Thread: I had to go !

I needed to go fish , even for a short trip .
The neck is getting better .
FYI , in case you ever have an overused painful neck and shoulder.
The only thing that ever helped was rotating hot and cold packs.

It got down below freezing last night and by noon it had gotten up to a cool 47 degrees.
Luckily the wind was on the light side , with a partly sunny sky .

I took my 6’6” St Croix Avid light paired with a Daiwa Legalis LT 1000s and 2# SOS main line .
I rigged up a 7/8” Thill slip float with a 1/16 tungsten slip sinker .
I’m using the slip float rig so I can side arm lob cast to help take the strain off my casting shoulder .
Also , with cold , clear water , I can work the jig slower than twitching .
I first tried a 1/124 jighead and a couple different plastics without a nibble .
Plus I ran into an issue with the jig tangling during the cast . One of the problems I had using a snap on float .
I switch to a size 10 sickle hook , tungsten bead , handtied jig in dark olive .
Thinking the rabbit fur would have more movement than the plastics in the old water .
I would make a few casts , then move my float stop down a foot , then fan cast the same area .
I got down to about seven feet and during one of my creeping slow retrieves , the float went sideways and I raised the rod and felt something on line .
Finally ! After about an hour and a half , I had a fish on .
A nice fighter even in the cold water .
Turned out to be a nice shellcracker that almost made the nine inch mark .
I only caught the one fish but I’ll take it this time of the year . Pretty colored up one .