Falls Lake - 09-05-2008 (Kayak)

[Jeffonc]

(and some of you thought I was just kidding about going out again today!)

Tried to time a pre-hurricane trip to catch the fish in that barometric freefall frenzy I've only heard about. Headed over to Upper Barton at 10 for an early lunchtime trip, just as the very first cloud bands from Hanna were passing over...


Only a light breeze pushing back into the creek (hooray for the paddle home!)... Started off well enough - two average sized white bass, one on the way into HCSrugby's favorite curve and one on the way out. Both on Firetiger Shad Raps - one size 5, one size 7.


Did a couple of figure-8s around the UB mouth and channel area and got no interest from the fish, so I decided to head to the Hwy 98 bridge and try to drown that lousy, no-good, rotten, fishless XPS freestyle jig that I love so much on some vertical structure. I did, and it held onto its lousy, no-good, rotten, fishless reputation - nada. Tried dropping a Netbait swimbait along side the pilings and then tried some swimbait fishing along the riprap but just nothing going on.

Started back toward home at noon and took my time to loop over by the Lower Barton island then back around my favorite morning haunts - still nothing doing. By now we had a pretty solid cloud deck and steady breeze. Getting very comfortable out there.

As I came back through the curve in UB, I thought I'd stop at some likely looking shoreline cover and see if there was more to me than deepwater trolling and bridge fishing- its been a long time since I've caught an honest shoreline bass, with honest shoreline bass fishing tactics at Falls.

Saw this:


Pitched into it, took up the slack and I had tension and movement sideways... This little guy made an honest bass fisherman out of me:


By the time I got back to the ramp around 1, we were getting our first band of sprinkles from the edge of the storm. I was thinking I had timed it pretty well, but it has cleared off some since then. Looks like I missed the freefalling barometer and pre-storm feeding frenzy once again... Maybe I'll get another chance next week with Ike.