Air Temperature: 64-66
Water Temperature: 66-68
Water Clarity: Clear in spots, stained in other spots
Skies: Overcast with light rain early, mix of sun and clouds late
Wind: 0-6 Mph
Barometric Pressure: 29.82 - 29.85"
As soon as I got on the water, I immediately began tossing a black Booyah Pad Crasher. I trimmed about an inch off of the legs, to try to eliminate some of the short strikes, which plagued my last trip to this body of water. On my third cast, just as I was about to lift the frog out of the water, a small bass came up and dragged it down to the milfoil covered bottom. My reaction speed was a little off this morning, whether it was due to the lack of coffee, or 7 total hours of sleep in the last 2 days, I'm not sure, but whatever the reason, I forgot to set the hook. The fish spit the hook back in my face. I better take a minute and have a few sips of coffee to wake myself up.
Two casts later though, I was able to get my first fish.
A solid 2 pounder to start the morning, I'll take it!
This one came from deep in the lily pads, so I began fan-casting the padded areas, and pulled out 3 more fish within the first hour.
This little guy came off the edge of the lily pads
I must have casted right on top of this one, he hit as soon as the frog landed in the water. Hooked right through the nostrils.
Here's another look.
One more look at him, again, probably close to 2 lbs.
Got this little fatty
In the first hour, I had landed 4 bass, and only had 2 short strikes. One of the short strikes, I suspect was a pickerel, when he missed, I punctually pitched a Sweet Beaver on top of the ripples left behind, and hooked up with a small pickerel.
After a while the once hot, first light bite, had seemingly shut off. I kept throwing the pad crasher, and flipping the Sweet Beaver into some holes in the thick vegetation, and a Cobra Bait Deadbolt, but couldn't get much to happen. A short strike here, a swirl there. I decided to head to the far north side of the pond where I caught the majority of my fish, on the last visit. There are some brush piles next to some thick grass, so I tried to pitch the sweet beaver in there, instead, I drove the hook into my finger and caused an awful backlash that took roughly 20 minutes to fix.
Once I dealt with that debacle, I tossed the frog around again, and caught one more small bass and a decent size pickerel.
This was all that was happening on this side, so I went back under the bridge, and went back to the green pumpkin/copper flake Cobra Bait Deadbolt, wacky rigged.
There were some large holes in the lily pads, where you could work the deadbolt about 2 feet down from the surface before it became engulfed in milfoil. I simply would cast out, deadstick it until it reached the top of the weeds, then rip it back to the surface, and repeat. I started to see my line take off, and I set the hook. The drag was ripping, the fish was swirling on the surface, and I was desperately trying to deter the fish from going into the lily pads, as I was only using 10lb braid, with an 8lb fluorocarbon leader. I thought for sure I had a large pickerel, based on the side to side movement of the fish, I was surprised when I saw it up next to my kayak, and I reached in and grabbed under it's belly, and scooped it up onto my lap.
This picture doesn't do it any justice, maybe I should work on a mount for my phone, that way I have somewhere to set it down for pictures.
This fish was just shy of 4lbs.
So, for the day, I wound up with 6 bass and 2 pickerel. Best 5 probably a little short of 10 lbs.
It's been 10 days since I fished this pond, and the vegetation has almost doubled in some spots. Even on the lowest sensitivity, my depth finder could only register the milfoil coming off the bottom, thus, making it obsolete, aside from water temperature. There was only one spot that had open water, and it was 8 ft deep, and roughly a 20 ft stretch. My options were very limited here, but I made the best of the situation.
On a side note, in my last two trips, Cobra Bait products have landed me my 3 biggest fish, two 3 lb class fish, and a 4 lb +, as well as put up some good numbers. If you haven't already, check them out on the web at Cobra Bait, and also "Like" Cobra Bait on Facebook. When the page reaches 200 likes, Jon will have a giveaway contest! You don't want to miss it!
While you're "liking" stuff on Facebook, please "Like" My Page as well!
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