Clermont Chain of Lakes 11/14-11/15

11/14

Woke up around 6am, looked out the window, looked like a great morning for fishing, unfortunately had to go do a 5K in the morning. Fast forward, it’s nearing the crack of noon and finally I’m on the water. With the company of sheep on the meadow and my 4 year old son I put out “the spread”. 4 spider rigs off the bow and another 8 rods off the back. The wind was impossible to fight, so I just trolled with the wind, averaging a speedy 1.2 mph for the majority of the trip. Set up a controlled drift in the middle-ish of the lake, combing across an expansive 9-11 foot flat, had a couple good passes and caught some fish. Most everything came on the deep baits that were set at 7-9’ subsurface. While the double naked minnows did pretty well also. The longlined 1/16^th pink and silver moon jig with a small added spilt shot caught the largest fish (1lb-4oz). The longlined offerings weren’t making it down deep enough for the afternoon fish. Totaled 18 fish, kept 12, the majority were over 10”; however that slipped alittle when I let my son start doing the quality control. A couple 9”s in there, but they’ll fry! 4 good fish, top 7 fish were 5lb-11oz. Tight Lines




11/15

Alittle earlier start this morning. Hit the ramp at 8am, only one other boat trailer at the ramp. Same crew as 11/14. Was greeted by the same persistent ENE wind as Saturday. Figured the fish may prefer some shallower water, focused on fishing from 6-9 fow. Similar spread to 11/14, spider rigs were adjusted for depth. A bunch more dinks then the prior day. Controlled drift with the wind. Went into conservation mode on minnows as I was running low, so the spread was pretty artificial heavy. Much better performance on the longlined offerings, with chartruse being the hot color. The double 1/16^th oz and 1/32 curly tail chartruse jig took the largest (crappie) fish (1lb-5oz), 4 good fish, which all came on the longlined rods. Lost 2 nice fish, looked to be over a pound each. Caught 2 nice catfish, on naked jigs, largest was about 5lbs. One of the cats tangled like 4 rods..Top 7 fish were 5lb-14oz. With those 2 lost fish, wouldn’t been up near 7lbs probably for 7 fish. Totaled around 30 crappie, 3 cats, 1 bass. Headed in around 1:20pm. Overall good day, the boy did a little better with QA/QC. The combined cleaning yielded almost a gallon of fillets. Tight Lines

Great fish for the Clermont Chain. Thx for the report!

Great report thanks. I fish that chain a lot.

Excellant report - great detail - Gave feeling that we there with you.

Thanks, I pretty much exclusively fish the chain b/c I'm about 5 minutes from the boat ramp. I try and get out 4-5 times a month from November to April. As the water cools down it should get better. I’m still dialing in what works best and that’s really what I like about crappie fishing, just so many different combinations to try. The real problem when it’s that windy is staying on the fish. I blow by a good concentration of fish and then it’s pretty hit or miss. Can’t really work against that wind, the next best thing is motoring back up and lining up another “drift” and attempting to track over the same location using the GPS. On that chain I do better when conditions are windy. My theory is waves break up the sun/heat, causing the fish to suspend higher in the water column. I do a lot of saltwater fishing/diving also, so I usually go to saltwater when it’s calm and crappies when it’s windy. Next time I’ll see if I can’t get some pics dialed up.

Couple of good days. Better than I did.

I agree, good details, thanks for sharing....:highfive

When wind moves in - three things you can do:
1. put out a wind sock - big enough to slow boat to meet your needs
2. throw chain out back - again using rope length to slow control boat to your needs
3. turn trolling mtr 180 degree and power to slow boat

4/ If you can afford: use both power poles with bat wings. lower poles in water
couple ft, deploy bat wings to sides............You than become kind of the pond.

Great tips, thanks for the info. Next time I'll take a picture of my boat setup so you can get an idea of the budget setup I've got going on. Should be a good laugh for everyone.