Thread: Rend 5/6 & 5/7

Only 15 trailers in the Gun Creek parking lot at 9:00am on a Saturday morning should have told me how the day would go.

5/6 - Launched at Gun Creek at 9:00am. Water temp was 65 when we started and warmed to 68 by the time we called it quits at 4:00pm.
Fished buck brush with minnows from the 57 Bridge, down the Gun Creek Arm and then went around to the Resort cove and Ina. There were not many fish in the bushes yet and we kept 8 quality fish over 10" with the biggest being 13". Probably should have gone under the 37 bridge and railroad bridge and looked back in there, but did not. Probably caught 40 fish all day, many of them really small. Didn't catch a single catfish, which is another sign the crappie are not in the bushes spawning.

5/7 - Launched at Marcum at 8:00am and the water temp was 63. The storm that rolled through there at 10am was a dandy with some hail and we got off the water and let it pass through. Fished buck brush with minnows again to see if things were any different on the South end than they were in Gun Creek, they were not. Even less fish in the bushes down in Marcum. After the storm, went over to Sandusky to try finding structure in deeper water that we could stay on with the wind blowing 15+. We found some structure in 10' that we could hold to and caught lots of tiny little crappie. And that was the story with 5 or 6 different spots we tried from 8' to 12'. Lots of tiny fish, no quality. No fish over 10" so we didn't keep any. With the threat of more rain, we decided to call our trip short and go home. Water temp was 65 at Marcum when we loaded out at 2pm.

Timing is everything if you are wanting to fish the busk brush!

I did talk to a couple of people who said if you can find the right structure in deeper water (8'-12') that is holding the bigger fish, you can do alright. We did not find anything holding quality fish.

I'm no fisheries biologist, but with the warmer weather, I would think those females would be wanting to go into the brush by this weekend...which would make sense to me, it's always the week after I plan my trip to Rend that they are in the bushes. However, this is now the 3rd year in a row not "hitting it right" and it seems to be getting worse and worse down there. Or maybe I'm getting worse and worse or maybe those fish are behaving differently given all the pressure that gets put on the buck brush. I've seen many an aluminum boat get slammed into the brush at 10 miles an hour with the big motor in order to get real deep in there and then fire up the outboard again to get themselves out. I know I'm sounding like a crotchety old dude, but it sure seems like that lake used to be so much better. Oh well, I will keep trying as we still had fun on water...catching is always just a nice bonus.

Sounds like a nice day of fishing