If you are heading for the water Monday, your best bet is targeting perch. The biggest change over the past week has been water temp. A drop of about ten degrees surface temp has done a number on the eyes. Monday through Thursday the trolling pattern was still going strong. Thursday morning I had boated 4 eyes, the biggest being a 20 incher.
I was keeping a close eye on an approaching storm. Lightning chased me off the water for about 10 minutes. I spent another couple of hours without a bite. That little storm cell shut them off. With the cold front that followed the next couple of days were not much better. Friday a full day on the water yielded zero eyes. A couple of pike and some panfish, but overall the fishing stunk!
Saturday was another full day on the water with about the same results. I did manage a couple of eyes but there was no pattern to it. Alot of short hits and some smaller bass but overall not a very productive day.
Now for the good news! the eye bite is slowly returning. Today yielded four nice eyes. The perch bite was going strong and should continue to be hot going into September. The majority fell to a Phelps floater tipped with a leech. Any weedline or any type of structure held fish. Although bigger fish were roaming the flats. The key depths were 8 to 11 ft. I was also running crawlers but they did not draw much attention. The second picture really disgusts me! This had to be an angler that threw out this trash. There was also alot more bait containers floating around in the area. No matter what body of water this can’t happen! Good fishing and I will see ya on the water, Don.
Sorry the second picture did not show up too well. That is a bag of trash and some bait containers someone left on the water.
If you click on the image to enlarge it, by the way all images can be clicked to get a bigger version, I can make it out pretty good. Shame on them!
Thanks James, I should have tried that.