night fishing on Cedar Creek

With lake finally reaching normal level after being down several feet over the past few years, now is the time to try some night fishing for Hybrid Stripers and White BASS. Many of the private docks on this lake have working night lights that will not only attract bugs but also bait fish that will feed on these small bugs which in turn will bring in bigger fish to feed on the bait fish.

When fishing these lit docks it is important to position boat a fair distance from the light, since it is usually shallow on the end of these docks it is important not to disturb the feeding fish.

Small lures like a Road runner or a Creme lil' Fishie are great swim baits to use in and around these lights, also larger baits like a rattletrap will work fairly well, but many times the game fish will feed on bait fish like small minnows, so it is important to match what they are feeding on.

Most dock have white flood lights, but a few have white spotlights, which is even better since it shoot a beam over a spot on the water surface and the feeding fish will park theirself right beside the lit area and ambush anything that swims into the lit area.

Night fishing is not for everyone, but it is a different and relaxing style of fishing, light boat traffic and no sunburn.

March Hybrids

As opposed to last March when Cedar Creek Lake was virtually shutdown due to high, muddy, cold water, this march is shaping up to be the exact opposite. Lake is at 58 degrees, fairly clear, and 2.5 ft. low as of this writing. And with this rapid warmup we have had the last weeks, fish are on a good pattern. Yesterday's trip found working Seagulls over Hybrids in 24 ft. of water, chartreuse Sassy Shads yielded limits to 7 lbs. Sandies were stacking up on lower lake humps and ridges in 18 to 22 ft. of water. Chartreuse and chrome slabs from Moe's Tackleshop fished vertically are working well. On windy days, we drift more, and on calmer days, we use the trolling motor to keep us on top of the fish.
Crappie are beginning to get thick around docks and piers in 4 to 8 ft. of water on red/char tube jigs.
Now is a great time to go, weather permitting of course, mother winter is not done with us quite yet, lake is not crowded, and with rising fuel costs it will be just a matter of time before I will have to adjust rates to compensate.

Cedar Creek alive and well

Well after a horrible, wet, cold, rainy, snowy, windy, muddy end of winter, things are finally getting back on track. I spent most of March postponing trips, am glad I did, as late as early last week still did not have a good bite on anything. It's amazing how a week of warm, windy weather improves things. I ran 3 trips over this last weekend and had limits of big Whites and also a couple of limits of Hybrid Stripers averaging about 5 lb.s. I'm catching Whites on the Moe's Triple S Slab in chartreuse as well as the chartreuse casting spoon from T.N.T. Lures, both of these baits work extremely well in dirty water conditions. Also got lot of schooling fish on a 4 inch Sassy Shad in day/glo and speckled chartreuse also from Moe'sTackleShop.com. With the cloudy, windy days we have been having, it's just a matter of following the birds.
I also did a little Crappie fishing, found some nice sized Males holding next to concrete retaining walls in 2 ft. of water, I don't minnow fish but use jigs in many colors to fish many structures, Monday caught most of them on a bobber/jig combo fished parallel to the retaining walls.
As the water temp continues to warm will be soon throwing Rattletrap like lures next to windblown retaining walls, Shad will be spawning and will be right next to these walls and so will be the fish, precise casts are a must and have your drag set accordingly.
the next couple of months should be sensational for whatever fish your wanting to catch, if you need any help or just want a guide to show you the lake or don't have a large enough boat, give me a shout and let's go fishing.

Fall Fishing on Cedar Creek Lake

Cooler weather means easy fishing and fish can will be caught on many different methods. I will discuss a few.

Sandies will stack up on the humps anywhere from 15-22 ft. and will be aggressively feeding on shad to fatten up for the colder months ahead. Slabs are always good this time of year, Moe's Triple S in the 1 oz. size will work as well as the chartreuse casting spoon from T.N.T. Lures .com, also his silver 180 is deadly, just mark fish on your sonar and raise your rod up.

Another method is something I've recently learned and that is anchoring your boat on a hump, drop anchor upwind of where the fish are and use a No. 2 Mepps inline spinner, use a 1/4 oz. pinch weight about a foot above the lure and make a lone cast to where the fish are stacked let it fall to the bottom take up the slack and use a steady retrieve back to the boat, this method is a finesse way of fishing but it works.

The famed hell/pet rig still works and will continue until water drops into mid 60's.

Also the Sassy Shad bite on Hybrids will improve as we get cool/cloudy fall days, watch for diving Loons and or circling Gulls to lead you to the fish . Moe's Tackle Shop has a large variety of Swim Baits to choose from.

Crappie will also be on a bite, vertically fished jigs in many patterns over brushpiles will work. Find some of these piles in sheltered coves and leeward banks anywhere from 8 to 20 ft. of water, if your not sure what they look like on your graph, drop a slab over the boat that you don't mind losing and if it hangs up then what you saw is brush.

Also shaded boathouses and bridge pillars will hold lots of fish, but with the boathouses you will just have to learn which ones hold fish, again look for shaded ones that are somewhat deeper and if they have wood supports that is even better.

For those who enjoy the serenity of night fishing this can be the time of year when on any given night you might catch Largemouth Bass, White Bass, Yellow Bass, and Hybrid Stripers in short order. Fish main lake lit docks and piers with small swimbaits, make sure boat is away from dock and make cast past the lit area, then retrieve it slow to medium.

hell/pet time

During the hot summer months when the slab bite can get slow at best and you can read your sonar and see fish stacked up on the bottom, what is happening is this, the fish aren't hungry and won't rise up and bite a slab but if something wiggles past them like a pet spoon trailed behind a Hellbender or Jet Diver or anything that can get a bait down to 15 ft. will work.
Here is how I do and for those of you that have fished with me before you should have pleasant memories of the damage that can be done by fishing this way. First take the hellbender, most of the time when you buy one 2 treble hooks will be attached to it, screw them out, I put the screw with hook attached in a vice and then use a pair of longnose pliers to bend the screw to be able to get the hook out, which we discard both hooks, then attach a 3/4 oz. crappie weight to front screw, bend it back straight and re screw it into the front hole of bottom of hellbender. Now gently bend the lip of the hellbender slightly to make lip bend down a little past straight, not too much but it will enable hellbender to dive even deeper. Now take about 4 to 6 ft. of line and attach it to the rear of the hellbender and tie on a a petspoon or smething similiar, crappie jigs will work but are easy bendable and will lose large fish, small rooster tails will also work but hooks are so small and many fish are also lost.
Now before you start trolling drop bait about 8 ft. behind boat and put engine into forward and go about 5 mph see how bait is trolling if it is pulling hard to either the left or right, take a pair of pliers and bend the eyelet on the lip of hellbender the opposite direction, experiment until it runs straight.
Now for the trolling part, if your in 15 ft. of water let out about 15 seconds of line or about 45 -50 ft., you don't want to be banging bottom or you will get hung up a lot and lose baits and they are not cheap. If your in 20 ft. of water let about 20 seconds of line, you should get the idea by now. If you are on a hump make you sure you start out about 50 ft. from crest of hump, that way your baits will be all of the way down before you hit the crest of the hump, watch your sonar and when you see fish marks, hold on!

Fish not on humps

For the last couple of weeks been getting lots of big Sandies and nice Hybrids away from humps, points, etc... Been finding them suspended in deep water midlake, water as deep as 42 ft. fish wil be 8-12 ft. off of bottom. The way to catch them is use a large 1.5-2 oz. jigging spoon such as a T.N.T. slab and drop it and then rip it back up. Also using a large 1 oz. Sassy Shad retrieved quickly off of the bottom will induce strikes from these suspended fish. Recently I had a trip and could not find any fish on any of my favorite humps, just happened to mark some on my sonar then we spend the next 2 hrs limiting on Whites with several nice Hybrids to boot. You can also troll these deeper waters, the famed hell/pet combo will work and also deep diving crankbiats like a dd-22.
It is just matter of a couple of weeks before these fish will begin to stack up shallow on their summer spots, shallow humps 13-17 ft. will hold schools of these fish, then it gets a lot easier finding them.

Either shallow or deep

I'm getting limits of big Sandies and small to large Hybrids shallow early, topwaters, rattletraps around windblown points/retaining walls or deep humps, points midday, 26-32 feet, with most fish 4-5 ft. above the bottom. You might want to tie on a jig or even two above your slab and see what happens, doubles/triples fairly common. Just make sure you tie good knots and go to heavier line, several fish on at once with several knots will greatly weaken line strength.
Even been hitting some deep, shaded docks for Crappie and doing quite well, but about 3 to 1 undersized fish to each keeper. Oh well jigs are cheap compared to minnows.