I’ve been doing a little fishing mostly during the middle of the day with a few evenings when possible.  The results have been slow on the most part.  I just can’t seem to find the larger bass.  You’d think that in the last two hours  before sundown that the bass would come out to feed but…

I have managed to catch a few small bass, 1 lb or less, with only one  keeper.  The bluegill have also been slow even on flies and I’ve had no bass at all on flies.  The only lure that seems to get the fish interested is the Blue Fox in line spinner in a blue color and silver spinner.  I have caught several channel cat on it and some small crappie (where have all the crappie gone)?

I’ll tell you; they’re scattered all over the pond.  I tried to find the crappie in the evening as well, hoping that they would be schooling up near dark, but no luck so far.

I don’t like to fish after dark which is when the fish are apparently feeding.  Shown is a sample of the fish that I have caught.  The bass is a 1 1/2 lb and the cats are 2 1/2 to 3 lbs.

Today Danny Mc Clughen and I hooked up again.  I hadn’t seen Danny for two years.  He told me that he was very busy working and that he hadn’t been fishing at all last year and only fished sparingly the year prior to that.  He telephoned me to see how I had been doing and if I was still fishing as much as I used to.  I replied that I had and had my on and off days, but mostly good days.  Any day on the lake is a good day!  We decided to get together again.

Danny had been bothered with muscle spasms the last time we went out which , he said, was due to being cramped up in the boat and that he would rather fish from shore where he could stretch out.  That last time we went out we were in my two man boat and there was no way to stretch his cramped muscles in it. 

We made plans to go out anyway, but this time in my G-3 14 footer.  He could stretch out in it when the need arises.

We went to River Bend.  The day started out with my catching a small bass.  The fish surprised me with the battle he put up, I thought  it was much bigger until I landed it.  It was a 12 or 13 inch fish and very healthy.  I got him on a Rapala floater in black and white.  Then we both went through a very long period with little action.  I think we went about 1 1/2 hours without a single strike.

As we moved along we came to the very spot where Larry T. and I were fishing earlier this year.  I caught three more small bass in the 1 to 1 3/4 lb range and Danny finally caught two more of about the same size.  He too was surprised at the the strength of the fish.

Once again we went into a dry spell, no fish.  We arrived at a place where I usually catch some bass and there’s usually a big bass in this one particular spot , but today, not a tick.  On the way there though we did manage to catch a crappie a bluegill and another small bass.  

It was getting late so we decided to start back when, in the middle of the cove we were in, we saw bass chasing minnows on the surface making all kinds of commotion.  We headed for the fish very slowly with my electric trolling motor so as not to spook the fish.  Danny caught two more bass and I caught one before the bait fish moved on under the water where we couldn’t see the direction that they were headed.  We chased them down again and we caught two more bass.  Then they disappeared.

When we arrived in the boat launch area we spotted more top water commotion and went to it.  Danny caught two or three more fish (bass) and I caught one and I caught two nice sized crappies. The bass and the crappies were apparently both chasing the minnows in the same area. When Danny was out fishing me with his 2” floating Rapala I decided to put on my old faithful Excalibur crank bait (clear and chartuse) and as usual, It caught my last three fish for the day.

All of the bass were approximately between 12” and 15” and the crappie were about 12 and 13 inches.  All the fish were returned to the water as quickly as possible.  No exact measurements were taken .

In all, we had a good time together and we plan to go again when time and work permits.

Tight lines.

Jim