Back Again

Smith Lake

Mike Walker on Smith lake June 6th, 2011 Ding, ding, ding, round 2 under the lights. Thanks to a great night before one of my clients, Art Husband, called me the following morning and ask if I could take his father in-law out that evening. Guess the tales of the night before pulled him in. I told him that would be no problem because I had no trip planned. I got a call from Fred Thompson around lunch.  Fred told me he lived on Smith Lake also and couldn't have his son in-law showing him up every weekend.  Fred let me know he was familiar with the lake and was interested in learning some different technics. We launched from Ryan Creek Marina at 6:00pm. We headed to an area where some big schools of stripe have been for weeks. It took a little bit of driving to locate them, but once we did it was game on. Fred was using a custom made swimbait by yours truely. On our first pass, Fred hook up with a 4 pound stripe. Not a bad fish, just not what we were looking for. Almost every pass we hooked up, but our biggest fish was 8 pounds. I made a decison to leave and use the last part of daylight to hunt for bigger fish.  We stopped at two more spots and none yielded any fish bigger than 6 pounds.  By that time dark had set in.  We headed for one of the hottest lights on Smith Lake. Stripes have been active for several days on this light and feed pretty good for a couple hours. While a lot of lights recieve high pressure, this light recieves very little to none. The light is off the water and is not that bright. It gives off good light, but far less then most fished on the lake.  When we got there we could see stripes swimming through the light. We threw all different baits, but could not get them to bite. We also saw tons of crappie rolling on their side through the light.  There were also some small bait fish. We had some small tuffy minnows, so I handed him one of my crappie set ups.  It's a 7'6" ml spinning rod with 6 lb. flurocarbin line.  I use the heavier rod and line when fishing the lights because with all the stripe you need it.  Fred said he got a bite and before he could say anything else his rod almost doubled over. When the fish knew he was hooked he went on a deep long run. I told Fred to be   patient, that he hooked a good one with 6 lb. test and a small bream hook.   After twenty minutes of the fish making deep runs, we finally got him up to@ the top. It was a 23 lb. stripe, not bad for 6 pound test if you ask me. That was the biggest stripe of the night. He ended up catching 3 more off that light weighing 4, 9, and 12 lbs.  We hit a few more lights after that to put some crappie in the cooler.   He was happy with the evening and he was getting tired.  So we headed back a little early.  Another good night on Smith Lake, and thanks again Art. Mike Walker (205)503-2020 www.fishing24-7guideservice.com

Troy

troycreasy

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