I followed through with my resolution from a few days ago and returned to my first lake of the year with my float tube.

I got on the water at about 9:30 and kicked my way down the shore to the right of the swimming beach. Mark and I had caught a few little bass on that shore on a previous trip, but this time I only got a nip or two on worms.

I decided to head toward a sunken island a few hundred feet off shore. Before getting on the lake, I thought it would be too far for me to get to, but it was feeling within reach at this point. I looked toward its general direction and saw an island of weeds. I guessed that was where the hump was.

At the end furthest from the beach, I threw a jig and pig that got a good thump, but I wasn’t able to react fast enough to hook it. About 10 minutes after I got there, a fellow angler pulled up in a boat. He anchored close to the spot I got my hit. Not more than a few minutes later, I happened to look over just as he set the hook on a fish. He guided it toward the other side of the boat so I wasn’t able to see what it was. But the environment pointed toward a bass.

The wind picked up a bit, so I was able to use it to my advantage. I would kick up wind and let it push me through parts of the weed bed. I did that a bunch of times and tried various parts of the hump with lots of different lures, but was never able to figure out the magic pattern. By 11:00am, I had to start heading in. I was off the water by 11:30 with a skunk.

While it was discouraging to walk away with nothing, floating on a lake for two hours on a beautiful day is never a bad thing. Hopefully, I’ll be out again soon with better luck.