Today was going to find me fishing a lake that I tend to only fish in the spring and fall only. Summer on this particular lake is heavily used by pleasure boaters pulling skiers and tubers most days so we usually tend to frequent other lakes at this time. But now the days are quieter on these waters as those users tend to not frequent the same as the days of summer.
The conditions today were bright sunny skies and a brisk wind that was coming from all directions. Air temps were in the 70 degree range and water temps now are 67 degrees. Vegetation is still very green as the nights have not cooled enough yet to start the dying of the vegetation yet.
Started the day fishing the same technique as the last trip out and that was to target shoreline lily pads with the frog bait. Tried a numerous amount of pad fields and there wasn’t anything that was willing to showing itself. Fished the windy pads as well as the calm water pads but for this lake these fish haven’t moved into the shallow locations yet.
Time had come to start covering some water to locate some fish and started throwing the crankbait on deep water shorelines. That didn’t seem to do the trick as well and covered a few areas that have produced many times in the past to no avail.
In the middle of the back part of this lake, there is a lily pad field in the middle of the bay and started working that. Didn’t realize but behind the pads there is a shallow gravel hump that is lined all around with coontail. Casting the crankbait through the coontail wasn’t doing much as I was snagging the weeds.
As I ripped the crank out of the last weeds a bass pounded the bait and it dug its way into and around the coontail but lost the battle. This largemouth was a nice chunky 18” clean and beautiful fish and was caught, photo’d and released to swim another day. Worked around this hump with the crank but wasn’t able to find another fish for this bait.
Since there was a ring of coontail in water depths from 3 out to 6 feet of water figured that these weeds may be worth throwing some plastics into them. So using a Bearpaw Hippie stick and wacky rigging it, this allowed me to work the weeds and find any fish that may be lying in them. Wasn’t long and the first largemouth was caught and a very feisty 13.5” at that with another 13” a few casts later.
Worked around this weedbed a couple of times with this bait combination but wasn’t able to find any other willing fish to bite. So decided to try one last location and fish the area between the two main lakes. Keeping the boat in 12 feet of water and casting towards shore with a crankbait, wasn’t long and the rod was bending with another 18" largemouth that was refusing to come to the boat but finally lost the battle.
This is really my time of the year to fish from now till November as the fish generally keep getting bigger and the fishing pressure getting less. The landings are becoming void of boats, waters void of tubers and solitude is coming back over the lakes and ponds and time on the waters are going to those that are willing to take on the conditions that mother nature throws at us.
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