Veteran's Day Jigging

Today made me look back on when I fished with Kevin Murphy near October's end. That's when we used what we needed today--live herring. I had thought Tuesday on the lake with Mark was an anomaly, and that with added cloud cover, Oliver Round and I would get them on the Binsky.

I did check into the supermarket this morning for chicken livers, but none were available. At Dow's, I asked Laurie if she had any for sale, and she gave us a supply-chain horror story. (The economy is getting scary.) Oliver had told me about guys on NJ Freshwater Fishing.com catching a boatload of hybrids on chicken livers recently, so I went on and read the post. And saw the photos. It happens, and I figured that maybe we would try that.

I left my treble hooks at home, but Oliver and I decided to stick to the Binsky before I realized I had, anyway. (Dow's still has plenty of herring.) 

It was an interesting day, beginning with casting Binskys along a favorite drop. I always bring a rod I can use for a plastic worm or Senko, and I rigged a six-inch Chompers without weight, casting it against rocks. It didn't take long before I caught a largemouth not quite 11 inches long. We continued to cast our Binskys--working the bottom, up and down the water column, in close and out far, but nothing hit--while I had my eye on some rocks too distant for us to reach. There's a kind of pocket there 10-feet deep. After I positioned the boat by use of the electric, Oliver caught a largemouth of about 11 inches on a Senko. After he released it, he told me it hit very lightly on the drop in that pocket, and then a few minutes later, he missed a solid hit.

So at least I got that much right, and so did Oliver by catching one and tempting another. 

We positioned along another drop. Cast Binkys. The graph screen filled with fish. That's when I felt crushingly--while I helplessly jigged vertically in the face of fish that wouldn't hit, fish traveling in an immense school--that I should have brought the treble hooks and bought herring. But other guys who come out here and jig for hours, catching just a few walleye, they must see fish on the screen en masse, too.

The wind carried the boat, the anchor dragging, and we found many fish well out and away from the drop-off, too. At the drop and beyond, fish were at bottom and everywhere else--as shallow as seven feet over 40 feet of water.  .