7/24/2016
On the Water: 11:15 AM - 5:00 PM
Air Temperature: 82-90Water Temperature: 84-85
Water Clarity: Clear
Skies: Partly Cloudy
Wind: 5-10 MPH NW, S, SSW Gusts to 16
Barometric Pressure: 29.98 - 29.94
After installing my new Lowrance Elite-4 Chirp, I needed to take a trip to test it out. Knowing that I was probably going to spend a lot of time playing with my new electronics, I went back to the alewife lake that produced for me last week. I had assumed that the pattern would be much of the same, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Upon launching my Future Beach Angler 160 into the lake, a couple things stuck out to me, the water temperature was a sweltering 84 degrees and rising, and the wind was blowing from the north west. I knew with the warmer water, I was probably going to have to slow down, and adjust my casting angles accordingly to fish with the current rather than against it.
Once I had the Lowrance all set up, I made a move to the two humps that always seem to hold fish this time of year. I zig zagged over the structure, and only marked a couple small schools of bait, but did not mark anything on my chart that even resembled a bass. I threw a Zoom Super Fluke in the vicinity of the bait fish, however it did not appear there were any bass actively feeding near the surface. As I let the wind push me along, I began noticing some surface activity on an adjacent point. I quickly tossed my fluke in that direction, and hooked up with a small bass that was about a pound. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but a bass is a bass. Shortly after, there were some more swirls on the surface out in the middle of the lake, knowing I wouldn't be able to cast my fluke against the wind far enough to reach the fish, I grabbed my swimbait and launched it into the ripples. It was picked up, but as I set the hook, the fish swam straight at me and jumped 3 feet in the air, and tossed my swimbait. This was the theme for me today, as I wound up losing 7 total fish, all of which threw my bait in the exact same manner.
Around 1:00, the wind shifted and started blowing like heck out of the south, so I went back to the two humps, and hurled a Strike King 6XD as far as I could into the wind, and was a quickly rewarded with a nice fish that absolutely inhaled the crankbait. However, I almost wish I didn't catch this fish, because it was the only one I was able to grind off of the deep structure all day, despite the 2 more hours I tried, with various techniques. At this point, I knew that I had to change my approach. One side of the lake was starting to get some shade cover, so I paddled my way over. I began marking schools of bait out in open water, and was able to manage a few bass on the super fluke, however, the quality of the fish, was not what I was looking for. With the water being so warm, I figured that the bigger fish had lost interest in chasing the big schools of bait, and were starting to stack up in the lay downs that project out towards deeper water.
I had a Strike King 3/4 oz football jig (I don't recommend using a football jig around wood cover, as it tends to hang up easier than your standard flipping jig, but this is what I had tied on, and it was working, however I did hang up several times) tied on, with a Rage Tail Craw trailer, so I chucked it towards a lay down that extends out into about 20' of water. As soon as it started to fall, a fish thumped it. I was finally able to get on a pattern, as I worked every piece of wood I could find on the shady side of the lake. I ended up getting 5 more fish, all between 2 and 3.5lbs on the jig, and lost 3 more before I had to leave.
So all in all, it was a strange day for a normally predictable lake. I really had to work for every fish, but it just makes it that much more rewarding.
Total for the day: 13 Bass
1 on the 6XD
6 on the Super Fluke
6 on the Jig
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