Date: 7/5/2010
Time: 8:00am-10:30am
Body of water: Bennett Lake
Location: Roseville, MN
Weather Conditions: sunny
I defied my urge to sleep in yesterday morning by getting up at 7:30am to go fishing. For the second day in a row, I tried a lake I had never fished before. This time, I ventured to the 22 acre lake about 5 minutes from my house.
I started at the pier where there was another guy going after carp. The water was so stained, you could barely see six inches below the surface of the water. I threw a bubble gum fluke and orange/brown spinnerbait for about a half hour with no bite. The sun was getting very bright, so I decided to try fishing from shore around the lake where there would be more shadows for the fish to hide in.
The lake is surrounded by a county park and has a nice walking path all the way around it. I turned right off the pier to go around clockwise. I first stopped in a clearing where I saw a guy fishing earlier. There were some trees overhanging the water which provided the shade I was looking for. I tossed a bubble gum super fluke left under an overhanging branch, then right. As my fluke was coming across toward me just outside some algae scum bordering the shore, I saw a bass come up from behind to inhale it. I waited a second, then tried to set the hook and it came right out of its mouth. I was too excited seeing the fluke get sucked up and didn’t wait to feel the weight like I usually do. But it was interesting to feel what the line felt like as the fish hit. I tossed the fluke further to the right again parallel to the shore and felt another strike, but I missed that one, too.
I worked my way around the North side of the lake where the most shade is and tossed my bubble gum fluke whenever I saw a promising spot. The Minnesota DNR showed a shallow bar coming across the lake from a peninsula, so I stopped there to try to cast along the shelves. I waded out into the lake about 15 feet, but unfortunately, even with that extra distance from shore, I couldn’t cast far enough passed the weed line for it to be very effective. I pulled out my topwater scum frog to try to entice anything that may have been hiding in the weeds, but either nothing was there, or nothing was interested. I did, however, see a huge carp, at least 20″ long, swimming around a few feet in front of me, along with the obligatory sunfish.
On the East side, there is a waterfall that dumps into the lake. I tried casting around the water movement, but nothing bit. By this time, the sun was high and the entire shore was being spotlighted by the sun. I continued on and walked by the entrance of the peninsula I was across from earlier and decided to walk out there to see what I could see. I’m glad I had my swim shoes on because there is no way I would have gotten out to the peninsula without them. The path between the shore and the point was covered in about 3 inches of water. I made my way through the hardly visible path through 4-5 ft tall grass and manged to get out to the point, then into the lake. I waded out a few feet to try to hit the shelves from the other side, but the weed line was even further out from this side. A few casts yielded nothing, but I did see a pair of large carp swimming around together, at least as big as the one I saw across the lake.
I safaried my way back to the path and worked my way back to the pier, but stopped briefly by a porch and waded into the shallows where I could cast into some deeper water. I did feel some resistance on one cast, but it didn’t tug back. It was almost 10:30am by now, so I decided to head home.
This is a nice little lake that has a lot of potential in the Spring and Fall when the fish are coming into the shallows. The water near shore is about two feet deep and has a lot of vegetation and overhanging trees that the fish would like. I kept looking for places I would cast into if I were on the lake in a boat and found a lot of them. This far into the summer, I’m guessing the fish are in deeper water to avoid the heat, especially since the temps have been in the 90s for the past week previous. Right now, it would be a good lake to take the kids to fish for sunnies. Or, I should take up carping.
