I hit the water at the crack of dawn and started trolling around Hales Ford Bridge.   I marked a few fish and saw a nice bunch right under the bridge next to Captains Quarters.  Two passes got me nothing so I trolled up to Coast Guard point. I didn't mark hardly anything.  So after just a couple passes I cruised down to Becky & Betty's.  I quickly cruised through Becky more looking than fishing but as luck would have it I hooked a whopper way in the back.  I stretched the fish as much as I could but it still measured 11".  I didn't even know I had it hooked.  A bunch of leaves fought harder.

I was marking these schools and bunches of small fish that could have been these small stripers or gizzards.  I only saw a few scattered real fish that were mostly sitting on the bottom.  I checked the creeks and outside the creeks and around the island and found nothing.  I looked in Yacht Club creek and found a small school hugging the bottom. I cast and cast and cast around there but got no bites.  Then I ran up and checked the points by Hales Ford Bridge and still found nothing.  I ran up to R31 and cruised around and still found nothing.  So then I drowned some meal worms around the laydowns testing them for use at the 4H kid's fishing days. They work. Also, I can tell its Spring and the fish all have allergies because they are sneezing a ton of brown boogers in the water. I troll for a few minutes and my lines are covered with gobs of this slimy brown booger stuff. What a mess. So that's it. I didn't want to travel far with the questionable weather but had a fun day anyway. Later Joel

Both days were almost the same so I'll summarize.

I started out just at first light and put out lines. I went around Hales Ford Bridge and a little beyond but saw nothing so I headed down to Coast Guard point. On Tue I got the first fish at 6:15 at Coast Guard point and Fri it was at 6:20. Both around 25". After that I couldn't get another bite. I did mark a few fish but not as many as last Saturday. Tuesday, I crossed over to the Bedford side and had a big fish on but it somehow found the only snag within a quarter mile and broke off. Rot! So Tue I headed up lake again and trolled from R31 to Grimes. I was marking some scattered fish and passed over three decent schools around R34 but didn't get a bite.

Then I started hop skipping up lake looking and ended up at the courts. I was marking fish and boated two within 15 minutes. Nice 25.5" and 26.5". Then nothing. I still saw fish so I drifted around casting all kinds of stuff (I have a few things on the boat) from top to bottom. No takers.

Friday was a repeat except that after Coast Guard point I went down to the Beacon and made a quick pass through. I marked a few fish but got no takers and then headed up lake again. As I was passing Becky's I noticed several boats working the area so I cruised through looking but I didn't mark a single fish. I don't know what those guys were fishing for. Then up lake was a repeat of Tue but I didn't get any more fish. Oddly enough there were boats fishing just about everywhere.

Ya'll have fun.
Joel

I launched at 5:45am and it was already getting light so I may need to get up earlier from now through July. The last time I was out fishing was with the Freedom Alliance group and we got fish at Coast Guard point and it's a good spot this time of year.  So I headed there first. I started marking fish there right off and boated the first one at 5:55.  Only a 21" but action and fun. In short, between start and 7:00am I boated 4 fish, lost two that spit hooks and had several strikes with no hook-up. They were 21", 21.5", 21.5" and 24".

By 7:00am the sun started peeking over the trees on the Bedford side and hit the water. That turned off the bite . I kept making passes deeper and deeper but the fish were gone. I made a pass on the shadowed Bedford side and saw nothing. All these fish and strikes again came on the small Bomber lure but not the chrome/blue back. These all hit the hot steel color: sort'a blue back, light chartreuse side and white belly.  Go figure.  So then I ran over theBecky & Betty's creeks just to check and I saw nothing.  Acting on a good tip, I ran up to R31 and started trolling again.  I started marking some fish but only 1's, 2's and 3's.  I trolled up lake zig-zagging from river channel to shore looking.  Right near R34 I marked three schools of fish down 40-45' but couldn't get a bite.  I went all the way to Indian Creek still seeing some fish along the way. I turned around and trolled all the way back seeing fish and dodging those idiot boats.

So that's it.  My two best fish got third place in the the artiftourney.  I think there's only 3 of us in the artificial class. Hmmm. And another reason I don't fish the weekends. The boat ramp was  a traffic jam both launching and retreiving. What a mess. Hey, at least the weather is nice. Joel