Deer Creek, dear on Fri. - notes to self

I haven't been out recently, but my son and I were able to hit Deer Creek on Friday to be able to make a worthy report. The Berry seemed a little far to go, since my best intel efforts left me with tepid expectations due to the recent weather conditions. But, we really wanted to get out on the water. We arrived at the at the island ramp brisk and early. OK, I lied, it was at 11 AM, well... actually, it was more like 2 PM... But man, the extra sleep felt good!!

The thought hadn't occurred to me of just how the low water levels might affect launching. It was significant. I've never seen the lake so low and I was surprised there was still cement ramp that far down! Some fellows were launching their pontoon boat as we arrived, and the ramp leveled out and their large truck had to back 8-10 yards into the water. (They said they'd been to the Berry, but weren't catching so they thought they'd try DC. Gotta love it when my own guestimation on location has merit. Hopefully we made the right choice the first time.)

I backed my van in up to its doors and even taking in water in the back, and I still had to push my small boat off the trailer... (First note to self: "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea...") Fortunately, the prop wasn't hitting bottom, but it may have if I pulled the boat up to the side of the dock. I went to park and my son had his head down hooking up the sonar and making preps in the front of the boat when I jumped in the back. The weight shifted and my feet splashed. Well... that was unexpected. The cooler, tool chest and gas tank were floating. (Second note to self: "You really should have put that plug in the boat back in the driveway when you thought of it..." Third note: "Maybe this trip wasn't such a good idea... part deux")

After some bailing we were on our way to the west of the island where we caught a grundle of perch last year in Nov. It wasn't long before the glassy conditions we arrived turned to some wind. Bearable, but more chilly. This might be a cold short trip for a guy with wet feet. (Fourth note: "It's not summer anymore, pack some extra socks and shoes in case you get wet.") The sonar showed fish like markings suspended at 22'. Too deep for our trolling rappalas perhaps, and our casting of spinners wasn't getting any action after a few passes. So I anchored up and we tried jigging with some custom jigs with crawlers. No more love there either. But as I was rigging up some deeper trolling raps, one pole bent all crazy. My son pulled in this very active bow.


We hung around for a while longer and continued jigging, but to no avail. I added some larger (black and white) deep divers raps in the tackle box that were meant for wipers... juuuust in case. "What have we got to lose?" my son said. So, we put them in action and trolled again. We headed north and got another bow about the same size as our first. As we got shallower (11-14 ft) the only action was some small trout that came near the surface and tried to smack a white spinner unsuccessfully. (A handmade panther martin, "rooster tail" type.)

Heck, we were just grateful to not catch a skunk, but there wasn't much of a congregation anywhere in the area, fishkind or other. There were a few bank tanglers on the North side of the island, but their poles stayed inactive as far as we could tell. The same with the pontoon boat (that seemed to be trolling "pop gear") in the area for a while, then headed south and out of sight. There was only one other small craft in the area that trolled around, also having no luck as far as we could tell. So, we sought out another area I've never fished. Again, the sonar was blank until we found more fish markings again suspended at 22'. The deep trolling raps worked on just about every pass. The second in the area was this brown that hit like a freight train. We waved back happily to the folks on the real train that passed by on the west.


Couldn't help but notice lots of green algae in the area, like I often see at the Berry, whem BAM! I had one bow that obviously came up from lower to hit a shallow black and gold rappalla. The silly fish ran out of water and continued 4' into the air! Fun, fun, fun. We ended up with 5 in the 18" range for the day. Too bad we didn't find this area sooner.

As much as we'd have liked to fished more, we didn't want to take any chances and be dealing with issues getting the boat on the trailer with flashlights... (Final note: "Sometimes things that don't start our well at all, end up to be a great day!)

Will someone please tell me if there have been any challenges getting your boats on the water at the Berry cuz of low water? I'd like to get up there this year, but I need to make sure I don't pull my boat up there and have to fish from the bank!