Night Fishing at Woods

[aero320]

I got really roasted in the heat from fishing a couple of days over the Memorial Day weekend, so I decided to go night fishing last night (Wednesday) at Woods. Stopped by the store just passed the bridge and bought four dozen minnows (got a great count). Anchored the boat over 13 feet of water close to the channel and dropped a four foot Green Magnet over the side of the boat. Caught crappie, white bass, and a few blue gills. Only one of the crappie was over 10". Ran completely out of bait at 12:40 am and was home at around 2:00 am. Had a great trip, bite was very consistent and most fish were taken about one foot off of the bottom, pretty much in the light "glow". I put out a couple of poles with floats so that I could fish further out but not much luck there. Also, had a couple of rods out with cut shad and had one good bite on that setup but got it hung.

When the Green Magnet was turned off at the end, fish started splashing all around the boat. Threw the cast net and it came up full of fish including the largest crappie I had seen that night (all were returned to the lake).

One other thing, I was worried about mosquitos so had purchased one of the little devices from OFF that have the fan and repellant disk. Kept the mosquitos away from me.

Great evening on the lake!

[bd-]

Isn't it funny how you never can have "just the right amount" of live bait? Either the fish are going crazy and you run out halfway through, or it's dead and you wind up with three dozen minnows still in the bucket when it's time to go home.

I don't think I've ever put the last minnow on the hook at just about the time when I ideally wanted to leave.

bd

[aero320]

BD, usually I am fishing with live shad that I caught with a cast net. Some days that is a lot of work on it's own. You know it has been a bad day when half of the shad are returned to the lake when the fishing ends. At least you can buy minnows!

[aero320]

BD, usually I am fishing with live shad that I caught with a cast net. Some days that is a lot of work on it's own. You know it has been a bad day when half of the shad are returned to the lake when the fishing ends. At least you can buy minnows!

[bd-]

Back before I got into fly fishing in a big way, I kept a modified 300 gallon stock tank running in my garage with stoneroller minnows and other baitfish that I mostly used for smallmouth, catfish, and occasionally stripers.

The upside was that it allowed me to get up early, hit the water, and start fishing with fresh bait right away, without burning the best few hours of the morning chasing bait instead of fishing.

The downside is that maintaining a 300 gallon bait tank in your garage takes a bit of work, and it also takes a bit of explaining to the wife and neighbors.

As I got more and more into fly fishing and my tank full of minnows just sat there unused like some sort of weird redneck koi pond, it became harder and harder to explain. So now, it sits dismantled in the garage. I ought to sell it to someone who bait fishes like I used to, but I never seem to get around to it.

bd

[aero320]

BD:

A couple of years ago, we lived in a house that had a small spring-fed creek along the property. Using minnow traps purchased from Walmart, I would catch literally hundreds of creek minnows and keep them in bait tanks under the house. Creek minnows will jump out of the bucket if you don't have a lid on it. They work great until they die while you are traveling on business and stink the house up.

Aero if you will move your boat out to about 30' of water you will get bigger fish.