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Posts: 2361
| OK, water temps down here 80 on surface, probably just a thin cap but usually I quit musky fishing about here. So, converting the boat over to summer fishing, and decided to run over to Cumberland and see if we could dig up some bluegills and also if there were some baitable uhm bugle mouth bass over there. Well, caught bluegills, many, all small, in many locations. Had heard there were some better fish over there, but as most of the lakes down here, Cumberland is fairly sterile and not really great gill habitat, and it proved out. Baiting for buglemouths also unsuccessful, and had decided with water temps the way they were, stripers on top were probably not an option either. Well, sitting at the last baiting setup, a somewhat gradual point, and soon to leave, here is a blowup, not rare to see an occassional blowup, but then another then some more and pretty soon there is a full fledged striper break right up against the point and less than a half cast away(anchored on shore). Shame on me, no striper bait on anything and usually I try to keep something with me on striper water. Finally get a minnow bait on and don't catch any of the now gone stripers. Oh well, flunked the boy scout test I guess.
Ok, hot, toward evening, time to go home and we pull in, drop my fishing partner off to walk the 500 feet in elevation to get the truck and back it in. He comes back, and I gently ease the boat onto the trailer, and he cranks and cranks, so finally I figure I better get out and finish cranking, so I get out, as I step out on the boat ramp and am getting ready to crank, my partner says, there's another break right up here! I didn't get it at first and when he repeats it I understand and turn around to find stripers have a big school of gizzard shad right up against the shoreline within casting range of where we are. I stand there, and they start coralling the shad and driving them right along the shore---TOWARD US----. I look again, and there are some NICE fish in this group, probably up in the 32-35" range which will bring them in at 11-15 lbs. I look up, it is a long way up to get in my boat, and I hop up on the trailer to see if I can grab the now rigged casting rod and cast to these fish. The stripers continue to hammer the bait and there are now shad actually flipping out of the water and ending up on shore, as I hop up into the boat, the stripers keep on the shad driving them to the boat dock and around the outside of it. When they get to the other side of the boat dock, they veer back and you know they aren't free yet, sploosh sploosh sploosh, and I get off a couple casts quickly and then  | |
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a series of unfortunate events.