Unfortunately, it was my only bass this evening.  I  really haven’t been out that much for the last couple of weeks due to the heat and other matters that needed to be taken care of.  The only time that I have been out is on the pond, (our sub-division pond), for a couple of hours after supper.  Actually, after I load the car with my stuff, drive down to where I keep my boats, and load the boat, I have about an hour and fifteen minutes to fish.  And, as it seems, I have not picked the best places to fish.  I have managed to catch a few small bass and small crappie and I’ve gotten them just before dark, at the last moment.  I don’t fish in the dark.  But, I thought I’d keep you up to date anyway .  The weather will be cooling off starting in September and that should start the fish moving again trying to fatten up for winter.  The action should pick up again then.

As for you folks that don’t mind the heat I’ll say good luck and I wish you tight lines, and I don’t mean from snags!

Tight Lines

Jim

The day was exceptionally beautiful and a welcome relief from the hot, humid days that we’ve been having.  Ivan hadn’t fished for a while and it was good to get together with him again after a long absence. 

The fish were cooperating fairly well and this time I tried fishing the surface in the reeds and on top of the weeds.  My working deep lures, i.e., jigs and Texas rigged worms, spinners and cranks had not been doing the job in my search for the bigger bass in the lake (see recent postings).   Ivan wanted some action after a long layoff so, I provided him with some of my baits, ones that I had been successful with on previous trips to River Bend, the Strike King Caffeine Shad in white was doing the job.

Ivan was successful and began catching bass like the one shown and a little larger.  Again, I was searching for the bigger fish.  I decided to try the “Ribbit”, a floating frog by Stanley.  And I was doing alright getting hits but few hook ups.  It was the smaller bass hitting the lure but grabbing the frog by the leg but not engulfing the frog so that I could get a better hook up.

I thought that I should put on a stinger but the fish were small and I was still looking for the bigger fish .   I had recently read an article in ’Bassin’ magazine where this pro was catching monster bass in the weeds  (don’t they always?) so I stuck with the frog.

The frog floats and so I tried laying the frog in the reeds and slowly working the frog out and onto the weed beds.  Once I got the lure on top of the weeds I hopped the frog and then let it sit and then dragged it.  After it left the weeds I swam the frog back to the boat.  This got little results.

I then tried to work the frog a little faster.  The frog has paddle feet and stirs up the water like the “Rage” lures except  that it stays on top of the water. Letting it just sit and float and then swimming it fast got some action.  Pulling the frog faster along the surface got the most strikes but only five hook ups and three of them shook off the hook when they jumped near the boat.  I could see that the fish were barely hooked and putting the net under them was not an option; the fish were small.  I was not catching any big bass.  Then the action stopped.

We started out at about 4:00 pm and now it was getting close to 6:00 pm.  The score was Ivan 5 and Jim “0”.  Yes, Ivan had missed a few fish as well and he was having a good time.  I however, was going to be “skunked!!!”  I couldn’t let that happen so I used the Shad too for a while and caught two small bass.

We crossed the lake to the shady side.  The sun would be settling on the horizon and we hoped the bass would be coming nearer the shore in the shallows.  I tried the frog again but got nothing.  I switched to a crank bait that I had never used before even though it has been in my tackle box for a long time, an Excaliber  shallow runner. 

During the evening, the fish will sometimes come up to the surface chasing minnows or small fry. This got no results as well. I went to my deep diver and managed to catch a pair of small bass. I switched to the Shad again and caught two mere. Ivan managed to catch a couple more as well. We ended the day with Ivan catching seven bass and I caught four. Still, no big bass. Where are they? Tight lines Jim

As you can see the channel cats are still cooperating and so are the crappie to some extent, but the big ones are hard to find.  In fact I haven’t found any for a long time now…where do they go?  This cat hit on a pin spinner with a small Storm paddle tail minnow in perch green and black.  You can see it if you look closely.  In fact I barely hooked him right under his whisker.

My usual Blue Fox has not caught any of the bigger crappie  so I thought I’d switch to this style.  I managed to catch about a dozen crappie with it but none larger than 8”.

I haven’t been fishing much during this hot spell.  The temperature has been in the nineties with a heat index in the low 100’s but the real problem is the very high humidity.  So, I keep my fishing times to after 5:00 pm till 8:00 pm but only if the temps get down into the upper 80’s.

The temperature is supposed to be in the mid 80’ tomorrow, the 6h of Aug and Ivan and I are going to try River Bend again.  Ivan hasn’t been able to get out much this summer, so, I hope the fish will cooperate for him.  I will continue to try for the bigger fish, I’m determined to find one of at least 4 lbs to beat my very old record (5 years) of 3 1/2 lbs on that lake.  As I noted on a previous writing, “ a fisherman had told me that he caught  a 5 lb bass at about the same time that I caught the 3 1/2 lb bass.)  We’ll see.

Tight lines.

Jim

Last week on Thursday it was a truly beautiful day, the sky had a few broken clouds and the temperature was in the mid 80’s.  The wind was from the North West at about 10mph causing a cooling breeze and a slight ripple on the water.  You’d think the fish would be just jumping into the boat.  Well, they weren’t!  Roy was the first to score with this bass and he was the last to score as well with his seventh bass of the day which were mostly about the same size, (some were bigger but not by much).  We decided that the “hump” would be the best place to start.  It comes up to within three feet of the surface and drops down gradually to about 19 feet.  There are surface and subsurface weeds, mill foil and a kind of tall weed similar to hydrilla.  Out further the depth reaches nearly 40 feet with a weed less level bottom.  We were both using our fish locators and fish were mostly suspending at about 12 feet and just above the weeds.  The hump is fairly large and is about 100 yards long and 40 yards wide.  We were fishing the Eastern point which is about seventy feet from the main shore line.

Roy was using a brown/green  3”tube weighted with a 1/8 oz bullet weight jammed inside the tube and an offset worm hook and braided line with which he could cast a country mile.

I was using crank baits, a bronze Bass master deep diver, an Excaliber medium diver in red/chartreuse, a blue/ white Strike King two bladed spinner, a Senko stick worm, a Strike King pro model jig in brown/green with a green Yum twin tail grub, and a Berkley red watermelon ribbon tail worm rigged weightless.  They all hauled water.  My  line: 12lb Sufix clear.

Roy, during the same period, caught three more bass using his tube, but fishing the shoreline with very long casts.  So, the score was Roy 4, Jim 0. 

I had been searching for the bigger bass at the different levels of the hump and failed to get a single fish.  Roy offered me one of his tubes and I finally managed to catch a bass and I missed two more.  Thanks to Roy I managed to not get skunked.

We decided to move on after about an hour.  We were trolling across the lake when just after starting to leave the hump a crappie hit my Bass Master deep diver.

We fished the northwest side of the lake around some points where the water rapidly drops to 40 feet and is shaded by the high bluffs that surround the lake.  Roy was using his tube and I was using the tube for a short while, but I switched to the jig.  I did hook into a larger than usual fish but it got off in the weeds.  And I believe Roy caught another bass before switching to a surface lure, I don’t know what kind but it had a sputtering action.

I switched to my Excaliber crank and managed to catch two more small bass and Roy did the same with his top water bait.

It was getting close to dark so we decided to start in and hopefully catch the bass surfacing as they had two weeks earlier chasing bait fish near the dock area.

I tried my stick worm and Roy stayed with his surface lure but dragging a black/chartreuse ribbon tail worm and with that Roy caught the last bass of the day . 

Score: Roy 7,Jim 4.

I am determined to try to find the biggest bass in the lake even if I do get skunked, “Lord forbid”.  Well, the name of the game is “fishing” not “catching” and I’ll keep trying.  Remember, the biggest bass that I’ve seen come out of this lake is about 3 1/2 lbs and I caught it nearly five years ago.   Another fisherman told me that he had caught one weighing 5 lbs at about that same time.  So, there must be some big ones in there.  Can one of you readers give me a hint on how to do it?  I’d really appreciate your input>

Tight Lines

Jim