friday dec 30th, tuff day on the lake although not quite as bad as it was christmas eve, light showers till about 9am. started round the bend from the boat ramp into south fork. cranked a bit on the points and then a spinnerbait along some ironwoods. water temp was hovering around 70 degrees, spawn will begin as soon as the temps drop another few degrees, I'm betting the big girls will move up sometime in january. water level was 80ft and dropping according to the usgs site. moon phase and barometer i kinda missed will have to do better recording on them. moved into the grass beds and turned to a buzz bait but no success. waters been up high about 3 weeks now and as usual the bass seem to really move into the grass the first week but after a few weeks the bass tend to scatter and eventually the grass patterns stop producing. never the less i find myself trying it after all my last buzz bait fish a few weeks ago was nearly 4 lbs! a good size for our poor lake these days! worked several spots along the way and finally caught a small 1lb 14in bass on a jig and craw under some ironwoods. tried a few more spots with little success so decided to make a run into the main basin hoping to find more numerous fish. it was 10 am already and things were looking bleak. air temp at launch was 67 degrees at 7 am and by 10 had warmed to about 75, still chilly for us and sweats and jackets were still on. made sure to have the donor on and dialed in hoping id spot something that would give me a clue to a pattern. points seemed bare and nothing really showed deep. fished along hanging gardens and managed another small cookie cutter bass 14in or so and maybe 1lb. will make a renewed effort to keep exact size and weights now for the blog. it was caught on a sweet beaver imitation giving to me by a friend awhile back kinda bigger and not as detailed but they do catch fish. both fish were pretty lethargic so far. fished awhile more with cranks and spinners some buzz baits around boy scout island , but no luck. my son fed the geese and we headed back in for the lunchtime handoff to the wife. he's usually done by 1030-11 am but today the boring seemed to fly by and neither of us were actually ready to call it quits hahahaha. we did the trade off , kid/for lunch and i made a run down lake to try a more serious attempt to set a pattern. our local hotstick had mentioned he had a 21 fish day on thurs and as usually that was the extent of his report. so far i wasn't seeing it, but every day is different. i knew from that report that whatever he was fishing it wasn't a slow pattern, i know he dosent get out on the lake early and dosent stay out very late, hence 21 fish in maybe 6 hours or so of fishing. leads me to believe he had some kinda run and gun join. something fast with retain strikes. i followed suit but it proved elusive. my donor showed a lot of shad pods at the 8 ft lvl around boy scout island and there were some plops and splushs here and there, but nothing substantial.i threw a short fluke bait for awhile but had a few short strikes nothing worth continuing to chase, basically fan casting hoping to draw anything up. burnt a lot of time in that area, after i gave up out in the open i drop shotted,spinner baited,and cranked the whole area around every piece of structure and cover i could find. again nothing!tried kemoo island and the saddle. slow rolled spinnerbaits, drop shotted,cranked but nothing there.worked condo cliffs with a senko and crank bait but nothing. finally at 3pm with time running out on my day i picked up a camp 1/4 jig with a filthyfisherman craw trimmed to fit as a trailer. tossed it to the vertical bluff and off it swam! nice feisty 1lber. ok I'm seeing something the lights going on seeing as the 1st 2 fish of the morning were on similar structure and caught with similar lures. worked the bluff face and hooked and lost 4 more in short order! dunno why they came unbuttoned but i was onto a pattern!!! had to basically bounce it onto the cliff face and let it fall vertical, they were nose to the bluffs. anything farther away got nothing. 50% took it on the fall the other 50% grabbed it on the first or second pop of the bottom. i had a strong power finesse pattern going! i was able to duplicate it in several more spots and quickly got 4 more bass all in the same size range. if i saw a bank that had what i needed i stopped and casted to it , working my way back into the ramp. by 4pm i had to go in and as usual had a real good pattern join, if only i had found it much earlier i may have given that 21 fish day a run!! had a great uncrowded day on the lake and tried out some of my new christmas gear. can't complain seeing as the rest of the country is so damn cold, hope to get out again soon!! keep it reel!!!
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