friday nite

[bunker dunker]

hit the lake at 10pm and headed to our first spot.we knew it was early but you fish when you can fish.start casting around but way to quite so we head to the next spot.much better as we have herring doing the happy dance all around us but nothing blowing up on them.we work this area for awhile but no
takers.head to the next spot and the same lots of bait but no fish.my friend says lets take a ride and off we go.we pull up the spot around 12:30pm.not a ripple or sign of life but since we were there we started casting.it was not to long before my friend hooks up with a nice hybrid.fish released and back to casting when he misses a another one.as we are laughing about the fish getting away I get smashed by a nice eyeball and after a short fight the fish is released.around 1am I have to leave so my friend drops me off and heads back
and catches 5 more hybrids and a good walleye.he finished up around 3am.it crazy how we had bait in 2 spots but no fish and the spot with the least amount of bait was best.i guess that's just fishing.

[NJSquatch]

very similar experience Sat night after the storms rolled through....no splashing until around midnight...fish starting blowing up shortly after but were not very interested in our lures....i did land 1 20" eyeball...had to call it a night at 1:30....i wish we stuck it out longer

[nate01]

I also experienced that Saturday night. Got on the water at 8, by 9:30 I had a largemouth, a pickerel, and a rock bass on plastics. By 10:30 I had a 20 inch walleye and lost another, thinking it was just another clump of weeds. Herring dancing started at midnight, a few blow-ups but not a ton, and not another touch for me before I left at 4am. Was a good time, but thought I was in for a banner night. Even tried floating a live herring with no love. Squatch you probably didn't miss much after 1:30.

1. What's up with all the floating weeds? Can't even work topwater without plucking stuff off the lure every other cast
2. How do you keep those herring alive? I had two usable survivors out of a dozen, and I changed the water every 30 min or so.
3. How do you get fish to hit a lure when there is real bait everywhere? It gets my adrenaline going and I never want to leave when I know fish are chasing bait around me, but it always seems to shut the lure bite off for me, whether I'm slow-working a stickbait or throwing a popper.

[NJSquatch]

Originally Posted by nate01

1. What's up with all the floating weeds? Can't even work topwater without plucking stuff off the lure every other cast

Welcome to summer fishing on the puddle. All the boat traffic cuts up the weeds near the surface and the chopped weeds become floating mats of annoyance.

2. How do you keep those herring alive? I had two usable survivors out of a dozen, and I changed the water every 30 min or so.

They are a PIA.
http://www.njfishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69505

3. How do you get fish to hit a lure when there is real bait everywhere? It gets my adrenaline going and I never want to leave when I know fish are chasing bait around me, but it always seems to shut the lure bite off for me, whether I'm slow-working a stickbait or throwing a popper.

Please let me know when you figure this out.

[bunker dunker]

should really be a good week with the west wind finally coming.should get things going a little better.

[Chrisper4694]

everything i've caught has been on a lure at night. I very rarely use live bait at night, usually only if the person i'm with wants to (or if catfishing obviously). the right lure in the right way is far superior to live bait in many situations if you ask me. It's much easier to make a lure stand out with all that bait than to make another bait stand out in all that bait.

We all run into that same problem with the busting all over and no hits...live bait isn't really the answer in my opinion. Try different lures.

[bunker dunker]

agreed on the lures over bait at night

[skippy]

I haven't fished live bait in a long time, but when I did putting ice in the water kept it cooler and the fish alive longer.



2. How do you keep those herring alive? I had two usable survivors out of a dozen, and I changed the water every 30 min or so.

[icebadger]

cool report captain ,go figure with the herring doing that happy dance you would think it's going to be good there,perhaps they got their fill already who knows. but you still landed some fish and avoided the skunkin.how are you doing with the flatties any door mats yet?

[Jigman13]

Nate, Make adjustments to everything you are doing to get them to strike. Cadence, speed, pauses, snaps, twitches, etc. Maybe you're just not throwing the right lures???