Hybrid Striperpalooza!

It's been a strange fall. The water temps are 10 degrees higher than they should be this time of year. The light is suggesting it's time to for the fish move up into the creeks to begin feeding up for the winter slowdown. The water is telling them a different story. It's an odd time to be a fish and also to find a fish. Scattered is the name of the game right now for most of the lake. Which is why persistence and patient are in order. This weekend we had the Maner and the Susko families out looking for cats, hybrids and spotted bass to eat. In almost every location we caught fish, just not very many. We could spot the fish, but we could not make them bite like they should have. But in the end, you keep moving with a fish here, a fish there and eventually you end up with filets in a bag, just not as many as we might have hoped. This should give us some confidence that when the water temps finally drop into the mid and low 60s, the feeding frenzy will begin!

Had Toni on the boat Friday with his parents Hans and Marlies who were visiting from Germany, along with Toni's FiL Jaime. Huge cold front on Wednesday and Thursday made me worry we might not catch a fish, but it turned into a fine day on the water. Hans and Marlies like to hold a rod when they fish, so instead of trolling, we spotlocked on a couple points known for producing eater fish and downlined baits all morning. Caught a mess of eater channel cats and 10-15 hybrids, a lot of fun on ultra-light tackle. Mom and Dad are a little short on conversational English, but they certainly knew how to point to a rod going down and yell "FISH!" Quite surprised to see how adept Marlies was at untangling lines. When hybrids are zooming all around the boat on the way to the net, they can create a Gordian Knot in no time. She always jumped right in and started work at pulling the knots apart. I may have to hire her as first mate next time they visit. I gave them a couple of suggestions on preparing the fish for dinner that night, and word is they really enjoyed the Lake Norman bounty! Hans also boated one of the biggest bull stickfish ever to come in the boat after a long battle. We did not keep it for dinner. ;)

I had Joshua and Natalie out hybrid hunting today on Mighty LKN. We started at first light to try and get a jump on the Labor Day boat traffic. Bite started off slowly, but at our second location, I pitched a spoon towards a rocky point and had an immediate hook up on a decent fish. Handed the rod the to Natalie, and that's when I learned-- Natalie is terrified of fish. No particular trauma--she was never chased down the street as a child by a blue marlin, or anything...but the idea of reeling in the fish and being in the boat with it flopping around kind of freaked her out. Which was kind of funny, given that we were on a "fishing" trip, but that made the day a more interesting challenge. That first fish ended up being a 7 pound blue cat, which was a big wiggly fish start to her day. The next few were all hybrid stripers, and as the day wore on, Natalie began to rally. I told her it was like allergy shots. Each fish made the next one a little easier. By the end of the day we had 25-30 hybrids in the boat and Natalie was beginning to not only reel in her own fish, she was going to the rod holder, picking up the rod and giving the fish as good a battle as it was giving her. I couldn't have been happier for her sticking with it and getting just a little braver with each fish. We still couldn't get her to hold up her fish for the photo,and sticking her thumb in its mouth and lipping it was right out! Baby steps. Next time, we'll work on using the fish grip pliers, and then unhooking the fish herself. Well...maybe not, but you gotta have a dream, right?