Lake Jackson 4/11/14
Posted: April 11th, 2014, 7:52 pm
been awhile since Ive written a report, winter fishing has been a little slow (just a few fish in our short fishing trips, nothing worth reporting) and I've been getting the spring maintenance on all the boats up to date during the winter while finishing a ground up resto on my big boat slipped at St Marks. The full moon of April is almost upon us, and for those of in the know, it means the first wave of shellcrackers and early blue gills are going to possibly begin spawning (if the water temp is right), the bass are on a feeding frenzy post spawn from a few weeks ago (the bass were guarding their new young 2 weeks ago in several shallow lakes in the area). Surface temps were around 67 to start the day, and gradually rose to 72-73 by midday. There was a small push of wind out of the southeast, and the water levels have now reached 84' above sea level (the highest since 1998) We arrived to a filled parking lot at Rhoden Cove at 8am. The feeding time was 830 to 1030 and although it wasnt great, we had a decent day. We began fishing the shallows near deep holes closest to Rhoden before working our way to our favorite hole, a migration route near a very large hole. The fish were biting slowly, even the bass (who are small but everywhere) required coercion and patience to hook. We paid careful attention to our technique today and out of about 30 bites, we converted a very solid 29 or so fish (with one foul hooking). The sole missed fish was the costliest, we had located a shell cracker bed, and my miss (a too flat angle on my hook set) on the 2nd cracker caused them to spook out for good. No biggie, at the end of the feeding period we unanchored and one pole fished catching about 7-8 more until we headed in at 1:30pm. When we left at 1:30, most of the gills were in open water in close tight schools on the bottom in 5.5fow nearby emergent lily pads and were extremely reluctant to bite. On the day, much to J's chagrin we threw back nearly all of our hand sized 7-8" gills and shell crackers (cause theyll be titty bream by the end of the year, and were planning a full moon extravaganza at Talquin on the days following the full moon next week). We ended up catching 4 LMB, and about 25 or so BG and Shell crackers. We kept about 5-6 8-9" BG and shell crackers, (no huge ones this time) and the 2 larger buck bass just under 16" each. We caught everything bottom fishing with florida pinks with a sliding cork as a strike indicator. The larger buck was caught with a bass colored deep diver worked slowly in a known migration route at the conclusion of the feeding period. He was foul hooked somehow, so he really doesnt count towards the days total. Another good day at Jackson!
