5 Attachment(s)
planer boards & catfish on chicot
Just got back from the chicot trip & wanted to post some results of experimenting planer boards. i installed some pole holders on the front of the boat. One of the things I read was you need to keep the rod tips high. Here is a shot of the Ms. manning the boards.
Attachment 11223
Here are the cranks that I used to troll with. I used 100 series bandits on the inside, and these grappler shads on the outside on the boards. i didn't really get particular about how much line I let out, I just let it out.
Attachment 11224
We trolled at 1 mph, and didn't catch any crappie, but we got their cousins the plentiful striped bass, & even caught a goo. I could tell when the goo hit it, the board went backwards, & the drag started stripping. no pics of the fish on the boards, but i'll try to keep trying until i perfect it. the article by jeff on trolling, suggested using med action rods. I used 10lb line, & the boards with the goo on it felt like a 6lb catfish trying to reel it in. I might use some heavier rods next time. I also had to reel in the inside rods when a fish got on the outside rods w/ boards. anyway, we caught fish, but were limited on time to try this technique. We trolled for about 2 hours, and managed 3 fish total. We caught them all on the grappler shads.
Attachment 11225
We took advantage of the shad run to do our trotlines, and did it pay off!! The shad run around 6am on the shoreline.
Attachment 11226
we caught enough to bait up our 5 trotlines, & harvested over 200 catfish on saturday. we had 400 hooks out. we caught so many catfish, that we pulled them out of the water on sunday, & had 66 quart sized bags of fish after a camp fish fry. One thing about chicot, it has too many catfish. before anyone says we over harvested, we had 14 people in camp, so we weren't being pigs about it. Here are my helpers, with my youngest screaming every time we took a fish off the hook. We also had fish on every other hook on saturday, & my electric fillet knife was on fire after the cleaning.
Attachment 11227
We had an awesome trip this year, but the crappie bite was slow. My dad & I caught several on the last day of the trip, & I'll post those pics on a different post when I get them from my uncle. We caught a lot of those pesky little striped bass & not even 1 green carp. (I fished w/ an uncle that likes to fish for them). We didn't even catch keeper crappie until today, & had to go on the south end of chicot to get them.
There are so many catfish in chicot that they've lifted the limits on cats, so if anyone needs catfish, you should go to chicot & get those things out of the lake. In contrast, chicot has imposed a 20 limit on crappie & they have to be over 10" to keep. I have a lot of concerns about the balance of fish concerning crappie & bass. No bass to speak of and too many dinks on the crappie. More pics coming!!