handyandy
Well-known member
Fished one of the larger lakes in my state not too far from last thursday July 3. Normally would have rather hit a river for smallies but it was pretty muddy from a recent thunderstorm so I hit the lake on the 3rd before Fourth of July pleasure boater madness really picked up. Was on the water at 6:45am started idling through the cove I put in on as it's an idle zone trolled some deeper diving cranks for the heck of it while I'll idled out. Caught one brave little crappie on a big deep diver, crappie wasn't much bigger than the bait. After getting that crappie and marking what appeared to be schooled crappie on my fish finder I stopped to fish, saw a lot of fish hitting the surface too. Threw a pencil bait for a while at the fish hitting the surface got hooked on pretty quick to a yellow bass. Buddy and I caught a ton of those little yellow bass with a few little largemouth mixed in. I was throwing a lucky craft gunfish, buddy had a little whopper plopper on. The yellow bass although not large are good to eat, once fried I can't tell the difference between them and crappie. So we threw a bunch in the cooler to take home, we're allowed 25 a piece or something stupid like that.
I started to throw a little crappie jig hoping more crappie and maybe larger ones were a little deeper down, but nope just kept reeling in yellow bass. We finally had enough fun with those little guys and I headed across the lake to another cover with some submerged trees in 15-20ft of water figured we could find some bass and maybe crappie hanging around them being as hot as it's been lately the shallow bite is much tougher. I fished a little swim bait around the trees, and had my buddy throw one of Jim's senkos that he graciously included with some free decals he sent me recently. Just t rigged the senko with the no weight so my buddy could throw into the tree tops without hanging up a bunch. He hooked missed two fish that picked up his worm, and then finally landed a little bass. He got one more off the same tree. I never got anything off the swim bait despite seeing some shad getting chased by something either bass or hybrids (white bass/stripe bass) but even when I saw schools getting running and cast towards it never did get any hits surprisingly. So switched to a worm too and went to a big culvert under a road crossing. I picked up the biggest bass of the day that was hiding in the shade under that culvert in 6ft of water it came to just over 15" so no biggins today. There are big ones in that lake earlier in the spring I got a bass that was pushing 19" and weighed 4.8lbs. And managed one more on the other side of the culvert doing the same thing. We headed back after that as it was a little after 1200 and already just over 90 degrees and around 70% humidity which is pretty miserable. My dog had enough too and was just laying on the bottom of the boat panting lol. So we headed back I went home and cleaned the fish. Fried some up that night with the wife.
I started to throw a little crappie jig hoping more crappie and maybe larger ones were a little deeper down, but nope just kept reeling in yellow bass. We finally had enough fun with those little guys and I headed across the lake to another cover with some submerged trees in 15-20ft of water figured we could find some bass and maybe crappie hanging around them being as hot as it's been lately the shallow bite is much tougher. I fished a little swim bait around the trees, and had my buddy throw one of Jim's senkos that he graciously included with some free decals he sent me recently. Just t rigged the senko with the no weight so my buddy could throw into the tree tops without hanging up a bunch. He hooked missed two fish that picked up his worm, and then finally landed a little bass. He got one more off the same tree. I never got anything off the swim bait despite seeing some shad getting chased by something either bass or hybrids (white bass/stripe bass) but even when I saw schools getting running and cast towards it never did get any hits surprisingly. So switched to a worm too and went to a big culvert under a road crossing. I picked up the biggest bass of the day that was hiding in the shade under that culvert in 6ft of water it came to just over 15" so no biggins today. There are big ones in that lake earlier in the spring I got a bass that was pushing 19" and weighed 4.8lbs. And managed one more on the other side of the culvert doing the same thing. We headed back after that as it was a little after 1200 and already just over 90 degrees and around 70% humidity which is pretty miserable. My dog had enough too and was just laying on the bottom of the boat panting lol. So we headed back I went home and cleaned the fish. Fried some up that night with the wife.
