Fall Fishing Nets A Monster Fish

I’m hearing from a few reservoirs around the state that the fall pattern is starting to show itself. Slabs and blade baits are producing some fish once in a while, and it’ll only improve. Big Mac remains slow from what I’ve heard from numerous friends. A blade bait did produce a 63 pound flathead for my friends at Sherman Reservoir last week, though. What a blast that had to be!

The Big Flathead Fish.

Elwood is still a bit behind, it seems. We looked for fish on the graph for a little while, and tried some of our go-to spots, and the hardest part was trying to differentiate between all the bait on the screen and active fish. Almost everywhere we went, there was bait. A few places looked promising next to drop offs, so we anchored up and put some fresh shad down in 45 feet of water. It wasn’t long before we had a few bites, and my friend set the hook on one. Turned out to be a nice three pound channel cat. They were being real tentative and not committing to the bait at all. We lost several others as they were holding onto the shad long enough for you to feel it, but would then let go. We decided with a slow bite that we’d try something else.

My friend Grant and I loaded the boat and headed over to the Tri County Canal where I often fish. We tried some trolling and picked up another channel cat, and things slowed down again. Until….that one bite. The leadcore tightened up, then slack, then tight again. As Grant grabbed the rod, the fish finally realized he was hooked, and then the fight was on. I don’t know how long it took us to get him in, but I would wager a guess on about 15 minutes or so.

Grant just moved back here from Hawaii, so this was a pretty new experience for him, and entertaining for me. I told him what to expect as I was certain it was a big flathead. Not until the fish surfaced did he believe me, which made things more interesting. After helping Grant with some drag settings on the reel, I finally netted the fish, if that’s what you want to call it. The fish did not fit real well, and I was trying not to let him flip back in and snap the line. Grant grabbed one side of the net and we finally wrestled him into the boat. The monster fish (pictured above with Grant) went 45” long with a girth of 27.”

My scale turned out to be less than reliable, so using a few charts found on the internet puts the fish at about 44 pounds, which I feel comfortable with. The body was full and it was a very healthy fish, so who knows, it may have hit 45 or 46. After smiling for some pictures, we watched as it flipped water at us with its monstrous tail. The crankbait was not very deep in his mouth and just ahead of his gills, so it was a nice clean release. Of course we hope to see that fish again next year when it’ll be over 50 pounds.

Of course, the next day we headed back out and tried for more, only to strike out. We did lose a real nice sauger close to the boat, as well as a nice crappie. Managing a few channel cats and white bass on cranks was enough to keep it interesting on an otherwise slow day.

The temps look stable for the immediate future, which I believe will keep things slow to average on the water. Once we get that cold snap, look out. I still say chances are good that we’ll have an outstanding fall bite, but we need to have that cold snap for things to really go crazy. Enjoy the weather while you can--we all know what’s coming.

-population-we™ blog post by Brian Robinson

© 2014 population-we, LLC 
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Fall Fishing Tips

Though the weather has turned colder now, the fishing action has remained hot. The water temperatures have varied anywhere from 41 to 46 in the areas we’ve been fishing in Nebraska, but the fish have yet to slow down.

At the Tri County canal system, the saugers are gathered in somewhat predictable areas and definitely stocking up for winter. We found them in water from 12 to 30 foot deep. With the water temps down to 41 degrees, it’s safe to say the chilly weather out west brought us some mighty cold water. The fish did not seem to care. Saugers are like walleyes in that sometimes they can be picky about what you can catch them on. But this wasn’t the case for us, which was a nice change of pace. We caught them on jig/plastic combos, slab spoons and blade baits. The most interesting part of our day was that not one walleye was boated. Saugers typically relate to areas with current and are usually found deeper in holes than walleyes, but it was clear they had this area completely taken over.

A variety of crankbaits.

Fall fishing is well known for being a great opportunity to catch trophy fish and this year has been no different. A variety of tactics will work, such as trolling crankbaits, casting crankbaits, even dragging live bait. But a real go-to this time of year is slabbing. Slabbing is using a variety of lead and metal spoons with a vertical jigging presentation to imitate dying bait fish. As these fish fall to the bottom, predators are there to feed on them. The biggest key, as stated before, is to find the fish using your sonar units. Once you’ve done that, the real fun can begin.

Slabbing is a tactic that’s very popular on area reservoirs like Harlan, McConaughy, Johnson, Elwood and Sherman. We have fished a few of these areas and had mixed results. Some days have been outstanding, while others have been a bit of a struggle. Fish locations in the fall do change by the day in some areas, and we’ve even seen them change by the hour. When we have found large pods of predators feeding on shad and alewives, we have done well on numbers of white bass, wipers, smallmouth bass, and walleyes. On the flip side, when the fish are difficult to locate, our success has been far less. To illustrate this point, earlier this week, two of us boated a drum, a crappie, 10 wipers up to 24 inches and well over 50 white bass up to 16 inches. The very next day on the same water, two of us struggled to find three wipers and nine white bass.

Another great way to catch fish in the fall is to fish at night; especially, during periods related to a full moon. Night trolling can be very effective at times. Long lining stick baits such as Rapala Husky Jerks, Original Floating Rapalas, Shallow Shad Raps, Smithwich Rogues and Storm Thundersticks are all great baits to start with. Throwing these same baits from the shore in shallow rocky areas may be an even better tactic to target trophy fish.

Now that we’ve had our first snow of the winter season, the water temps are sure to be near freezing in some areas. I’ve even heard reports of ice starting to form on some lakes. With time off around the upcoming holiday weekend, we hope that some of the weather will allow us to get on the water another day or two, and see if we’re able to put any more fish in the boat before it’s put away for the winter. We’ll see you out there.

(Editor's note: Welcome to our newest pop-we contributor--Brian Robinson! Join Brian as he chronicles his passion for fishing the Midwest waterways of Nebraska. Learn more about Brian at this link.)

-population-we™ blog post by Brian Robinson

© 2013 population-we, LLC 
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