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Cotaco Creek, 26 Dec 2016
First, every day is a blessing! Today, I had the opportunity to hit the water for the first time since Thanksgiving Day. Stayed with my usual routine. Launched at Triana boat ramp, Indian Creek at 0630. Fished until noon. Indian Creek was like chocolate milk, no current. Cotaco, initially was the same chocolate milk and no current, but cleared a bit later in the morning. No wind until about 0900. Sorry, don't remember the water temp at start. Around 1000 the water temp was around 51 degrees...in the picture.
Bait: BG Glacier on 1/24oz plain lead head jig was the bait of choice. Tried Monkey Milk and Crystal which produced a few. Caught two stripe on Crystal so went back to Glacier. Nothing else worked.
Catch: 14 keepers given to a father and son fishing in separate boats trying to catch fish for the son's daughter to have a fish fry. Large fish "landed" was a 1.8lb Black Crappie with a belly that was about to bust. Landed a longer white crappie but it was 1.5lbs. I did catch one blacknose crappie that went right back in the water. Glad to see more blacknose in Cotaco. Caught two shorts. Total: limit...unbelievable.
Started with my usual routine picking up 3-4 fish in Indian Creek before moving to Cotaco...not a single fish...a sign I was certain. Arrived at Cotaco and gently settled broadside on a laydown to set up. Sometime during setup and errant branch found my Styrofoam coffee cup and cut it right above the coffee line. Reached for the coffee to take a sip and the top of the cup literally fell off and I deposited about 12oz of coffee down the front of my sweatshirt...oh well.
Fishing started great! I caught numerous fish in the 1.5-2lb+ range. It was exciting. I got them to the boat. Then they gave me the "Nemo" fin wave and said "see ya". I lost more than 8+ of these great quality fish... I bet they are still laughing. I also lost a number of 10-12 inch fish too. Never lost so many fish ever. It's okay, they would have gone right back in the water for another day or someone else.
I also donated more jigs than ever. I found every snag possible. Normally, I am fortunate and can retrieve jigs from most snags. Not today. I am certain I donated at least 20+ jigs today. I ended the day at noon with a snag about 15 feet high in a tree. Yep, I cast high, and caught a tree high. That's okay too.
Guess what? Lots of great fish. Lots of jigs lost. And, a sweatshirt full of coffee. It's all good! Every day is a blessing. And, every day on the water is great. God is good!
