George popped into town unexpectedly this weeekend to visit his mom and a few relatives. He was able to plan a fishing outing with Greg and Greg’s son and asked me if I wanted to tag along. Far be it for me to refuse fishing time, especially since I haven’t wet a line for two weeks.
We hit a lake in the Northern suburbs where Greg and I had tried earlier this summer. After getting on the water at about 10:30am, we decided to start at the other end of the lake where Greg and I saw a lot of weeds last time.
On the way out, Greg was graph a bunch of fish suspended at 5-10 ft in 15 ft of water. We decided to stop to try it out. Being that the fish weren’t on the bottom, I went with speedier baits than I usually do. I tried spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, crank baits, and a rattling rapala. The other three tried beetle spinners and spoons. None of us even got a nibble, so we decided to continue on to our destination.
Here, I was more comfortable with my finesse techniques. I tried worms, a jig and pig, and speed craw. I was having no luck and neither was anyone else. The wind was pushing us around pretty good, so we decided to try a windward bay that had calmer water. We settled in at about 5 ft of water near a small island.
I went back to a texas rigged worm and was trying various areas with no luck. After some time, Greg suggested we try another spot. I was about to agree when I dropped my lure at a visible weed edge and got a nip. I immediately set the hook, but the line went dead. It was heavy, though, so I kept the pressure on. Unfortunately, all I pulled in was weeds. However, the worm was just hanging by the head, so we were all encouraged that there was at least fish around.
I kept trying the same spot and the worm kept coming back twisted, but I couldn’t feel any of the bites. I switched to the KVD big text Ocho and within a few casts, I felt a few bumps and was able to set the hook into a bucketmouth. It splashed in the first few feet and the rest of the boat stopped to watch. It didn’t look very big until it jumped again not more than 15 ft from the boat. It was a decent fish! I pulled in this girl:
Species: Largemouth bass
Size: 16″
Lure used: Strike King KVD Big Tex Ocho worm, texas rigged
We hung around that area for a while longer and I kept getting more bites, but still couldn’t hook into anything. I even told Greg’s son where to target and he couldn’t hook into anything either.
We finally decided to move on and drove over to a weed bed closer to the boat launch. There, Greg dropped a big creature bait to the bottom and was able to pull in a 14-15″ largemouth. I was tossing texas rigged worms, wacky rigged worms, speed craws, and jigs and was getting nothing. Greg and his son kept with the creature bait, but nothing else bit. The freaky thing about this area was all the birds in one tree. It felt like we could be in an Alfred Hitchcock movie at any time.
Having been on the water for almost 3 hours, we motored over to some weeds closer to the boat launch where Greg caught a 16-incher last outing. It had more shadows and some overhanging trees. We were all trying various lures and we were seeing some splashes deep within the weeds. I decided to switch to a chartreuse topwater scum frog.
Within a few casts, I saw a small splash where my frog landed and it disappeared. I was caught off guard and quickly reeled up, but by the time I set the hook it was gone. I tightened my line much more quickly on subsequent casts.
One cast that was on the way back got a boil about halfway to the boat. I set the hook, felt the fish on the line, but then lost it. I let out a frustrating grunt. A few minutes later and my frog disappeared again. This time, I set the hook hard and held on to it a few seconds before it disappeared, too!
I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but I could not lay into any of my frog bites. I checked and double checked the frog and the hooks looked like they were in the right spot. I may have just been too trigger happy given my poor showing on the day.
The good news for the day is that we knew were the fish were and found out what they wanted (somewhat). With the brisk winds and bright sun, our instincts to look for fish in calmer water and in the shadows were correct.
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