Fished Friday morning from 6AM-11AM with a buddy. We dragged various colors of GS and Top Guns and no flies. Started out shallow at 12-20 ft on riggers and 2-3 colors of lead core and hooked up often but just couldn't bring fish to the boat. Some came unbuttoned on the first jump - others stayed on a bit longer.
If we weren't around bait, we weren't around fish as the day progressed. We'd hit several fish then have to go looking again as they were never in the same spot for long. Our most consistent hits came from 20-30 ft on both leadcore (5-6 colors) and riggers.
The water conditions were the big story. Considering how calm the winds were, the lake was VERY bumpy. Good sized waves made reading the boards tough. We did better with the wind to our backs where we were doing about 2.5-2.8 than when going into the wind at 1.8-2 mph. Surface temps in the Broads was around 70 but it felt colder (I wouldn't wanted to have gone swimming).
We did well anytime we came out of deep water onto humps at 35-40 feet but if we did that close to shore, we got into smallies so we had to stay at least a couple half a mile from land.
All fish were 2 and 3 year old class, fat and healthy and VERY feisty. Nothing shorter than 17 inches came in and most fish were 18-20 inches. We saw more tail-walking than I've ever experienced in one day on the lake. One fish must have tail walked 10 feet on the water across my spread.
The bite really seemed to pick up around 10AM but we had to pack up at 11 so we left the fish still hungry for our lures.
Only one other boat coming out of our marina in the morning but there were 4-5 around our area when we got out. By 9AM, we were alone in our area. It was nice to see the lake pretty free of boat traffic.
