Mexico: Only got out once last week...

[rswanson330]

We rented a camper in Catfish Creek for the week of April 18-25.

We kind of picked the wrong week.  

First time out was Monday morning, and it was a beautiful day.
That was the season shakedown, and was not without incident.

(If you decide to swap from wire to braid on your downrigger, do NOT use Cannon terminal hardware to secure the ball... It slips).

We fished west of the plant in 8-20' Monday morning with only a 16" fall fish to show for it. 

Then we tried dropping down for lakers and lost a ball.   Not cool.

So, with my buddy forgetting the lunch meat anyway, we back to Catfish and took a ride to town and picked up a new ball, then headed back out.

We lost a nice laker at the boat in 180' off the plant.  That seems to be where they are now, we tried from 140, but everybody else was out at about 180 too.

My excuse for losing the fish is that I had re-webbed my net with rubber netting.  Its only half as deep as the original nylon and drags a lot more, the fish was in it and jumped back out again.

And for reasons I don't quite understand, it decided to throw the hook and go back to the bottom of the lake.
I'll stick with nylon netting for bigger fish, rubber is great for streams but (in my opinion) sucks for trolling bigger fish.

The rest of the week sucked.

Tuesday morning we went out for browns as the wind and lake were picking up.

It was difficult keeping the boards working in my 19' V-hull, the wind would catch the bow and the next thing you know one board is just sitting there and the other one skitting across the waves.

We started the day headed east but were moving too quickly.
Realizing that it was going to be a rough ride back we turned around and slowly headed to the pocket behind the point just east of the plant.

In there we were able to manage the boat , but there was a lot of junk in the water that fouled the hooks.   
We packed it in at 11:30, and just BARELY made it in thru the washing machine in the mouth of the channel to Catfish.

Everything is low and we had to keep our engine up... Navigation was quite challenging.

After that we never got out again.

We waited it out because it was supposed to lay down for Saturday, but when we went to Mexico Point to take a look around 9:00 Saturday morning it was still sketchy and the forecast was changing for the worse, so we pulled stakes and headed home.
I've had good years, I've had bad years...
But this year was an all time low.

C'est la vie.

[fisherman21]

You can get a deep bag rubber coated net. Both beckman and ranger make great ones


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[Gill-T]

For your braid downrigger cable, just wrap the braid twice around the terminal swivel then improved clinch knot. For an added sense of security, I tie an overhand knot in the tag end and burn the end. The burnt end would stop catastrophic slipping and losing your gear. Saves money on termination but only if you tie the right knot lol. 

[MCF]

Have had several August fall derby trips that fell into the one or two shots at getting out.

[Zinger11]

Heading up to Catfish this week getting out to the lake can be tricky enough even when water levels are normal

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[KevinFarrell]

If it makes you feel any better, even with perfect weather you likely would have struggled with catching anything but lakers.  Its really been a down year for browns.