Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! We had a great Christmas with Family and Friends. Me and my wife announced to our families that we are expecting a new fishing buddy in July 2015. This is our first baby and were are beyond excited!

With a week off from work I decided to take advantage of some free time and hit the water. The conditions were less than desirable to say the least, but for the most part, the fish cooperated. The Sunday before Christmas I took a few friends out and we started the morning at dawn looking for stripers. We found some fish, but never found any willing to take our offerings. At about 10 AM we gave up, broke out some jig poles, and caught some fish. We kept 19 crappie and a handful of bream. Fish were caught jigging brush in 13 FOW on black/chart jigs tipped with minnows. We were off the water by noon. Although they were happy with our catch I wasn't completely satisfied. Most of what we caught were in the 9" range so I started devising a plan for Monday Morning.

My buddy with a couple eaters he boated.

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Monday morning I put the rod holders on the boat and headed to the back waters for some spiderrigging. Before it was good light I had my first fish on. A little while later my drag started singing I thought I had a striper on. Much to my surprise it was a 2 lb 3 oz buck fish! I turned the boat around and when back through the area and picked up 2 more crappie and lost a 3rd. I really thought I was on to something and then all the action stopped. I had about 10 more bites that I never hooked and boated 2 keeper stripers (the biggest being 7.5 lbs). The crappie were shallow. Holding about 6 foot down in 20 FOW. I have always struggled to catch the shallow fish because they hit the bait so aggressively. It was really very similar to trips I expect to have in March or April when fish are headed to the banks. Regardless, it confirmed my thought that the big fish are mixed in with the stripers and chasing bait. Why they shut down so early is beyond me...

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Tuesday morning I broke the jig poles back out and fished brush closer to the split in the rivers. Lots of fish were caught and a limit was kept. The size was very similar to Sunday's brush fish with only a couple nice fish in the mix. I fished brush in 13-25 FOW and caught fish at nearly every stop. Black/chart. tipped with a minnow seemed to be the ticket again and I found fish to be holding 12 feet down at nearly every stop.

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I didn't fish Wednesday or Thursday, but I was ready for action Friday morning. After all the rains muddied up my area of the lake I trailered the boat to mid-lake and started my hunt for the infamous White Perch! My dad and uncle joined me and we had a great time. It didn't take long to locate fish under schools of bait and we started bumping spoons and fishing minnows 2 cranks off the bottom. Shortly before noon we called off our efforts with 49 perch and a catfish in the cooler. Spoons were equally as productive as minnows and fish were caught in 50 FOW.

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Sunday afternoon I took the bride out with me and we went back in the perch battle grounds for another round. We didn't have long to fish, but in 2 hours we put 42 perch in the cooler for a nice mess. Minnows by far outshined the spoons and most fish were caught in 45 FOW. The perch are very scattered and moving a lot with the bait balls, but when you find them it's fast paced action. It is definitely one of my favorite ways to fish!

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Hope everyone has a great New Year and gets to slime the boat down a bunch in 2015!

Tight Lines to All