up higher in the water column too, and those were the more active fish, so we targeted those with Smithwick Perfect 10's using 2 oz Guppie Weights (Guppie's can be used as inline weights or snap weights, so today they were used as snapweights.)
The most productive program for us was 20/20, 30/30 and 20/50 with the 2oz weights at a speed of .9-1.0mph. We found that when we made turns, the slow side was doing pretty well, so we dropped from 1.2-1.3 to the .9-1.0 speed. ;)
Again, for those that don't understand what "20/20" means....you let the bait out 20 feet, attach the snapweight, and let out another 20 feet before putting the Off Shore board on. The same goes for the other numbers listed above.
Color: Lemon Lime Crush w/orange belly, Chrome Pink Lemonade, and a Chrome Perch were the best for us.
The weather was perfect. We started out with a light south offshore wind that gave us 2 foot or less sized waves out there. Then, the wind was switching to the SE and it basically died to nothing and the lake went flat.
The bite was never hot for us. We had one double, but otherwise, we would pick up two or three...and, then, nothing for a long time. We made adjustments when it was slow, and we would pick up another 2 or 3....and, then, nothing. Nothing was really dialed in.
The water temperature was 35.4 degrees on that side of Kelly's today. The water was stained, but you could still see your cavitation plate, so in other words...perfect.
There were a lot of fish that were stacked closer to the bottom... Kevin and I discussed it at one point, and concluded that some of those marks might be the big gizzard shad that live in the lake. It certainly wouldn't surprise me. Some of the shad that die over the winter and litter the Portage River shoreline in the spring are a good 3-4 pounds each.
It was nice to get out today and catch some fish. It made it a very Merry Christmas indeed!
Looks like we have some wind and rain coming to town again for the next few days. Lousy weather, but it's bringing warmer temps along with it. Every day we don't have ice....I like it! Sorry ice anglers....I had to say it though.
So, until the next nice fishable day.....thanks for taking the time to read this...:)
Stay tuned...
Capt Juls
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