Afternoon Memorial Day trout ...
 

Fiancé and I decided on a last minute trip to Big Lake this afternoon. Glad we did. She doesn't fish but enjoys being out there ... And coloring lol. Figured I needed to head south with the way this year has been. Found a few birds working and caught a few smaller trout with only a couple keepers. After that played out we made a move and found better water and a gift ! A few cast later I noticed to my right there was shrimp jumping out the water and was watching trout busting them up. I immediately shut off my electronics and trolled around them and made a decent drift with the tide and wind moving with them being as quiet as possible. When it was all said and done and making a second drift I had my 15 and landed a good 25-30 there. Roughly 40+ for the afternoon. I don't get lucky like that often and ran back in wondering what did I do to deserve that !? A Little John made it easy to cast at distance and quick to release and get back in fast.

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I did notice something that had me curious about today ( or should I say yesterday since it's after midnight ) If you look at the fin on one of the fish I kept and the back of another ... They seemed to be banged up a bit. I turned loose several fish 16/18" that look like they had been to war. They seemed to be beat up more than normal ? Also the smaller fish off the birds were clean cut. Any rhyme or reason to that ?

Great trip and report.

Nice day. Good work.


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Nice trip, no idea why they beat up like that. Could be from a trawl net.

You said, "I immediately shut off my electronics." I'm curious as to why?

Spawning

Thanks guys ! Appreciate it.

Didn't think about that.

Some of the fish had what looked like clean knife cuts ... Some had fins beat up on their side and a couple really looked bad with what looked like clean shaved spots the size of a silver dollar missing.

I don't know if this makes a difference or not but I get OCD about noise sometimes. I turn off my electronics to stop the sonar pings in the water. I try to use my TM least a possible and make minimal impact/sound to the hull of the boat. I already have to deal with a lot of wave slap being in a tin rig so I do what I can to minimize sound. Sometimes I net my trout instead of boat flipping them so I don't have them beating and banging in the bottom of the boat and can reach in grab them.

I do the same when bass fish sometimes. Especially when night fishing and things have quitened down on the lake. If ever you jump in the water at Toledo Bend and get under your boat you would be surprised at how much ping noise 2 electronics running can emit.

I hope this is the reason ...

Way to get'm!!

I fished yesterday afternoon also. I was on a good bite for about an hour and noticed that gafftop were chasing our trout all the way back to the boat as we reeled them in. One of the largest gafftop that I have ever seen sucked a 16 inch trout right off of my line as i started to flip that trout into the boat. Some of our smaller trout had war wounds similar to what you described. Maybe this was happening with your group of fish also?

Crazy right there ! I didn't notice any Gaff ... but definitely will be watching out for them. Thanks for the info ! That sure could be another possibility.

Update ... I kept those fish for a friend of mine. He just sent me a pic. after cleaning and said just about every one of them was full of eggs. So definitely a possibility.

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probably spawning man. I'll sometimes catch them like that around this time of year

There are lots of little oysters on the bottom and when they fan their beds it will do that to the tails

you need more patience to do that adult coloring book than you need to fish.. I can promise you that. My wife bought me one and I hate it! Its way too hard! lol

Ahhh ! Makes good sense. Thanks for the input !

Well with you sharing that bit of info I think in the evenings I'll just keep cleaning reels or changing out hooks on crankbaits while she colors....:rotfl:

We do fishing forums and she does coloring forums. Some of them issue a challenge to use certain colors and see what they each come up with. She sometimes uses some of my lures for inspiration ...

Here's one she did using a Xcaliber Xr50 in Oxbow colors.

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Dang! Looks like she has the touch! That's badass!