Patoka 4-12 Sat.

[cevans]

Decided I wanted to try the Bandits and long line jigs yesterday so launched at 8 am on Painter Creek. Muddy at the launch and as soon as got past the bridge at 145 set the Bandits out and trolled for about 1.5 hrs with one 8" crappie caught. Switched out rods and went to jigs and slowed down to about .8 mph and by noon had caught 6 more, changing colors constantly. Finally found a pattern of black/chartreuse loaded with nibbles doing the best at .3 to no more than .6 mph and caught about 2 doz more keeping 6 that were 10" to the biggest at 12". Also caught a couple of 12" bass and on one point dropping into 30' depth found some small stripers catching 3 with the largest at 14". Bite all day was supe light. So light that I lost about 12 fish getting them to the boat as they never were hooked and would let go as I was constantly easing them in. Fish are definitely stacked up in the deeper water of 16' or deeper but not cooperating yet. Tons of weeds, and found most fish at the outside edge of the weeds on structure of the bottom. Long points, humps, etc. Lake is ready to explode but not there as I would thought it would have been alittle better with water temps starting out at 56 in the morning to 57.8 and very windy with about a 2' whitecap chop by 3 pm when I finally had enough of the wind and fish had just quit hitting by then. Hate to see this cold front moving back in as it will only slow it all down again. For this style of fishing it was good to have a crack at it for my first time long lining this year. I was using 15lb powerpro braid and no more than 1/16 weight jigs.

[Arkey]

good report yeah sure wish it wasn't cooling off next week.

[usafret99]

great report, congrats on a good day. Pics?

[cevans]

Sorry no,,left it at home,,and the phone too! Very nice not having a phone for a change.

[Valparaiso_Girl]

Sounds like you really got into em-- Way to Go!

[danwalleye]

good stuff hoping to finally get there on 22nd hope its right by then always nice to leave all electronics at home except depth finders and trolling motors I thought dnr quit stocking stripers

[raporter]

Thanks for sharing.

[cford]

sounds like they should be ready to spawn soon, however this Tuesday and Wednesday are cold again!! Crazy crazy weather. Thanks for the report

[cevans]

good stuff hoping to finally get there on 22nd hope its right by then always nice to leave all electronics at home except depth finders and trolling motors I thought dnr quit stocking stripers

I think they are still stocking but the latest DNR report I could find on their website was done in 2010. And it recommended to continue to keep stocking Stripers as well as walleyes. Largest striper they shocked up that year was 33 inches for their study. On walleye, they stocked 3.5 million fry in 2010 and previous year it was 8.2 million fry, and it recommended even dumping surplus fry into Patoka. I couldn't find anywhere how many stripers they stocked, but the ones I caught were 12 inches and large one was 14 and out of the same point and school that I picked up on fish locator and was drifting down the point into 30ft of water at about 0.4 mph letting the jigs drop as much as possible. All bass slammed the baits, but the crappies hit it lightly and never really thumped it. The real thingy I like about long lining/trolling is, if you have the right baits on, you never know what your bonus fish are going to be when going after whatever your after. They are the plus side. On Monroe,,I have caught the hybrids up to 10 and 15lbs on 20lb braid on bandits and crappie jigs on my 10' B & M rods. That really gets fun.

[danwalleye]

Monroe is better right now for both species if you can keep from hanging up, long lining is great way to fish