TEAM JO-JO:
After Friday trip, Big Rudy & Oneofthepack be psyched out with the big girls in the MRGO among the rocks, and the fact big girls are be liking jerk baits pretty good. We skipped Saturday, (recuperate) canceled out on Sunday weather was going to be a challenge, so we reschedule for today, (Monday)same time, same place, same technique / presentation, same results hopefully.
SIGNS:
· Saturday laidback day relax & recupe
· Sunday road trip to Sam’s, picked (2) brisket for Daughterofthepack to cook for New Years eve party
· Made a late trip to Hollywood casino, me was BIG fish at the table, down 4 “C” notes, cards not me thing, rather be lucky at fishing.
· Late night getting to bed
· Up at 4 AM for our 5:30 AM meet up at Waffel House in Oak Harbor
· Prepped Bay Flat Jr for our trip, stopped for some go juice, like to keep tanks full in case we have to go to plan “B”, “C”. and/or “D” to make it happen.
· Gulf Outlet Marine parking lot full, fisherperson launching and stopping by to buy some of Fishermen’s’ Friend BIG live shrimp.
· One pull to start Yamaha Nightmare Machine
· Portable running lights work well
· Off to MRGO to start our morning of fishing.
CONDITIONS:
· Perfect
· Wind, S.S.E. 5-6, S. 5-6, S.S.E. 10-12 mph
· Water status / conditions: flat clam, little ripples, slight chop
· Sky, sunny & clear snowbird day
· Temp, cool, mild, warm 63.3 F
· Water level, 10-12” up
· Water Temp , 61.52 F
· Salinity, 8
· Specific Conductance 14200
· Pressure, 29.98 R
· Water clarity on a scale of 1-7, 7 plus, perfect it be
· Mississippi gauge: 6.38 up pretty good
· Caernarvon Outfall: 621 ft3/s
· Tide, falling all day
· Peak tide, 12:17 H 1.57’
· Peak tide, 00:27 L .36’
· Major Feed Time: 10:53 / 23:20
· Minor feed time: 06:25 / 16:22
· Tidal Coefficient: 75
· No birds diving
· Not much bait in water
· Fish Activity
· Very High Activity
· Boats out and about, 80 plus, very busy fishing day it be
· ONEOFTHEPACK’S REPERTOIRE OF TECHNIQUES / STRATEGIES
· Be safe.
· Have fun.
· This is me daily therapy for ALL me aliments.
· Put some run time on the Bay Flat Jr and the Yamaha Nightmare Machine
· Gather Intel for future trips, and to share with fisherperson, (on Facebook) to help assist them in their choice of areas to fish, lures to use and presentation of same to the elusive Silverwonders.
· Catch what catch can.
· Learn what learn can.
· Fish MRGO along rocks
· Try our luck with jerk baits, then move on to Lake P Troll techniques / presentations
· See if BIG girls still around
· Bring home so fishes for Sonofthepack
· Find a spot # with the seven fundamentals / criteria of catching:
1 WIND AT YOUR BACK: (Not a factor, when it picked up it helped push us along the rocks as we cast & worked our jerk baits as we moved forward.)
2 MOVING WATER: (Falling but not that hard, it was moving hard inside locks cause it was chocked down so much, but in open water not much movement.)
3 WATER CALRITY: (7 plus, dark, clear, clean, salty, looked really good. Perfect it be.
4 HOLDING FISH: (MRGO rocks)
5 PATIENCES: (6:42 in honey hole, 6:44 big girl on, missed her reeling in, throw back out BAM hooked up again, lost big girl reeling in, we had some steady action but after 8:30 they were after and in between. We decided to wait and see if the tide change made a difference, did some Lake P Troll to occupy our time.)
6 SKILL: (Jerk bait technique/presentation, along with some Lake P Toll technique.)
7 LUCKS: (Stayed with plan “A” up & out early & fish our way into bites, plan “B: was to get out around 11:00 am and fish tide change.)
· Oneofthepack’s repertoire of Techniques / presentations:
· Anchor up cast & retrieve slowly along the bottom, with a twitch every now and then, tight lining…………………………………DID NOT TRY
· Drift with the wind cast & retrieve (DWWC&R)……………Jerk baits caught all the big girls, hooked up and missed 6-7 big girls.
· Oak River Troll (ORT)……………….Did not try.
· Reverse Oak River Troll (RORT) ………..DID NOT TRY
· Oak River Skim (ORS) ……………DID NOT TRY
· Cork ……..DID NOT TRY
· Lake P Troll (LPT)…………….(6) fish small ones, trolled in 15-16 feet of water
· Drop shot: Did not try.
· Dead bait……None
· Live bait………………None
· Oneofthepack ‘S repertOIRE of LURE DU JOUR:
· 3” H&H Purple Beetle, matched up with H&H ¼ oz. round white head with gold hook……………Did not try
· 3” Chartreuse Glow Beetle, matched up with H&H ¼ oz. round white head w/gold hook………….Did not try
· Matrix Shad Lemon Drop, matched up with H&H ¼ oz. round white head w/gold hook……………Did not try.
· Matrix Shad Lemon Drop, matched up with H&H 3/8 oz. round white head w/gold hook……………DID NOT TRY
· Matrix Shad Lemon Drop, matched up with H&H 1/2 oz. round white head w/gold hook……………DID NOT TRY
· Salt Strong Power Prawn (added 10-25-24) matched up with: Did not use:
§ ¼ oz. jig head :
§ 3/8 oz. jig head :
§ Tandem Rig:
· Matrix Shad Lemon Drop, matched up with 3/4 oz. round lead head w/ 2 trailers, ……. Caught 6 fish small ones
· Tandem rig, ¼ oz. round H&H jig head with gold hook, matched up with Matrix Shad Lemon Drop …..Did not try.
· Berkley jerk baits, Cutter 110 caught the big girls
AREAS / SPOTS / NUMBERS ON THE MAP FISHED:
· MRGO rocks
OUR REWARDS:
· Lived to fish another day.
· (20) Silverwonders 6 Miniwonders
· Missed (3) strikes.
· Lost (6) reeling in, Silverwonders are so big & powerful, they pull the hooks out of their mouth when they be fought to get lose, that power pro has no give so when they jerk as hard as they can hook pulls out. Me suggest to Big Rudy we ease up on our drag to offset fish fight.
· (3) Whitewonders
· (1) Flatwonder
· Me keep fish Big Randy, (Sonofthepack) looking for some for his diet.
· Bing on the water with one of the best fisherpersons me know, that be Big Rudy
· A lot of action with big girls.
· Lessons learned:
§ May have to start using landing net this be some big girls.
§ It appears that jerk bait bites is an early morning event, early jerk gets the fish.
§ Lake P Troll technique / presentation work in MRGO, caught (4) fish with it, and we did not get hung up.
§ Bay Flat Jr top speed 20 mph w/ 2 fisherperson in it and their gear
§ Bay Flat Jr, 14’ and all looking full when we load all our gear, may need a bigger boat.
§ Depth of water (10”) along shoreline may be the reason big girls are hanging out in our hot spot.
§ Berkley jerk baits sink real slow, and don go that deep, we have the Cutter 110 that we are using.
§ Portable navigational lights work well.
· Best fishing trip of my life, until the next one.
FISHERPERSON OF THE DAY:
Me missed the first 3 reeling in, caught a few, but t was a challenging day for me, just did not have it, lost me GOJO.
Big Rudy dominated Flatwonder, Whitewonders, caught biggest, most, and last Silverwonder of the day, Big Rudy be fisherperson of the day, but me going to keep trying to improve me techniques / presentations till one day where me be a challenge for Big Rudy to out fish, me mean catch me.
SUGGESTIONS:
Big girls where so big & powerful that when they be fighting for there life they would pull hooks right out of their mouth and/or body, Power pro line not flexible / giving and the brute force of there fight got them off. So, me suggested to Big Rudy we ease up on reel drag to get them slack when they pull to get off.
This technique worked well but solved one problem and created another. Seems with lose drag we could not flip them in over gunnel, when we would pull up drag would go out and fish would slide down below gunnel. We had to tighten drag back up and continue to lose big girls.
PONDER OF THE DAY:
"All fishermen are liars; it's an occupational disease with them like housemaid's knee or editor's ulcers."
Q&A:
Why was the singing fish kicked out of school? It couldn’t hold a tuna!
TEAM JO-JO’S future stratagem:
New Years Day be me next trip, been fishing it every year for years, me believe that what you do New Years day you do all year, so me going to fish & catch to make sure 2025 a good fishing year for Team Jo-Jo& Oneofthepack, until then:
Happy New Year!!!!!!!
Good Fishing
Team Jo-Jo & Oneofthepack
釣り先生
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