Briery Creek 9-1-2011

I’ll keep this short and sweet. Headed out to Briery Creek this morning for the first day of my delayed vacation. Hit the water at 7am (a little later than I had hoped) but fished until 2:15pm.

Started with a large chartreuse and white buzzbait and that got em going. Caught 5 LMB ranging from 10″ to 15.5″ in the first 75mins. Landed 2 more LMB on a wacky rigged 5″ senko in the next 15 mins. From about 8:30am until about 11:30am-ish, things got REALLY cold. I wasn’t spooking, hooking up with, or seeing any fish.

Somewhere around there, I started to find a few and realized the bass in the lilies were also holding to other cover (lay downs); lure of choice for a lily field was none other than a frog, Capt Ken’s Clone. I had a lot of short strikes today and had 4 bass take my frog, fight for 5 to 10 seconds and somehow manage to come unbuttoned.

Around 1:30pm, found some of the ideal “pattern” for the day and threw my clone over. While retrieving I got a huge blowup, so I let it sit. Another blowup but it was a good 2 feet from my clone. I reel it in and wait for about 60 seconds and then throw back over. This time I get a solid hit and I set the hook. Thank goodness this time the fish didn’t come unbuttoned and I land the largest fish of the day, a hair over 18″ and nice and fat.

This is the most success I’ve ever had at Briery; I’ve been skunked several times here. I had my daughter Thursday nigh through Sunday, then Monday is the Salt, Tuesday I’m chasing Snakeheads, and Wednesday is a half day of guided fishing on Mossy Creek!

BTW, Briery in the middle of the week is FANTASTIC. There were only 3 trucks at the ramp when I got there, and I really only saw one other boat all day.

All my pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102799211425946575386/20110911BrieryCreek#

Briery Creek 9-5-2010

I accidentally set the alarm for PM instead of AM but managed to wake myself up at 5:30. Rushed out the door and was on the water by 7:15 at the 701 ramp. There was lots of steam coming off the water as the air temps were about 53 and the water temps about 80 degrees.

As soon as I hit the water, I see baitfish hitting the surface EVERYWHERE. They are in very large schools. I assume something is chasing them so I start casting anything and everything around the fish. Chase them around for about an hour and manage to land 1 skinny 12″ LMB. I finally realize that the bait fish are hitting dead mosquitos that are literally covering the entire surface of the lake.

It was a tough day after that. I called it quits at 1pm. I fished all the lilies I could find, significant structure, etc but it was just a slow day. I only managed 5 strikes, 2 of which were landed. 2 strikes were on the frog, one I just plain missed and one I turned my head to look the other way for just a second. The largest fish of the day never had the hook set well, so it popped right out the second he got a little slack line. I did get a good look at it and it was a 15″ or so, but SKINNY just like the first one.

I’d love to go back and try Briery again, but probably would like someone who’s more familiar with it to provide some guidance. I’m not proficient at fishing deep and I’m assuming this is where they were holding.

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