dying to make this happen

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awesome guy
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dying to make this happen

Post by awesome guy »

I've been trying all spring to make my ultimate kayak fishing video. It's all laid out in my mind, with this intro music as she's in the slow paced part of the song I'm paddling along at night ... the menacing aurora of my green SuperNova lights fading in and out of shots as I fight the rapids upstream in the river, building tension as I'm getting to the hunting grounds. Then as she says "nothing ever last for ever" ... it's a slow shot of me bombing a top water bait which is timed to land at the drum hit following the soft "everyone wants to rule the world", I twitch, twitch, and then BOOM! as soon as the music picks up a 40 pound striper blows up my lure! The fish hits and is pulling the line tight just as the song is picking up tempo. The rest are shots of me fighting the current and the fish, being spun in circles, having to paddle backwards to pull the fish out of a bridge pylon, etc ...an epic battle. And then the last "everyone wants to rule the world" is a slow zoom of me holding my monster laid out across my legs.

The only problem ... the damn fish won't hit a top water bait! They're singularly honed into eating herring. So I've only been able to get them with cut bait or swim baits. As I've been anchored up with cut bait, I've been bombing top water and the only action are curious gizzard shad swimming along with it. I had a gar approach it, but it didn't even take it. I've been rotating too from 8-10 inch pencil poppers, top-dogs, she-dogs, zara spooks and they just don't want any of it. It's pissing me off a bit as they were knocking the crap out of these lures in the late fall/early winter. But that was also in the saltwater. I had a 40 inch striper blow the crap out of a super spook under the Little Neck bridge. But this late winter/early spring ... zipo. I've had a lot of great nights subsurface with cut bait, they're just not hitting that top water. Stupid fish, I need my video!



Unvaccinated,. mask free, and still alive.
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awesome guy
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Re: dying to make this happen

Post by awesome guy »

The other night, I had a taker! Well, not really :( I did get a strike right after posting this. And then I had a blowup on the top water, but no hookup. I'm changing the game plan up a bit tonight and am throwing or trolling jerk baits. Likely trolling, the stripers are just about done in RVA as the water temp was 76 Sunday night. They're usually gone for good at 80, so I'm hoping to go out for a last hooray tonight. The ones we got Saturday were half spawned out. But I'm not sure how the biology of time and water temp works. See, because the jacked up spring, the water temp was too cold until mid spring for them to show up. So the striper, shad, white perch, and herring all came in together. They're usually somewhat staggered. There also haven't been any big floods to knock the temps down and so the river has warmed up real fast. I'm not sure if that water temp rise will make them finish the spawn early or if they'll suffer through it because of the timing. I suspect they'll leave with the water temp because it affects their ability to live. And so they may just drop the remaining eggs on the way out. If that's the case, the run is over any day now. Otherwise, we may have a couple nights of epic action as they're all leaving as fast as they can once they hit the right time of squeezing out eggs. I've only had a couple nights of slaughtering them, so thinking there may be a last hooray tonight or the next.
Unvaccinated,. mask free, and still alive.
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