JoshKaptur
07-03-2006, 07:08 AM
Maiden voyage on this waterway for me. Very nice day to be on the water - a bit hot and humid but a periodic dunk of the hat in the water and I was pretty confortable. Fished from 10:00 to 6:00. The lake was "summer green" which I consider to be in perfect health... not muddied much from all the rain and not clear. LOTS of lilly pads all over the lake, and lots of submerged vegetation in about half of the lake.
Launch fee was 5 bucks (honor system) at the ramp. Not bad but I hate paying to launch. Lots of kayaks, canoes, paddleboats, rowboats on the water, and lots of bank fishermen (lots of Dads with kids it looked like - good job Dads). Lake was a little crowded, but not unexpected for a Saturday of a holiday weekend in the summer. Bank fisherman were catching a lot of small sunfish, which bodes well for the bass population. Also saw a good grade of large panfish while out on the water in the less fished portions of the lake... many attacking my beetle-spin and senko presentations.
As indicated, I threw my two go-to baits... wacky rigged senko in "bassy" looking areas, and beetle-spin (with 3" grub) as a search lure when moving from one bassy place to another. Also threw a shallow running crankbait burned over the top of the submerged vegetation quite a bit, and lost my second largest bass in the middle of the day on that lure. I was not rigged to toss a heavy bait deep into the lilly pads and yank them out, which is where I think the fish went during the heat of the day. I did try a floating frog over some pads and letting it plunk into various coffee saucer sized holes, but this did not produce any hits.
Best producer was the senko from 4:00 to 6:00, especially if I could find both rocks and pads near deeper water. Bite started to turn on then. Have a feeling I would have had a better day if I had fished from 4:00 to when they kicked boats off the lake (8:00??) instead of the 10 hours I fished. More than half of my fish were caught in the last two hours.
In total, I caught 14 bass and missed many more (going to try some new hooks for my wacky-rigged worms... poor hook-up % today), the majority of which were right around a pound. Several were smaller than that. I did manage to catch one 2.5 pounder off a shaded point on the island in the middle of the lake near the boat ramp, and as mentioned lost another about that size on the crankbait when it jumped and threw the lure in the cove next to the boat rental place. All fun to catch on ultralight tackle, which is all usually I take with me when fishing for bass.
Also caught 5 bass throughout the day (and I'm pretty sure the same one twice) letting the senko fall all the way to the bottom right on the concrete of the spillway. Couldn't get a mark on my fishfinder, but the fish were hitting it before, but not much before, it got to the bottom (12ish feet). Let me tell you you have to be patient and completely in tune with your line to let an unweighted worm fall 10+ feet. The good news is they were holding on to it because I could have never felt a strike with the breeze and no weight, but gently lifting the rod tip would reveal definite pressure... and the circle hooks I was using never required the pliers all day, though I'm sure I let some fish hold on to it for over 5 seconds before setting the hook.
Nice day on the water, and decent fishery. It clearly gets a lot of fishing pressure, but seems to be in good health. I did not see a single dead fish on the water all day, which is more than I can say for most smaller lakes in the area recently.
By the way... if you like wacky rigged senkos, I strongly recommend using o-rings with them (my first time was today). I burn through senkos at an alarming rate, and have been known to use several bags on a good day of fishing ($$$$). With an o-ring tool and some 0-rings ($9.00 on ebay recently) I only used 4 senkos all day! This does turn the hook sideways instead of pointing straight up, which may have effected my hook-up ratio... but it saved me $15 bucks my first trip out... and in most situations where I'm catching fish anyway, I'll lose a few to save that kind of money any day.
Launch fee was 5 bucks (honor system) at the ramp. Not bad but I hate paying to launch. Lots of kayaks, canoes, paddleboats, rowboats on the water, and lots of bank fishermen (lots of Dads with kids it looked like - good job Dads). Lake was a little crowded, but not unexpected for a Saturday of a holiday weekend in the summer. Bank fisherman were catching a lot of small sunfish, which bodes well for the bass population. Also saw a good grade of large panfish while out on the water in the less fished portions of the lake... many attacking my beetle-spin and senko presentations.
As indicated, I threw my two go-to baits... wacky rigged senko in "bassy" looking areas, and beetle-spin (with 3" grub) as a search lure when moving from one bassy place to another. Also threw a shallow running crankbait burned over the top of the submerged vegetation quite a bit, and lost my second largest bass in the middle of the day on that lure. I was not rigged to toss a heavy bait deep into the lilly pads and yank them out, which is where I think the fish went during the heat of the day. I did try a floating frog over some pads and letting it plunk into various coffee saucer sized holes, but this did not produce any hits.
Best producer was the senko from 4:00 to 6:00, especially if I could find both rocks and pads near deeper water. Bite started to turn on then. Have a feeling I would have had a better day if I had fished from 4:00 to when they kicked boats off the lake (8:00??) instead of the 10 hours I fished. More than half of my fish were caught in the last two hours.
In total, I caught 14 bass and missed many more (going to try some new hooks for my wacky-rigged worms... poor hook-up % today), the majority of which were right around a pound. Several were smaller than that. I did manage to catch one 2.5 pounder off a shaded point on the island in the middle of the lake near the boat ramp, and as mentioned lost another about that size on the crankbait when it jumped and threw the lure in the cove next to the boat rental place. All fun to catch on ultralight tackle, which is all usually I take with me when fishing for bass.
Also caught 5 bass throughout the day (and I'm pretty sure the same one twice) letting the senko fall all the way to the bottom right on the concrete of the spillway. Couldn't get a mark on my fishfinder, but the fish were hitting it before, but not much before, it got to the bottom (12ish feet). Let me tell you you have to be patient and completely in tune with your line to let an unweighted worm fall 10+ feet. The good news is they were holding on to it because I could have never felt a strike with the breeze and no weight, but gently lifting the rod tip would reveal definite pressure... and the circle hooks I was using never required the pliers all day, though I'm sure I let some fish hold on to it for over 5 seconds before setting the hook.
Nice day on the water, and decent fishery. It clearly gets a lot of fishing pressure, but seems to be in good health. I did not see a single dead fish on the water all day, which is more than I can say for most smaller lakes in the area recently.
By the way... if you like wacky rigged senkos, I strongly recommend using o-rings with them (my first time was today). I burn through senkos at an alarming rate, and have been known to use several bags on a good day of fishing ($$$$). With an o-ring tool and some 0-rings ($9.00 on ebay recently) I only used 4 senkos all day! This does turn the hook sideways instead of pointing straight up, which may have effected my hook-up ratio... but it saved me $15 bucks my first trip out... and in most situations where I'm catching fish anyway, I'll lose a few to save that kind of money any day.