River fishing
 

Went and put in near the steam plant. Wanted to see if I could catch the Walleye and Sauger I have heard about. Had plenty of bites, though most of the bites were suttle. Managed to land my fist Tennessee sauger this morning. Unfortunarely he was 1/2 inch shy of legal. Gonna have to try that again soon.

Yep ! <'TK><
 

The more you go and explore the river, the easier it becomes. In my opinion, river fish (when there is current) will always bite IF you are offering what they want. Ive had to change jig colors for saugers as the day went on. Fish never moved, but either light penetration or mood or whatever...but a change in color can mean the difference between dinks/keepers or fillets/empty livewell and a sore arm. Lol.
Pick a good 3-4 mile stretch of river on navionics and break it down hardcore. Any little hump or hole may have fish. And saugers dont always show up on even the best electronics. My experience is also you dont have to contend with big snaggy rocks to catch saugers. Gravel/shell beds in my experience are way better and less costly. Lol.
Good job on your first.....now ya got the fever! Lol.

I went with TN last year I think to try my hand at sauger, the most frustrating fishing I've done. Most of the bites are so light and subtle that I only noticed it was a bite after i missed the fish. There were a few cuss words said that day. I really did enjoy the trip though. Keep at it Jaybird, some of the best eating fish I've ever had.

I've seen juice fish....he thinks a striper slamming a skippie is subtle

Give me a weekend or 2 to finalze a few things and we will hit it again. Its gonna be....wait for it.......EPIC!
Hopefully we can add some footage to the video im making....instructional type video for youtube.

Have the dump button ready!

I fished for them pretty hard yesterday. When the current picked up we started catching them. When is stopped so did the bite. Ended up with 3 sauger and a walleye.

For sure. Luckily, TN Bronzeback gave me some pointers on where to fish these otherwise I would have been lost on where to even start. Like TN BB, I am a yankee so I have eaten a few of these in my life. What I found yesterday is when I thought I was dragging bottom, I would set the hook. Sometimes it was a fish and sometimes it wasn't but if I didn't do that, I was simply feeding them

Where we were fishing there was not much current at all. I actually was using the trolling motor to keep us mobile

Its a totally difderent ball game when there is current. They become opportunistic feeders and have to chomp or let it go by with a little tear in thier fishy eye worrying when thier next meal is gonna float by.

Damn, T BB that is almost poetry they way you worded that

Im gonna call it: An Ode To Sauger.
Its gonna go platinum. $1.99 on amazon. Lol

LMAO! Classic.. I'd give $2 for it.

I went back out today.. bounced jigs for 5 hrs. Caught 1 keeper sauger... did manage to get my hook bent back on two different occasions. First was a striper I never saw. It just took off and never looked back.. the second was a 40 lb flat head we managed to get a glimpse of until it broke my stinger hook.