gettin’ wingy wit it

I got out on pool 8 today for 4 hours of fishing to see what i could do trying my best at a new technique. I was quite pumped to fish the wing dams and rock structures on the main channel. I’d have to say, it was actually quite fun. I did not kill them like i have been for the last few months, but i did fill a limit for 11+ lbs. big fish was around 18″ at 3.3 lbs. Caught fish on swim jigs, minnow baits brushhogs and my 5th keeper on a deep diving crank. It wasnt a load the boat sorta day, but have ideas how to next time. I was quite happy with learning a technique that seemed so foreign to me not so long ago. One of the highlights was watching a 2.6 lb smallie smash my swim jig on a wingdam. Saw it come flying out to nail it. 17 inches and beautiful as could be. here are 2 pics.

smallie.

sorry about that first pic, thought i was uploading my 3.3 lb largemouth, but i guess not. That is a pic of the biggest boat besides the island girl and other cruiser lines i have seen on the river i think. i thought i was going to capsize with the waves that thing had. I was anchored on a wingdam when it came so i had to hustle and get the big motor going. i ended up surfing the nearly 4 ft tall rollers. If you get out in front of the waves in my little boat, you can litterally surf the waves going full throttle because my boat goes slightly faster than the waves themselves. well anyway heres the nice largie, sorry for the hold up on my pics.

wait,wait,wait your boats that slow that you acctually have to surf the waves, I would crap myself if i was in your boat when that happend we almost started taking on water when you slowed down last fall because the waves infront started coming over the bow

ah sure my boats pretty slow, it doesn’t really matter to me, because the fishing out of it is fast. i feel happy and proud that i worked and earned my boat straight up.

Well said Cade!

Cade you should be proud of what ever you use to get out fishing. I remember my first boat and it wasn’t much. 12′ Sea Nymph with a 9hp Chilson motor….I don’t think he was making fun of you though….just saying you are one brave fella for hanging out in those types of rollers. Heck I’d be a little scared in my 16′ Explorer….Love the fishing reports…can’t believe you aren’t staff yet!

no that wasn’t supposed to be a punch at you i was stating i would would be scared as Hek to be on 4′ rollers with your boat. That wasn’t supposed to be astabb at you. your boat is great and works for you

Nice work on the wing dams! They seem like the place to be with the water low. Was it tough to branch out of your stomping grounds, Goose Island?!

Well goose is my stomping ground but i know the rest of the pool quite well too. I just had a hard time locating where the dams end and what not and where to position on them. without a map, it was tough, i only knew of 5 or 6 dams around so i need to look at a map and find where they all are. yeah it was different but i enjoyed it and filled a decent limit so it was a good day. Today on the other hand, was not from shore. Was with Justin P. and we each got 2 dink bass :ha: oh well, we weren’t in the best areas and spent a lot more time Dinkin’ around and talking about fishing than anything. i did get stung by a bumble bee too which hurt like a B!%(#…lol

sweet fish..yeah those wakes off those big boats are rediculous. personally i dont think those big cabin cruisers belong on the river, their waves probably erode the bank fairly well. im usually all right with hitting those but last weekend i got turned on one and came down funny, just about flipped my boat, pretty scary.

Cade-Don’t feel to bad about catching a few dinks. I have fished wingdams for awhile now and it has been tough the last few days getting into great numbers. The good thing is there are a ton of wingdams on pool 8. Pool 7 is much better in my opinion, but I haven’t fished the dams much there this year

Wingdams are overrated…

i fished rocks today and didn’t get squat. day markers and stuff. i saw a few fish crusiing around the rocks but no takers. im just sticking to my wood and grassline patterns for the TS