Almost Skunked

Posted by MNAngler On June - 25 - 2009

17" largemouth bassSpecies: Largemouth Bass
Size: ~17″
Lure used: white pearl super fluke with split shot

Date: 6/24/2009
Time: 7pm-9:00pm
Body of water: Orchard Lake
Location: Lakeville, MN
Weather Conditions: rain in the early afternoon, scattered clouds while fishing

My colleague John and I have a mutual former colleague by the name of Matt. Matt’s been bugging us to go fishing the past few weeks, but schedules haven’t worked out. Until yesterday.

Matt brought one of his current colleagues, Joe, so the four of us met at Orchard Lake in the Southern suburbs of the Twin Cities and hopped into his runabout.

We started out trying to hug the shore, but Matt’s boat only had a working trolling motor and the thick weeds by shore was proving to be a challenge for his little off-brand motor. At one point, the slight breeze was blowing us more than the motor was driving us. Matt eventually got us out of the weeds and we headed to a reed bed in the middle of the lake.

I was casting with a white pearl super fluke, John was using leeches, Joe had on a black jig head with a white grub, and Matt changed between leeches and artificial throughout the night. The three of them were catching a variety of fish all night. A few crappies, sunfish, and largemouth bass. We were off the reeds from 50-200 feet and we couldn’t see bottom, so it was impossible to tell what depth we were at (no depth finder).

Most notable were a nice hand size crappie and ~14″ largemouth caught by Joe on his jig-grub, a 13-14″ largemouth caught by Matt on a leech, and about a 13″ largemouth caught by John.

I was having no luck at all. I was using the super fluke most of the beginning part of the night and it didn’t feel like it was getting deep enough. I only had two minor nibbles, but nothing strong enough to set a hook on. So I switched up to some spinner baits of various colors: white, green, and orange and brown. Still nothing.

tn_DSC00095It was getting to be about 9 o’clock and the sun was setting, so Matt started to head in. Given my luck so far, I took a picture of the setting sun in anticipation of getting skunked so I would have something to post here. I had gone back to old faithful (the white pearl super fluke) and put on a split shot about 10 inches ahead of it to get it a little deeper. I finally got a strong hit and when I set the hook, Matt remarked it was a big one. I didn’t really know until it started to tug back. Strong. After a brief fight, I landed the nice beauty above.

tn_DSC00102I got one other nice hit while I was taking a picture of John’s bass. I had my rod in my arms and felt a tick-tick-tick. We even saw the rod tip dance. But by the time I could put the camera down, it was gone. I couldn’t blame John because he didn’t really want a picture, but I insisted. I later decided it felt like a walleye hit.

So while I watched the other three catch fish after fish all night (Joe probably did the best with his jig-grub), it felt good to catch the big one of the night. And biggest one for the season for me so far.

4 Responses to “Almost Skunked”

  1. […] old colleague that had introduced me to the super fluke actually lives in Orchard Lake where I fished last week and after our outing, we stopped in to say hi (he also knew the two colleagues I fished with). […]

  2. Aaron says:

    Glad you got some fish out there. If you fish Orchard often, try heading to the thicker lily pads and duckweed with a frog. The fish have really been coming out of the water recently for those, especially on the NE side of the lake where its not developed. I had a great morning Saturday catching 4 largemouth over 19″ and several others smaller in that area. That lake is really picky sometimes!

    • MNAngler says:

      Thanx for the tip, Aaron! We were actually out there just a week and a half ago and had a few bites in exactly the spot you were talking about. But I never tried a frog. I will next time, though! We couldn’t get very close to the lily pads because of the thick weeds (my buddy’s trolling motor couldn’t handle it), but we saw a salad harvester on shore. Hopefully, much of it is thinned out now. Thanx again!

  3. […] only do this when I am in deeper water with no weeds to get it a little deeper. That’s how I caught my biggest largemouth bass to […]

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