The Importance of Not Giving UP When Fishing
The bite for Stripers and Hybrids at Tims Ford has been very good most of the summer. I decided to make another trip last Saturday and take live shad to fish with. Friday night I collected five dozen shad in the 4" to 6" range and was on the water at Tims Ford before daylight on Saturday morning. I slow trolled eight live shad at a time and the first fish I caught was an 8 1/2 lb. Rockfish about 10:30 am. I continued until about 1:00 pm without another bite.
At 1:00 pm. I had lunch at the State Park and kicked back for a couple of hours before heading back onto the water to try trolling. During that time, a group had arrived at the boat ramp with a very nice pleasure boat that had a dead battery. They tried several of those starting pack to no avail. The Park Ranger at Tims Ford had a set of jumper cables so the pleasure boaters backed their boat into the water and I pulled my boat over behind them and jumped their battery from one of mine and their engine started.
It was about 4:00 pm when I got back to the fishing grounds. This time, I setup the Great Lakes "Spread" that has worked all summer. Within 15 minutes, I landed a nice Striper. Then, three more Stripers followed (the largest being 12 pounds). By then it was nearly 6:00 pm. The sixth fish of the day was a nice Hybrid. Then suddenly the depth finder screen was covered with fish and I continued catching Hybrids until after dark. When the day was over, my fish count was 17! They were still biting after dark but I got the poles tangled up and did not have a good enough light to straighten them out. Plus, I had left the house at 4:00 am. and was beginning to get tired.
My fear in the morning was that the Summer pattern was over, but that opinion was sure changed in the afternoon!
Don't give up if they are not biting right now!
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