WINDY THURSDAY OCONEE REPORT

[Hotwater]

Jim and I fished Lake Oconee today. We got to the Sugar Creek Ramp about 6:30 and started fishing as soon as we passed under the bridge. The water temperature was 69 degrees and it was a cool morning. We fished the channel out to about the 4th buoy and then went up the river a few hundred yards. Jim pushed 8 rods out of the front and also tended 4 of my long lines. I long lined 6 rods out the back The bite was steady all day and we had our 25 fish at 3:05 p.m. We were well pleased with our results considering the battle we had with the wind. Most of our time was spent untangling long lines and tying on new jigs. We had one line get wrapped around the outboard motor and break off and Jim had a fish take one of his lines straight to the trolling motor and break off. After about 3-4 hours of fishing the trolling motor battery died. I disconnected it and hooked it to the starter battery and off we went. Just after we caught the last fish I noticed the depth finder had gone off and I new we had better reel up fast as the starter battery had just died. We got all the lines up and had no trolling motor or outboard motor. We were "dead in the water". The wind blew us into a small cove and we stopped when the outboard dug into the mud. We called several people and no one was on the lake except Chad Smith. Chad had clients but came to our aid and jumped us off. I do carry a set of jumper cables in my boat. It all worked out fine and we had a great day of fishing.