Combo Trip: Jigging and Trolling

Had an epic combo trip yesterday in the cold. We started out jigging in the D-River and had our limit in 65 mins. We caught 17 that way and then it slowed down. We decided to venture just into the lake and pull some of my custom baits. We caught 33 in about 3 hours, plus another 6 or 7 monster smallies. We must have lost another 5 or 6 fish during the chaos.

35-40 back at 1.6 – 1.9 mph, into the current (12-15 FOW) was the ticket. Best patterns were Smokeshow Shad, Pimp Daddy Perch, Glow Wonderbread and Blueberry Cheesecake.

Several times we had 3 or more on at once. One time, we had 5 on at once and then the 6th one had a drive-by. We only landed 3 of the 5. One got off as I was horsing it in. The other got off as I was trying to swing it into the boat. Towards the end I was only putting out 2 lines on my side, because 3 was too many to deal with as fast as they were going back. They were all nice eaters, but nothing bigger than 25″.

It’s been a while since I had a trip with that kind of action. Early in the day I set a goal that we would get to 50 fish landed. My partner said, “I have heard about people getting 50 fish in a day, but I would have to see it to believe it”…..he saw it, and now he believes it…:D. BTW, we kept 12 eaters and the rest were immediately released.