Sauger 1-2-15....long read-sorry!

[TNBronzeback]

Mixed emotions on the sauger outing today.
To kick the frosty morning off, the ramp was a muddy disaster, like walking through 4-5" of peanut butter! lol.
Then the motor wouldnt piss for the first minute or so. (not a non-stop minute). So the morning was a delight the first 15 minutes to say the least.
The river while not "normal" clarity yet, was better than i expected. Also unexpected was the big water level drop in a short amount of time and the really shocking super slow current flow....needless to say i was less than optimistic.
So with the slow flow, i opted for my go-to blade bait and right off the bat popped a shorty, dropped right down and another, like super short....lol...7-8". Got to the tail end of my pass and picked up one that must have went 14- 63/64". Lol...im sure i could have squeeked by but why risk it. A few more misses and hooked/lost fish sent me to search up river. Found a TON of bait and picked up a nice little cat in a slack water seam but that was it. Then they must have almost killed generation cause i was being blown up river which is never good when jigging.
After a few more swings and misses at various spots, i motored back to old faithful where my day began. Fish were there and the bigguns got hungry, sadly, they were striking shorter than ive ever experienced there. I rolled some heavy fish and had several big girls on. no real detectable "bites" really, they just ever so slightly sucked on it till i felt pressure. All my shiners were just raked of all thier scales, tails nipped off about a 1/2" from the stinger, ect. BUT.....the silver lining is i got thier "no/slow" flow ticket now....no jigs, no blades, no big shiners, no spinners, no body baits, ect. Basic 3-way rig, 8" sinker drop and 12-14" leader to a floating jighead and big fathead or small shiner. Now granted, i landed NO big fish with this tactic but that was the only thing that got me bit and the bite was surprisingly good. I lost 5 heavy fish in about 45 minutes doing that. The fish were also surprisingly shallow. I got my smallest sauger in 16'. Deepest fish/bite was in 28'. If i had some refined stinger hooks, i think i would have some large sauger pics to share.
Im tweaking my stinger hook set-up where i can make and customize on the fly so im excited to put that to the test!
So, i wish i had a more fruitful report, but i learned alot on this trip and its gonna pay off big next trip!
OH! i also marked actual saugers on the screen today too which is big all by itself. The flat above the hole i fish had some sporatic arcs dotted around it and that is where i got my first 2 of the morning. With the dropping levels and low flow i think i marked them as they were out on thier breakfast run. Pretty cool....saugers are normally bottom huggers that are hard to be picked up on sonar the majority of the time.
Water was in the low-mid 50's.

[StriperFan]

I call that a good trip. It is always nice when a good revelation presents itself. I keep telling myself I'm going to give up chasing rocks one of these winter days and go after the saugers again...

[Heiny57]

Nice read, sorry you had no luck.

[TNBronzeback]

Originally Posted by Heiny57

Nice read, sorry you had no luck.

Yeah i was more whizzed off about losing what i know were bigger fish.
Thats the frustrating thing about sauger fishing in these winter months. They are in my opinion short strikers most of the time, probably the majority of the time, and knowing that going in is difficult too. Just like any challenge, you try to develope a better mouse trap to get more fish in the boat. Well if you go with a bigger stinger then you greatly increase your chances of snags but it also gives a very unrealistic look to the bait, plus if your not using big shiners, you certainly cant use big stingers.
No matter what you do, your not gonna hook every bite ya get, but when you lose several big fish using the same method which is obviously working, ya really have to break down your presentation and find the problem and fix it. I think ive got the ideal fix, but i dont carry that kind of equipment in the boat to have fixed it this weekend.
Plus, if what i learned this weekend holds true for my other spots, its gonna be a really really good winter!