Thread: Harris 3/19

Got to the dock about 2 hours before dark but waited about 30 minutes to put the boat in the water. Headed over to a creek mouth and started tightlining minnows. Fish were scattered, Caught all fish a few cranks off the bottom in 25-30 feet of water. We had 8 fish in the cooler that was 11"-13" all caught before dark. We caught around 20 fish total in the hour that we fished. Anything less 11" went back today. We marked where the majority of the fish were caught and anchored down and set out the lights. NADA!!!! No bites, no minnows under the lights, nothing.... Moved to shallower water. Nothing.

Moved over to another channel where we generally kill them and nothing. Moved several times. Saw a ton of lights up at the bridge above the ramp. We headed up there to find an armada around the bridge. They were catching some fish so we decided to stay a while. We caught around 10 fish but all but one was short. It was 11 inches. We decided to call it a night and headed back to the dock.

There was a pontoon boat at the bridge that was the coolest boat I ever seen. It was like a house boat in the back but had rod holders all around the front. It had propane lanterns hanging all around this thing. The guy had piped propane to each lantern. It was awesome. They had 15-20 rods off that thing and were steadily catch fish. Looked like a lot of shorts but none went back in the water that I could tell. He was a really friendly guy and had 2 kids with him. He had an awesome setup.

Got back to the dock and there were 2 men fishing with lighted corks. We pull up and he asked if we caught anything. He had one bucket slam full of fish. The second bucket was about 1/4 full. He said I have been killing crappie since 9:00pm. I said well you did better than us. We only kept 9. I decided to give them our fish. He said he was going to stock his freezer while he was able to catch them. I was glad he would put them to good use. He said he had some neighbors that he shared his catch with.

Today was the first time I ever tightlined minnows at Harris. I was impressed with our success even though we only had about an hour. I really wished I had went earlier and left at dark.

Will be back another day to tightline more. The only complaint the entire day with the bass boats screaming up and down the lake. One guy blew in the creek we was fishing and started fishing at the end of our set. He worked his way up the creek about the time we made our turn. He fired her up and screamed by us wide open about 30 yards off our bow. I was pissed. This guy was an ass. All the other bass boats stayed well away from us. We was just inside the creek mouth and the majority of the speeding bass boats was on the other side of the lake. It was annoying to say the least.

Darin

Rough day all around. Hopefully it will be better next go around for ya.