LOZ Sunday

[BuckCreekMike]

I figured I'd let people know how I did this weekend, even if it wasn't great, b/c maybe it can help someone else out. I caught three keepers off my dock, and lost two more at the surface that looked really nice, but then again they all look nice when you lose them. They were relating to one of the two boat lifts. I have other structure out there, but apparently they were just interested in the boat lift. I guess it's like when you buy a dog a toy and it just wants to play with the wrapper. Oh well, I'll be back next weekend and I suspect that I'll be writing on Monday morning with a report of limits being caught.

[LOZcrappie]

I'll find that too, sometimes, Mike. Sometimes they're just relating to a certain area of the dock, structure or not. Sometimes it's probably a school of shad and other times maybe it's the shade of a pontoon.

In fact, that would be my number two rule on fishing docks (the first is fishing hanging structure): if given a choice of boats on a dock, fish around the pontoon boats first. Boy I LOVE fishing around those suckers.

[BuckCreekMike]

How do you set hanging structure. Do you put a weight that touches bottom and suspend a structure? I would imagine you would want it tethered to the bottom so it doesn't blow around in the current. I bet a porcupine or something similar would work good.

[Badcast]

Hey Buck, What were you using and what was the water condition, still muddy.

[BuckCreekMike]

Badcast I was using a 1/16th oz roadrunner head with an elect. chicken slab buster about 3-5 ft. down. The water is still muddy, maybe 15-18" visibility, which is actually a little better than it has been.

[Jet Boy]

I will be fishing the Glaize area this weekend.....can only hope fishing improves.

[mark lo]

Mike, was you up on the main channel - 7 mm or so??

Thanks,

Mark

[LOZcrappie]

How do you set hanging structure. Do you put a weight that touches bottom and suspend a structure? I would imagine you would want it tethered to the bottom so it doesn't blow around in the current. I bet a porcupine or something similar would work good.

I'm sure there are dozens of ways to do it, but I used tree tops I cut or found old dead cedars about 8-14 feet in length. I drilled a hole in the trunk/fattest portion of the wood and ran some thick poly rope through/around that a few times and tied it off on the dock so the tree top was hanging upside down and about 8 feet or so under water. Depending on the length of the tree, that gives me structure from a depth of about 8-20 feet or so.

To weigh it down, I tied a medium-size concrete block onto/into the tree about halfway down. It shouldn't shift too much with the current but it will bob up and down as the dock goes up and down when big rollers come through. That's about it.

I know some folks use steel cable for hanging them, as well, but I was trying to keep the cost down. For what it's worth, we've had some poly rope structure hanging from our docks for three years or so that hasn't rotted yet and still looks to be strong. I figure, by the time the rope rots, the tree below will probably be pretty beat up/worthless as structure anyway.

I've used PVC (as opposed to wood) in the past but it doesn't seem to hold fish as well as real wood -- on our docks anyway. FYI, total time invested to cut down and hang six trees from our dock a couple of weeks ago was about three hours ... or about 30 minutes each. Fishing stunk that weekend anyway so I thought it was a good time to "invest" for better fishing weekends. Total cost for my project came out to about $8 per tree for the rope, metal hooks for the dock, and the blocks. And that was buying everything from Home Depot, I'm sure others can do it much cheaper if they have that stuff laying around.

The only caveat about hanging it from a dock -- one used by many boaters in my case -- is that it's easy to see the rope hanging there and, therefore, other folks will fish it. In a lake as big as LOZ, though, there's usually plenty of fish to go around (when they're biting).

Hope this helps, Mike.

[BuckCreekMike]

Thanks LOZ I will defifnitely try that, I have 4 christmas trees already at the house. Mark I was at the 7mm across the channel from the Horny Toad.