Wylie 9 Month Stats

I’ve been keeping good records of fishing trips since January. Thought it would give a glimpse of the health of the lake. I’ve fished 32 times so it’s a good sample. Average caught is 56 per trip. Average 10 inch keepers is 13.8 To get a 10 inch 20 fish limit I have to average 80 fish. Wonder how the DNR would interpret my results. There are plenty of 8-10 inch fish. It just seems they are skinny and not growing fast. For the last 3 years I’ve been catching mostly 9 inch fish. At some point I thought it would get better. I know there is a lot if competition from White Perch and Spotted Bass for bait. NCDNR on Norman has a No size or creel limit on Spotted Bass. I know from experience lakes go through cycles in size and numbers. I keep telling myself Wylie will get better. ?


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Great idea to keep records of your results

That's some great record keeping. I dont see how you find the time to ,measure every fish. I mean those chinese fire-drills and all.:yikes Maybe it's simpler with single pole fishing. Anyway, I need to be keeping measurements too. I do keep catch numbers and locations and pictures of what comes home but that aint necessarily all the "keeper" sized fish I catch.

Thanks for sharing.:)

Seems like the fishery is healthy and has a good future.

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Originally Posted by gabowman

That's some great record keeping. I dont see how you find the time to ,measure every fish. I mean those chinese fire-drills and all.:yikes Maybe it's simpler with single pole fishing. Anyway, I need to be keeping measurements too. I do keep catch numbers and locations and pictures of what comes home but that aint necessarily all the "keeper" sized fish I catch.

Thanks for sharing.:)

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Only fish I measure is if I think it’s 10 inches. Sometimes it will be 9 7/8 inch. I throw it back and I measure fish I think are close to 13 inches. I release anything 13 and above. So I don’t have to measure that many. I do take the time to measure accurate with the mouth closed. It makes a difference. It would be too much to measure every fish. I’m gonna do it for a full year. I did it for 3 months last year just out of curiosity and regret not doing it all year. Next year I probably won’t do it again unless I expect to see a big change


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Would you mind sharing your most productive techniques. Just curious if most were caught livescoping or do you troll either spider rigging or long lining???

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Originally Posted by polarcrafter

Would you mind sharing your most productive techniques. Just curious if most were caught livescoping or do you troll either spider rigging or long lining???

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I think I only Longline trolled one trip, and it was only a couple hours. All single pole, mostly brush piles . But really enjoy fishing open water schools. Without Livescope that would be almost impossible. The schools can be huge in the winter. Seems the schools in summer are really small, or the ones I see usually are. Check out this school.
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We fished there in January with Central Carolina Crappie tourny brutal conditions. Temps were low 20s to start and just got above freezing right around noon. It took 10.38 to win with a 1.71 big fish. I know the week leading up before the cold front hit on Friday, there were multiple 2lb+ fish caught in practice.

Crappie USA events in the past few years there took similar weights.

SC Crappie Association is about the same.

Personally I think the lake went downhill when SC put limits on the lake. You fish the lake enough to know that there's no shortage of fish. It's been proven with crappie time and time again that some times it takes an aggressive harvest to improve quality of a crappie fishery (no pun intended), and rarely can you over fish them. That said, lakes can be cyclical, and the 2009ish-2014ish era there were a lot of BIG (2lb+) fish there. I know Pete caught a couple in the upper 2's there. I caught my fair share that in retrospect never got weighed that were upper 1's, lower 2's. Gobbler has fished there in the last few years and pulled some impressive weights in the low teen's for 7fish.

10.5lbs at 7 fish is 1.5lb average, and on Wylie, is probably a 13.5"ish fish.

Just my $0.02

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Originally Posted by tackleboat

I’ve been keeping good records of fishing trips since January. Thought it would give a glimpse of the health of the lake. I’ve fished 32 times so it’s a good sample. Average caught is 56 per trip.


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I've never fished wiley, but you are my hero.

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tackleboat is everybody's hero! :highfive

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Originally Posted by tackleboat

I think I only Longline trolled one trip, and it was only a couple hours. All single pole, mostly brush piles . But really enjoy fishing open water schools. Without Livescope that would be almost impossible. The schools can be huge in the winter. Seems the schools in summer are really small, or the ones I see usually are. Check out this school.
. Attachment 437509



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What weight jig head are you pitching to those open water schools? I've tried a 1/16th but it seems to sink too slow and the school has moved by the time it gets down to their level. Do you try and mark the schools with traditional sonar and the big motor and turn around and fish them with Livescope? Or do you just get in areas you feel like will hold them and ease around looking for them with live scope? Thanks!

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Originally Posted by 91tiger

What weight jig head are you pitching to those open water schools? I've tried a 1/16th but it seems to sink too slow and the school has moved by the time it gets down to their level. Do you try and mark the schools with traditional sonar and the big motor and turn around and fish them with Livescope? Or do you just get in areas you feel like will hold them and ease around looking for them with live scope? Thanks!

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1/8 jig, yep got to get to the quick sometimes. I fish mostly brush but I scan my way to the brush usually from about 200 feet away. Occasionally I stumble on a school. If in a good area I set the trolling motor on 6-7 L scope out 95-110 feet and scan.


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Originally Posted by tackleboat

1/8 jig, yep got to get to the quick sometimes. I fish mostly brush but I scan my way to the brush usually from about 200 feet away. Occasionally I stumble on a school. If in a good area I set the trolling motor on 6-7 L scope out 95-110 feet and scan.


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That’s fantastic information. Thank you for sharing. I see a good many nice schools like that in creeks on Murray in late winter while looking for stripers and perch. I need to keep a rod rigged and ready.

I'm going to be keeping records as well starting around Thanksgiving. Someone earlier referenced the cyclical nature of lakes, and I think we are in one of those cycles on Wylie. From 2016-2019 the average size we were catching were definitely bigger. 2020 we started seeing the quality start to decline and the last two years there's really been a downswing. We are seeing trends similar to yours with a lot of 9-10" fish and more <9" fish than >10" fish.