"Brown Water Blues"

    20180505-"Brown Water Blues"

    my son Kenny gives me a call and asks if I have time to take him fishing on a quick trip. I absolutely responded Yes and quickly checked the “Fishing Points App” and realized we would be fishing the Lull.Period. we quickly launched at the most efficient launch site and made it out on the main lake and noticed visibility was mere inches after the t’storms the past couple nights.

    Our plan was to head up the lake and fish the cuts hoping the visibility would be much better. The main lake measured 62°. Once in the cut we knew we would be in trouble when we noticed the visibility was not any better. I call it brown water blues.

    I launched a couple slip/float rigs as well as thru the swim jigs with no bites. Kenny stuck with the jigs and landed a decent B.Crappie. The water temp in the cut and canal was 64°. The water temps and time of year were correct but could not get the fish to bite. I’m sure the facts that two important variables were working against us… the brown water and the Lull.Period.

    We headed back to the launch where water clarity was significantly better where Kenny quickly tagged a young N.Pike with some fight.

    We called the trip shortly after landing the n.pike battle beaten by weather, water conditions and solunar lack of activity.

20180504-High winds warning

20180504-High winds warning till 18:00 cant catch a break weather-wise… seems I’m always fighting the extremes.

Walked down to the bridge and cast UL jigs into the brown water white caps. Water will clear in a couple days after the t storms last night. Strong current thru the bridge… the fish avoid. So fishing will be a bit negative for awhile.

20180502-Shallow at the Bank Pattern continues

20180502-Shallow at the Bank Pattern continues

timed a short trip on a Major.Period… put in at the launch with 15 mph sustained and 20-25 mph gusts. I figured I would ride through all this chop to a shallow bay across the lake. This is the bay Earl tagged his Master Angle B.Crappie. I would basically pick up where we left off just a few days later.

The water temps picked up to just over 60° basically moving us into the pre-spawn period for B.Gills and many other panfish.

After an hour scouring the shallow bay I could not buy a panfish. Another boat with 2 anglers entered the bay and informed me they were going on their third hour without a hit! The cold front over the weekend really did a number … but the temps rebounded to almost normal for the season the past two days.

With little else in protected waters from the wind I set-off to discover a bite along the windward side of the lake. I could not spot a fish on sonar... I could not tempt a strike.

Moving between a pair of small stump lined islands I tagged a few small Y.Perch and a Junior N.Pike… got the blood going a little… all long casting/.016oz jig/Lil Minnow or waxie.

With the period nearly ending I tried one last little cut on the way to the launch. I have passed this little bay dozens of times through the years and I have never been tempted to test the waters within.

As I eased into the bay I looked on the contour map and noticed 4-6 feet was avg and maximum for the depth. I scanned for fish and noticed nothing. I fan casted my way into the bay without a bite. I took a long cast with the slip-float/Pink Waxie to some floating debri between some short docks and immediately hooked into a short R.Bass 5ft from shore. The shoreline was clean and lined with seawalls and is one of the main reasons the bay never interested me before. I noticed 64° water temps over 3° more than the rest of the lake.

I found a bite at the furthest end of the bay along a sandy bottomed area next to the seawall. One panfish after another with a nice lunker P.Seed with beautiful coloring in the mix. The Long-Cast/.016oz Jig/Lil Minnow or Pink waxie were the top baits.

My time was up and I had to leave the bite and make my way to the launch barely making a showing for the trip. i was thankful to finally find fish ... any fish! even though there were just a few and many were small i felt relieved just to get on any bite... the lunker p.seed was the cake.

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