June 23rd trip report

weather- partially cloudy, no rain .wind calm in the morning and speeding up around 9 am to 10-20mph out of the east north east, trade winds.
barometer 30.08 and rising.
68% humidity
waxing crescent moon with a 51 out of 100 on the astro tables.
water temp was 79 at launch with a hight of 81 by 11 o clock am
water clarity was 2-3ft  along the south basin with better than 4 ft in the main basin.
water level at dam was 69.60ft

well the trip started out with such promise, we had made a fish house, a structure of a plastic pallet and 1/2 water line cut into various lengths. and we were gonna deploy it and see if we can start working on getting south fork back to its heyday by adding good structure in some areas. we arrived at the ramp at 6 30 am and were the 4th boat to be in line to launch. it looked to be a busy day on the water. we had to nose in at the tip of the ramp as the side had another boat loading up and  there was already another boat behind us waiting to launch. got my son life jacketed up and started to put him on the boat but I'm not sure what happened if he pushed the boat as i set him down or if it just pulled away or what but i was soon extended full arms length with the choice of stepping off the dock and landing him on the boat dry or dropping him in the drink and saving myself. of course i took the first option without a thought........ unfortunately i had my wallet and iPhone in my pocket. stepped off and straight to the bottom into 8ft of water. bounced up and grabbed the gunnel and hauled myself in in one fluid movement. i couldn't have been submerged but 2-3 seconds tops but i opened my pocket and the iPhone was dark...... not a good way to start the trip, not to mention the air was a bit nippy that early and i was completely soaked. all in all i wasn't about to let it ruin my  trip, of course as i looked down at my phone that was hard to do, after all its a company phone and i didn't relish buying a replacement at 300-400$ or explaining to the office manager  what had happened. we headed up into south fork to deploy our "fish house" and decided the lone island that becomes a underwater hump when the water is high would be a good spot. set it just below the surface  figuring with the rising water it would be in 6ft of water most of the time and 2 ft at low water. the plan of having water fill the plastic pallet and carry it down didn't work so well. ended up using rocks from the island and put them in the indentations to weight it down and get it to stay on the bottom. luckily i was already wet so the swim to get the house down wasn't a problem. we got it set and headed back down to robbies tree to start our fishing day. of course i don't have any pics seeing as my phone was dead, i really wanted to get a few of our fish house. honestly i have kinda forgotten most of the details on the trip i was pretty bummed and i think my son was feeding of that because i mostly remember him being fussy and me worrying because i couldn't contact mommy to come get him so i knew id be leaving early to get him home. we managed 3 fish in the 1-1.5 lb range. I'm thinking one was on a crankbait. one on a plastic worm texas rigged. one was on a devils horse. i honestly am not 100% sure but i do know we were done by 11 am  and headed back in. its good that they went biting because id have been more miserable leaving with a bite going on. still 3 fish and got home in time to do chores, guess there was some good out of it. this 2 weeks to finish reports sure makes it tough to remember the details. i really got to get up on keeping this more current. will have to report on how i saved the phone in a later blog ;)

Fathersday and fishing

well sunday was fathers day and we had a pretty successful trip on saturday. as i sat looking back on it i couldn't help but look at it from a fatherly point of view. there isn't anything more natural than sharing the outdoors with your child, its like christmas morning every time you go out. dosent matter if its hiking,fishing,surfing. for some maybe hunting or biking. whatever it maybe the outdoors just naturally lead themselves to memorable circumstances for children and parents. and especially the father son/daughter fishing experience. the excitement of preparing the night before. the anticipation of the early wake up call to get out with first light. its a magical time. hell there are  a lot of negatives involved too, but its usually negated by the positive 10 fold! its like dealing with malls and stress during the holidays, it all goes away christmas eve when the magic in their eyes can be seen. the long hours preparing tackle and boats, the impatient kids, the tangled/lost lures. all worth those moments of magic when they get that fish on the line. that picture locked in time,just like the first sight of presents on christmas morning. the key to having a great trip is remembering its not about the fishing always, but its about the experience.feeding a few ducks, in our case geese, can be another positive experience adding to the "fishing trip". driving the boat,helping launch and retrieve the boat, exploring nature. I've even got my son excited about picking up lake trash by making it a game.all this makes it a positive reinforcing experience. the fishing can be great but in a childs eyes  and with their attention span you really need to fill out the day for them. I'm very lucky to get half day to myself when he's tired i get lunch and a hand off with the wife. he gets a good morning session and i get a few hours to decompress by myself. its something that works for all, after all the wife gets to sleep in and be child free for several hours as well. the best part is that some day these positive memories  i hope he's getting will be passed on to his children one day, perhaps if I'm lucky i may even get to share some with them.and the magic will make him and his better for all that is learned and experienced on each "fishing trip"

Trip report june 16th 2012

well i really did a bad job of keeping a log on the particulars of this trip and now it got lost along with the info from my last trip when my phone went in the drink. I'm gonna try to remember as much as i can to keep it accurate and if i can't recall oh well.

weather- partly cloudy in the morning with calm winds 0-10mph by noon it was blustery at 15-20mph and clear skies with no rain to be had.air temp unknown
barometer- unknown
moon phase- waning crescent with at 62 out of 100 for the astro table.
water temp-unknown
water clarity- 2-3 ft common with a slight stain to the water. clearer in some areas with a 5ft visibility but still off color to stained.
water level-68.85ft

started out the morning in line at the ramp. seems it was gonna be a crowded day at the lake with 4 boats in front of us at 6:45am. launched and headed down toward robbies tree. figuring the pattern to be similar to the previous week. look for busts in the morning and throw lots of top waters and go deeper and slower as the sun rises and the day heats up. tied on a devils horse hoping to elicit a big tuc into biting, worked our way along the bluff from robbies tree to retirement home bank but got nothing. there were no busts in the area as there had been the previous weekend. finally in the transition where it gos from steep bluff to more moderate depth i got a strike on the devils horse. turned out to be a nice 1.3lb 14in bass. fish one boosted our confidence that if we kept searching we could get more top water action. alas we continued throwing at shallow lay downs and cover for the next hour or so with not another look. ran down to boy scout point hoping to get in on a few busts but the place was dead. perhaps the other boats knew something we didn't since we still hadn't run into them and were nearly half way down the lake. cranked the point and along the sides of the point with no success. turned to a drop shot to try and get bit and started working the deep part of the point as well as down the steep sides of the point. got a hook up on the side in about 12ft of water, to our surprise it was a red devil! i was kinda shocked a red devil would hit a 6 in drop shot worm but it did and got the hook no problem. anyways at least it was a fish and my son was stoked to put it in the live well. our lake is catch and release on all gamefish so bass and tucs go free but red devils are invasive so they gotta get taken out. shhhhh they goto that farm somewhere ;) anywaysworked that point like nothing and after nearly an hour there we only had the red devil to show. ran down and hit condo cliffs and fished a shakeyhead along the bluffs. got another red devil,what the hell was going on??? hahaha was alternating cranking and dropshoting mixed with shakeyhead fishing trying to get some idea of where the bass were. still had no idea where the largemouth were but  decided to keep going down the bank toward kemo'o pub and that when i hooked into something huge just behind the dive shop building between condo cliffs and kemo'o pub. threw out my havoc bottom hopper jr. in black emerald on a 1/4 oz vicious shaky head rig. and connected with a huge fish that immediately took off reel screaming! chased it to the back of the boat and had no though of handing it off to my son, it was way to much of a fight for him. he was still excited and jumping up and down just the same hahaha. i had my falcon cara t7 rod and diawa fuego reel spooled with 8lb yo zuri hybrid line and it was screaming drag out on the surges. i maneuvered around the boat trying to tire it out. saw the green and black of what i though was a really nice bass, after all shakyhead right???!! but as i got it to the surface finally it was DEFINATLEY not a bass. my son got the grips and i got it up and out of the water. i didn't know what it was at first but i measured and weighed it and it was massive for something I'm sure was supposed to be more like a red devil in size. figure a good size red devil may be close to a lb but this guy was going 2.12- 3.4 on my crappy rapala scale and boga grips suck for accuracy but it was over 3 on that! put him in the live well and started searching the smartphone to find out it was a jaguar cichlid. another invasive  and another aquarium release run amok! well whatever it was it had to be a record so i kept it and besides its all about getting the invasives out of the lake so they don't compete with the bass, trust me this guy was more than doing ok food wise!! moved over to the saddle on kemo'o island and worked it for a bit with no luck. son fed the ducks then decided he was done for the day. we headed back not really stopping to fish along the way. he wanted to drive so i let him  enjoy himself. got back to the dock got some pics of the fish in the live well and traded the lad out for lunch. wasn't sure what to fish or where to start but i was tired of the invasives so i upped the size of my crankbait and worms and ran back down to fish the saddle. finally got another bass on a crankbait but the saddle didn't produce any other fish on the baits i was tossing. ran up to north fork and fished some lay downs across from randalls point. i was using a 4"swimming senko in silver on a 2/0 vicious wide gap hook. first time i had tried that bait and i was really liking the action, falls like a senko but its got a swimbait knobby tail on one side and when you jerk it to you it swims just like a swimbait. really great to let fall then jerk then let fall. like a dying baitfish. anyway it skips great too on the spinning rod and i was skipping it into the forks of the lay down up deep against the trees and letting it sink with just enough jerks once in awhile to look like it was trying to get away and i connected with a nice bass. 1.6lbs 15in , he was deep and tight to the tree. maybe only this or a flipping presentation would have gotten him. fished more of the lay downs but none produced another fish. fished randalls point then morgans point with no luck. ran down the bluffs alternating cranks and a texas rigged berkley worm. came back up the other side of kinkaids with the crankbait running and gunning but no luck. i think this is probably where all the boats had been seeing as i had passed em on my way here earlier. ran back to the bluffs dam side of the saddle and shaky headed em with no luck. then drop shotted the saddle and got another red devil!! i just can't get over they were whacking the worms! it was getting late maybe 3:30 or so and i ran looking for trees in deeper water to skip my senko against. passed stan and found a nice lay down fitting my criteria just next to the effluent plant. got a nice 1.5lb 14in bass on the first cast. worked the rest of the cover with no success. ran back to stan showed him my fish and he said its a definite record never seen anything like it. decided to take him to a certified scale to weigh as soon as i was done. ran up to the bamboo cove where another lay down was that fit my emerging pattern. and first cast bam had one on but it came unbuttoned. cast back and worked it a bit, letting it flutter down several times ohhhh so slowly and bam hook up! 1.6lbs 15 in bass. and people wonder why they call em cookie cutter bass hahaha they are practically all the same size, like out of a cookie cutter sheet. worked the cove and several lay downs but no more luck in there. ran back to robbies bank area and fished the senko and worm with no success. finally hit several trees along the straightaway near the bridge but the senko failed to produce. this area has so much cover but never any amount of fish, its so odd. one here one there but never  any decent amount..... odd. back to the dock. ran into chris baires and talked to him a bit about the wtb tourney coming up and then told him about my fish. showed it to him and all the people along the ramp were oooing and ahhhing. no one had seen anything like it that size. chris made a call and the hffa wanted it after i had it weighed, so i got it weighed and its currently sitting up at the middle school in a tank. it dwarfed the "large" one they thought they had hahaha. tough day by most accounts but a pattern of slow and tight to cover emerged later after the water heated up and wind came on. I'm not sure that this pattern would have worked in the morning but its probably worth trying the top water in the calm morning anyway hoping to get a lunker tuc or bass just the same.

Summer season

well the summer season is now in full swing, don't ask me why they have a season called "peak" summer season when you'd think peak meant the actual peak of the season.anyway the water temp is 78-85 degrees during the day and the air is 83-95  with lots of humidity and sunshine blazing down. water level is down quite a bit and rain is in short supply except for the occasionally trade shower.the water has stratified now with a warm surface layer and then a thermocline  about 8-12ft deep and then colder water below that with much less oxygen. the thermocline can be seen on most good graphs and  the fish will be there for sure after the morning and late afternoon feed. the thermocline is cooler and has more oxygen than either the surface or the deeper water.baitfish are plentiful now as the spawned fry are about looking for anything they can to hide around. and they are big enough now to make a meal for larger fish.the bass and tucs will feed heavily but often for short periods of time and often at first light or last light. bass will often feed aggressively at night on the very hottest of days and especially on full moons. the fish may become finicky with the easy abundance of prey they may key on a certain type of fish a.k.a. tilapia or shad. and the size of the lure , the color and the presentation will become much more important to get the fish to bite. the bass may be hitting 2" shad on the surface and your throwing a 3in popper in firetiger with no luck and wondering why. or perhaps the tucs will be slamming tilapia along a shoreline and you throw a  prop bait in silver shad and throw it 2 ft from the bank. but the tilapia are kinda gold in color and are in inches of water  so your not looking like what the tucs are after.summertime can be feast or famine depending on the mood of the fish and how fast you can adapt. the fish will changes moods rapidly with the weather and temp so you need to have a wide selection of baits ready to go and be ready to switch as soon as it stoops working or till you find what does. sticking with one style of bait or one color, perhaps one presentation can lead to a lot of missed opportunities  when the heat is on! and most importantly take care to stay hydrated and protect yourself from the sun. hat,100%  uva and uvb sunglasses and lots of sunblock are a must out on the water!BullFrog Ultimate Sheer Protection Broad Spectrum Face Sunblock SPF 30

June 9th 2012 trip report

well lets try this again.......... some kinda glitch cause my last few posts to disappear. the part that pisses me off is trying to remember the trip reports several weeks back, its gonna be tough and I'm sure most of the info will slip my mind now.

weather-mostly clear morning with partly cloudy by afternoon,winds were calm in the morning with gustier conditions later in the day, maybe 10-20mph by noon and no rain to be seen.
barometer- 30.07 and holding steady
humidity-67%
water level-68.85ft
moon phase- crescent about a quarter full with and astro table of 43 out of 100
water clarity-ranged from muddy 1-2ft in most of south fork above the ramp to lightly stained with 3-5ft down in the main basin.

we started our day at 7 am and headed down to robbies special tree. there were small inconsistent busts here and there from the area of cow point  to down along paper bark. robbie of course wanted his buzzbait on and i hadn't hooked it up so i had to take a sec to rig it for him. his other rod had a halo soft jerkbait in green shad on a small 3/16 ounce jig head. as i got his buzz bait ready there was a small bust right off the bow of our boat, just in front of his "magic" tree. he made a cast and with the buzzbait and i quickly grabbed his other rod and tossed it out at well and bam! first cast i hook up with a nice bass. he reels it in and we have our first fish of the day at 1.6lbs and 15in. worked the area a bit and busts would be going off here and there but always out of reach. seemed like every time we tried to fish along the bank a bust would happen and we would be forced to move out after it! finally  decided this was the perfect situation for my first attempt at the alabama rig. i tied it on the same setup i use for my frog and buzz baits. 35lb braid with a 10lb flouro leader and a 6.3.1 ratio baitcaster on a medium heavy 6'6" rod. its a boss all wire ,compact umbrella rig. i had lead head jigs on it but with the much publicized "gaffing" effect i took them off and switched to 5  2/0 vicious wide gap hooks. figured the weight of the baits and wire would be enough to get it down, besides the bass and tucs were hitting closer to the surface anyway. i had  hootchie kootchie 3" swim baits from cabelas on the hooks rigged texas style to prevent gaffing hopefully. the hootchie kootchie baits have extended tails that really look great in the water compared to the shorter tails on most style swimbaits. have to say i was impressed with how great the whole thing looked in the water, it really did look just like a school of bait swimming along. first cast and i can't be 100% sure but it felt like something popped it! i was stoked and made several consecutive casts with no luck. on the 6th cast i hadn't realized my braid had cross hatched on the real and as i sent it out the line went out 20 feet stopped with a snap and i got to watch all 27$ of umbrella rig sail out into the middle of the lake........... not a happy camper!!! oh well i was so impressed with how great it looked that i will most definatley get another rig to try just as soon as i can , maybe even 2! as far as the braid I'm not so sure ill use that rod and reel seup again for awhile hahaha. as i nursed my anger at the braid there was a good bust right up again the bank of paperbark point, that can only mean one thing....... TUCS! so i rigged up robbies pole with a small prop bait and tossed it out onto the dirt just at the waters edge of the point. pulled it down into the water and started to jerk it. only took 3 jerks maybe moved it 3ft tops and got a nice explosion but a miss. tried it again and on the 4th jerk off the bank  big hit! handed the rod over to the lad and he got to fight a nice 2 lb 4 oz 16in tuc. great start to the day so far! we chased busts and alternated along the bank in this area for some time without  another hit, to be fair i really wasn't trying as hard as i could of to coax another hit from the hungry fish. finally sometime around 9:30 or so the area calmed down and we moved on looking for another spot.we settled at kunia point and fished along the point of boy scout island. crank baits, top waters,drop shot, and even shakeyheads with no luck. there were sporadic busts from time to time but nothing worth pursuing.we then headed down to condo cliffs and fished along there alternating baits as well and finally got a small a 1 lb  catfish on a cabelas grave digger crankbait. my son decided we needed to put him in the live well for awhile so in the poor guy went, we would release him later of course.after working across to kemo'o island and fishing a few of the small points we made it over to the saddle and began to fish it , first with a crankbait and then with drop shot. didn't get to fish it for very long before my son wanted to feed the geese. so we packed up and got them to come over to us to get some bread. after the bread was gone he wanted to drive the boat and it was time to get him in and pick up lunch.he got to show off his catfish and we released it at the ramp. lunch and the lad were traded and off i went to find some fish for myself. went back down to robbies area but had no luck and the busting had stopped.wasnt a shock, the summer heat was on and I'm sure the fish had gone deep with the bait. ran down to kunia point and then over to boy scout island point. cranked the point and down along the sides with no luck and then started to drop shot the point itself. had made a few casts but nothing seemed interested. jeff choi came by and said he had a tough morning till he put on a shaky head and fished the saddle off kemo'o island and caught 25 bass in an hour just running back and forth along the saddle. we chatted for awhile and then parted ways. i fished the point a bit longer with my drop shot with no luck and then tied on a shaky head of course and headed down to condo cliffs. finally got a 1.4lb 14in bass on a shakeyhead along the cliffs.  soon after got another bass 1.6lb 15in  both were in about 10ft of water and the bites were more of a pick up sensation than an actual hit. kinda just raise the tip up and feel the fish. then just as i turned the corner at the kemo'o side of condo cliffs i got a 3rd bass 1.2lb 14in. so i was onto a pattern now so i thought.fish seemed to be holding between 10-12ft and close enough to the bottom to be interested in the shakeyhead. not really into  chasing or  eating. really had to hold that bait in front of them and shake it till they got pissed off and even then they barley mouthed it. enough time had gone by i figured why not try the saddle so i came in from the dam side and made my first cast to the tip where it was exposed. first cast i get a nice 2.2lb 16in bass in 18ft of water. alas i was so stoked with the first fish i stayed wayyyyyyyy to long and spent nearly an hour trying for another bite.again this seemed to fit right into the summer peak pattern of fishing.ran upto north fork and kinkaids figuring the bluffs would be the place to fish! but either it was well picked over , there had been a lot of boats out, or the pattern wasn't just as simple as i had though with wind,depth, andstructure/time of day. i spent some time working my way up along the bluffs and then came back down the other side throwing a crankbait , run and gunning as it were. finally got another 1.4lb 14 in bass on the housing side of kinkaids with a cabbalas grave digger crankbait that ran about 4-8ft deep. after that though i was doing nothing but hauling water. ran back to the dam side of the saddle and worked the steep back just prior to the saddle. had a really good fish on with the shakeyhead but it ran into some lay downs and after a few minutes of trying to get it off either he came unbuttoned or my line broke. i was still hung but i couldn't feel anything on the end. tried the lure retriever but the line finally broke further up  and i had to get another rig on. it was getting late so i ran back toward the ramp stopping at a few steep /windy banks but none produced and i ended the day on that lost fish. the day seemed to make perfect sense as far as what the fish were doing and where they were located. early morning busts as the said rose from first light to about 9 am then as the sun got high and the heat turned on the fish went deeper and pulled closer to structure. the wind helped but the key was shad. follow the shad and the bass were nearby on the closest structure in the 8-12ft depth range. top waters in the morning and look for busting fish, after it heats up shakeyhead and dropshot would be the ticket. i was loving the braid on the pflueger spinning reel. it really made a difference with the shakeyhead and its sensitivity to the bites. had i stayed out till later in the afternoon there might have been more surface action but 4pm i was tired and it wanted to get the boat back in the garage before dark. great day and got a few good fish to boot. can't beat such a great day on the water!Pure Fishing 6925X Pflueger President Reel Spinning 10bb 110-4 Size 6925x

Braided line for finesse fishing

Recently i had read an article about aaron martens. in it he described a growing trend of the top pros and elites to use braid for nearly all of their finesse fishing techniques. i remember the days when spectra first came out and we all had it on nearly every reel as it was the "THING" to have. eventually the cons and price  won out and it faded away. well it came back strong for a lot of specialized techniques and i have to agree that it does have a place on a few reels just for certain techniques. heavy cover,flipping and pitching, anything that requires horsing a fish out of something, but finesse????!!! well after reading the article i was sold on the idea and decided to spool up one of my extra spools with braid and try it for myself. after all summer is coming up and shaky head and drop shooting will be in full swing, and as crowded as our lake has gotten recently I'm sure finesse will be the way to go slot of the time. so here is how martins instructed the setup of the line. he said to use 10 lb braid, not alb not 12 lb, but 10lb. according to hime it was the best diameter all around for keeping enough strength and manageability  to make it work on a spinning reel. use a leader of 6lb or 8lb fluorocarbon keep the leader the length of the rod tip to reel. i ran mine about 5 ft or so. use  a rod with a quick tip and a fast action to absorb the shock of the hook set .reel wasn't as important but a faster ratio he liked better than a slower one. so i went out and bought some power pro braid 10lb, it was the only braid i could find in 10lb on such short notice, i have never used it before and wasn't sure how it would perform. actually i have been pleasantly surprised with it. i thought it was a junky line but its on par with fireline or spiderwire. i think i got a 150yrd spool for around 20$, not a bargain but it was wal mart in hawaii after all so there is always a big mark up. again it performed very well on the spinning reel , i was quite happy with it. the 150 yards seemed to be just the right amount to fit the spool of my pflueger president reel, i didn't have to put any backing to fill it out and it was close enough to seem like it wouldn't  affect the casting ability of the reel. i added a 8lb leader of berkley vanish flouro at about the length described above. and tied them together with an albright knot. the knot may not be the best for this application however as it was very tough to tie with the small diameters of the line involved. it took several tries to get one to take that didn't  fray the flouro or actually just cut it in half with the braid. perhaps next time a couple of uni knots might work better. something i will have to try i guess as i work to improve the rig. the first outing with the new setup i was having a very very tough day and by days end had decided to throw a shaky head on it. i worked down a bank that actually i had seen several other boats hit and one even parked there for some time before i got to try my luck on it. i knew they were fishing it all wrong and was confident i could get one on the shaky head there. i was right! second cast got plowed by a nice 1.5lb bass. quickly got 2 more in short order all along the same stretch of bank maybe 20ft apart or so. the first thing you notice it that the braid does cast extremely well of the spinning reel and the albright knot dosent effect the line coming out of the tip to much.the wind is much less a factor with braid on the spinning reel as well, a bait caster often cross hatches on the retrieve causing overlaps of line or backlashes as the lighter braid catches in the wind. i experienced neither with the spinning outfit. the flouro leader and braid really transmit the feel of the bottom and its easy to become overwhelmed at every little tick. but the actual bites i got were so well felt that there was never any guess as to when it was a fish and when it was something else. the second time i fished this rig also proved fruitful, same feeling same kind of success with it. however i did loose several shaky heads to  various underwater obstacles. several the flouro gave and a couple broke at the knot. again i may have to find a knot that dosent stress the flouro out so much. the one problem i do see with this is drop shooting . it would be a lot of re-tying to switch to a drop shot  or to repelce one. it bad enough when its all flouro line but at least your just tying a few easy polamar knots and done. event tried wacky rigging or anything else but the shaky head but I'm already sold on the whole braid for finesse idea, i really can't believe i never tried it before back in the day when it was on most of my reels.

Summer Peak

 summer peak is here now. water temps are in the high 70s to low 80s. its light by 530 am and won't be dark till 730pm. most of the spawning has taken place and there is an abundance of fry milling about. there may still be a tucanare nest here and there but more likely there will be mated pairs guarding fry in deeper water. when they guard their fry off the nests its nearly impossible to get them to bite unlike when they are on the nest. most bass will be scattered at varying depths and in many different types of cover or structure. as long as the water is stable though the general mood of the fish will be positive, and good catch rates should hold. although smaller fish will be the norm now. there is always the chance for a good fish early in the morning or at dusk but its not quite been hot enough to really get the night bite going yet. oxygen should still be good although the lake is starting to stratify by this time with the warmer water rising and the cooler water sinking. thermoclines should be very well defined and thats is always the best place to look for fish.food is plentiful with  all the fry and shad milling about. a lot of the bass and tucanare will now begin to shadow shad schools in deeper water and will often suspend through the midday.right now on our lake the water level was dropped to the 69ft level. not that its a bad thing but most of the grass lines are now high and dry, luckily our weeds are emergent so they will grow further out and thicker so if this level maintains we could have some great weed growth for next fall. the bad thing of course is the fry are pretty exposed and it is our dry season and we could lose a few more feet and be without a ramp to launch our boats. its a great time to get out on the lake. we just had a sewage spill thanks to a power outage so its off limits for a few days  but fishing should be great and the weather is certainly cooperating so as soon as I'm not worried about HEP C i will be out in this early summer season and you should too!