Fishing News - 3/9/01
Lake Weiss Fishing Report
DATE: 3-9-01
LAKE LEVEL: 561.4
FULL POOL LEVEL: 564.0
SURFACE TEMP: am 51.2 pm 54.1
WATER CLARITY: Clearing. River channel still somewhat muddy but looking better.
CRAPPIE: Crappie fishing for the 5th,6th 7th, & 8th was terrible! 12-15 fish a
day. The 4th of March a massive cold front came through and dropped the surface temperature 14*F.
Also had a 2" rain and 25-35 mile per hour winds. All this stained up and muddied up all of the good fishing
areas. Today is the 9th.The water is looking much better. Wind is down to 10-15 out of the
North.
We still had a very good day. Myself and 1 of my partners both limited right at quitting time. My third partner had some late arrivals and didn't get onto the water until late. Am sure he did well but he is still on the water as we speak. Fishing 1 1/16 oz. Jigs. Blue-Green-Blue and Green-Green-Green seem to work the best today.
Today all the fish we caught were suspended 5-6 ft. deep in 12-14 feet of water which required a medium speed troll. I saw an Indiana boat fishing very deep on a slow troll and I never saw them catch a keeper all day. I also saw 2 boys from Tennessee throwing floats and jigs and I believe they did pretty well from what I saw. They were fishing about 5 foot deep. I also had 3-4 other boats in the area I was fishing and they did very poorly fishing with jigs. All of them pulled out at approx.11:00 while we were still catching them right and left.
This may help you and this may not help you. I have fished the gentleman in my boat for several years but he takes a dumb pill first thing in the morning. I set the rods for them first thing in the morning at the distance I wanted them to be behind the boat. Around 12:00 we just stopped catching fish. Because I am dumb as a board we lost an hour and a half fishing time. This drove me crazy to see the fish on the depth finder and cannot get them to bite because I know what depth miss Cheryl's jigs are running at the speed I am running. Finally , I had enough sense to go back and check the lines and they were fishing way too short. I reset the lines and immediately started catching fish.
Their dumb pill wore off and we stayed with it the rest of the afternoon. The point I am trying to make is placement of the jigs behind the boat, at the proper distance, consistency, is everything. If you know where the jigs are, even if you do not have a speed indicator, you can still catch them. Because if they are not biting and you are seeing them on your depth finder, you are either fishing too fast or too slow. Crappie fishing is not rocket science. Be patient, experiment and stay with it.
Also many times crappie may do one of two things, they may go up because of warmth, or if a frontal system moves through they may go down during the
day. think I have given you all the information that I can at this point to help without putting you in the boat with
me. See you at Bay Springs for breakfast. I am there every morning at 7am.
BASS: Bass fishing has gotten much slower because of the front and cooler surface
temps. If I was going bass fishing in the morning, I would be working a spinner bait right up against any rip rap that I could
find. I believe that later on in the afternoon a small floating rat'l
trap, (chrome & blue or chrome & black) in the back end of coves, in shallow water would be productive.
WHITE BASS: Catching a lot of white bass trolling right in with the
crappie. It is WAY too early to see them in the jumps.
CATFISH: According to the commercial fishermen there are plenty of them.
They are fishing in 4-8 ft. of water for them. Also productive around any fish cleaning station.
BREAM: Still nothing, too cold.
STRIPE: Hot as three dollar pistol. Stripe are in 3-4 foot of water chasing
shad. Watch for the birds. When the birds are diving on them there they
are. A couple of productive areas are Powerhouse Lake and Yellow
Creek. Also, the mouth of Crazy Woman and Churchouse. Unfortunately still catching some while trolling for
crappie. Makes a mess of your lines. Today, my partner butch, had 9 rods out and had 9 stripe on at one
time. They managed to land 3 and pulled out of them. After the "Chinese fire drill" was over they re-rigged their lines and went back to crappie fishing.
As usual if we can be of any help do not hesitate to "holler". Be glad to help with lodging or anything else that we
can. Also, please read the whole web site as it will answer most of your questions for
you. Be sure to look at our new pictures just updated. I always suggest that anyone fishing Weiss purchase a lake map & a belly board for measuring
fish. We have a 10" size limit on crappie. Also there is ZERO tolerance on the water for alcohol. We are a dry county so if you prefer a beverage after you get off the water you should do it at the motel and bring it with you from
home.
Steve www.lakeweissguideservice.com 256-927-6617
