Santee Lakes - Striking While It's Hot (11/5)

[Latimeria]

decided to drive in today and see if I could get a whooper or a limit.  The line to get in is still brutal after the stocking.



I played with the idea of trying a new spot, but decided on hitting the recent success spot. I grab my rod with the tiny spoon that I caught the trout on yesterday and my first cast and I'm on!  What a beauty!



It had a huge mouth and then I noticed the cuts!  A Friggin Cut-Bow!  (Rainbow/Cutthroat Hybrid)



I made a few more casts before setting up the worm rods and a small gust of wind caught the spoon on one particular long bomb.  f@cking right into a tree!  Ugh... 2# test snapped and I could see the spoon in the branch for the rest of the morning.  There's no way to get it unless I bring down my 15' shark rod and cast to the branch!

Oh well, I set two inflated crawlers out and started to look around.  I saw plenty of bass, but no trout or lightning trout in particular.  It was quite breezy in the morning and leveled out as the morning went on.

I retied a new penny colored tube jig on to be like one of the trout rats and waited.  Then I saw a beautiful trout slowly swim in front of me.  I stayed up on the walkway and pitched out the tube jig and it gulped it down!  What a stunner!



The fins are just amazing on these last two fish and almost looked wild!   The jaw on this thing was crazy!



If I didn't get another bite today, it would have still been a success. 

About 15 minutes goes by and I'm trying to see what is around the shore.  I then look back and only see one strike indicator dangling from the two rods.  I get back to the rods and my line is slack.  I keep reeling and feel nothing until it was there!  This one was more of the big ugly trout truck type of rainbows!



I kept fishing and had 3 more hits. I was totally hooked up with and screaming drag on TWO fish... and all of a sudden they both spit the hook...  These J-Hooks are starting to annoy me, but I don't have any trebles on me.  I apparently ran out of them and never restocked.  Then I had a big bendo on one of my bait rods, but it never stuck and my worm was MIA.

Just then I saw a Lightning trout swimming back and forth in front of me.  Every time I casted the tube jig, it bolted like lightning out of there.  It was really skittish from the birds and fishermen I would assume.  As I casted to it the 12th time, i saw something shoot from the left and grab the tube!  f@ck, not the lightning trout, but a smaller Cut-Bow!  Another one with red "cuts" on the gills!



I was pretty sure I was going to end up with these 4 since things got awfully quiet.  the only fish I saw were big bass and I started casting my bass gear trying to get one to go.  I was ready to call it after texting Dave and Squatch when I noticed a "tick" in my line as the strike indicator slowly dropped.  Just as I was grabbing the rod, the line was tight and fish on!

Now there were a bunch of people around, so stealth was key (even though I'm sure everyone on the lake saw me and I wasn't as stealthy as I liked to believe)

#5




It was the perfect time to leave as I dropped my stringer on the tailgate for one final parting shot.



I stopped at my good bass spot on the way out, but no one was home or they didn't want to cooperate.

I got home and cleaned/Vacuum Sealed all of the fillets.  I need about 4 more to get a full smoker run going!



Thanks for reading!  I was going to go ocean fishing, but those king tides scared me off.  It's also nice only having to travel a 1/2 miles "to and fro" from a fishing trip.  I might even be back tomorrow!

[Tim524]

I called it..........You will catch all of the recently planted fish

Those fillets look really good, that smoked batch is going to be great !