january 7th 2012

 well  i kept thinking to myself i could leave half my gear at home and still be set. i knew the conditions were about the same as last week and i knew the water was comparable, very stable weather. i should have listened to myself i coulda had a lot more room on the boat hahaha. well started out gorgeous morning, clear skys very brisk  though with the air temp at 61 at 7 am. only us in the parking lot. sun coming up just a beautiful time to be out on the lake. we headed up around the corner in to south fork. my son calls it the big circle. we started out with spinnerbaits and buzz baits working the perimeter. few crank bait casts to the submerged hump. nothing there. worked the grass well up the strait away, was disgusted at the amount of garbage floating around. we started fielding as much as we could and fit in a large plastic bucket we found. i keep a wide gap net for garbage collecting on board. i know its a bandaid but every bit helps, and it teaches my son  good habits and right and wrong about tossing garbage into nature. fished up onto the old gravel bank and had my braid snap on one cast tossing my nice manns clacking buzz bait up into the forest somewhere. it broke behind the leader which i usually have just to prevent such an occurrence. so much for that. switched to the spinnerbait full time with no success. fished every nook and cranny deep and shallow around the next corner till we got to the ironwood bluff on the next straightaway. made a few casts with the spinnerbait then switched up to the jig and craw i had used last week, no success. ran upto the old bridge and threw a senko along the pilings. no luck ,but lots of cover and its too high to go under to low to go over . no access to upper south fork. 75ft is a good height to get a boat past it right under the top horizontal member. at 72ft theres another member that will block it.there are a couple of ironwood groves along the bank that showed promise but my son was impatient and demanded a run toward the main basin. i managed to hold him off long enough to make a few casts with a senko in camo color (green mottled with yellow) up to some lay downs and caught our first fish of the day. a typical 14in 1plus lb largemouth. made the run down to the main basin and fished the huge new lay down right after the  wahiawa bridge, nothing. ran down further to the ironwood bluff next to the retirement condos, nothing. worked the county yard cove and points, nothing. there cranks,spinnerbaits, bit of senko and jig mixed in. tried a white pearl 4" tube texas rigged, its got great action but drew nothing . ran down to boy scout island and saw tons of baitfish pods on the graph at 8-12ft and so we stopped and threw some drop shot along the boy scout island point that extends to kunia point,worked along the grass in the boy scout saddle area too with a spinnerbait to no effect. it was a very chilly slow morning. by lunch it was time to take the kid in and pick up lunch. still the only one out at 12 noon. went back out with renewed determination, the bluff/cliff pattern  had to still be going so i went back to the jig and craw i had used last week  a 3/8 ounce brown jig head in cammo color with a filthyfisherman  craw cut in half for the trailer in green pumpkin. awesome combo! worked several bluffs with the tube first but they just werent there or weren't  interested. drop shotted the kemoo island saddle and cranked it a bit with a deep diver, to no avail. finally had a hit on my drop shot rig on one of the smaller hidden points off kemoo island. lost it  though before i got to see it, felt pretty good anyway. then nothing else.finally said hell with it, ran upto kinkaids to fish the steep bluff side with the jig. bout the 3rd or 4th cast caught a little 8 in haterchey fish, good news they are growing and are just about big  enough to take a bait!! good sign i worked every limb and piece of wood in the water i could find, ironwood roots rock of course! largemouth luuuvvvvv em!  caught another tagged fish about halfway down the bluff. 4260 weighed in at 1.4lbs and 14in long. ok I'm back on last weeks pattern. ran up the bluff side then down the other side. caught another cookie cutter bass just as it turns into tuc bay across from morgans point. decided to run to condo cliff. time was 3pm or so and running out i wanted to hit vertical so i moved . i felt wood wasn't as important as depth but a few other fisherman seemed to think the wood was the key. 3 boats out by this time. myself,john, jeff. jeff doing pretty good with marcus and caught 9 i believe on his agent utah bait along wood cover. i managed another small 1plus lb bass along the north side of condo cliffs. then finally just as it turns into the military housing on the straightaway i got a nice 2.2lb bass to finnish out my day. it was late and chilly i had put my jacket back on and was ready to head in. stopped at the boy scout island point one last time. cranked it and drop shotted it, nothing. ran upto county yard and fished the bluffs opposite it, nothing. ran into the straightaway just before the bridge and fished some of the lay downs along the bank. had one hit on my senko but missed it. finished off my day fishing the step bluff along the old water trestle just before the ramp, nothing. all in all a great beautiful day. i had 6 fish with a nice 2.2lber to anchor it. it was tough i might have done better had i used my pattern from last week sooner . i was looking for something better but it wasn't there.the days go by so fast it seems now,was nearly 5pm by the time i came in. water temp is very close to spawning range, and theres a very strong cold front coming in on thursday. it should drop the temp in the lake to trigger the spawn. the pre spawn areas i fished had nothing there yet. cold water and next full moon will be key!! monday is januarys full moon and the cold front will be thur/fri/sat. so hopefully febuarys full moon and the 1 or 2 weeks prior will be the key to catching the big ones this year!! i know i will be throwing a big ole swim bait my next few outings!!! 2 things. first notice the color change on the bottom of the ironwoods, the water is dropping 4-6 in a day since last week. secondly i noticed i have been calling my yum dinger a senko, its got a hook notch in it which senko dosent have, its a dinger from yum and I'm noty  going back and editing it all back out hahaha. and i didn't realize the last pic was a video. i forgot my phone takes video, i know I'm techy challenged! i will try to shoot more video from the glasses as soon as i get them working