Bass Season- From The Opener Until Now. 6/17/11

Originally, this post was going to be my obligatory bass opener post, but it is long past so I will turn it into a general report instead.

On the opener, I decided to hit this little lake by where we camp (sorry- I'm not tellin' : ) ).  It is stocked with trout and has good numbers of pumpkin seeds.  Truth be known, I had very little luck.  When I put in, the water was still a little chilly at 59F or so.  I was sharing the lake with a couple other boats so I decided to start down the opposite bank and work my way around so I didn't crowd anyone.  Power fishing a buzzbait.  Nothing.  Not even a boil.

I kept cruising and switched up to a chatter bait and moved off the bank a little bit and started fishing the inside weedline.  The lake has eurasion mifoil and it was starting to get tall, say three feet beneath the surface in anywhere from five to nine feet.  Nothing, although I did catch one of those Rainbow Trout that are stocked and can almost see why people like to fish for them.

After that the sun was up more and moved a little closer to the bank with a 1/4oz Beetle Spin (Quit laughing.  This is my goto bait for bad fish days.)  No bass.  But lots of pumpkin seeds.  Those little suckers can be vicious too!  And that pretty much tells the tale of how my opener went.  At the end of the day, I boated 1 small bass and probably 40-50 pumpkin seeds.

My next bassin' trip wasn't until the following Saturday and I decided to head out to Rice Lake near Paynesville.  I drove around and nearly ended up taking ownership of a nice rocky point.  Luckily, that didn't happen.  Boat and driver are very happy about that.  Anyway, I looked at my phone (Navionics is very handy, must use it more often in unfamiliar waters - feel free to whack yourself in the head, Jeremy) and decided to head to a section of the south end of the lake because there is a fairly fast drop into 20 or so feet. The water temp was mid 60's so I figured they'd be on beds.

I started out with a 1/4oz Bluegill Swim Jig (All Terrain Tackle) and tossed it passed the front of a dock.  Slow rolled it back and a smallie crushed it hard enough I thought I was going to lose my rod at first.  First fish boated was a nice one, measured out at 17".  No belly so I'm guessing it was a he.  I kept rolling that swim jig and caught a nice mixed bag of largemouth and smallmouth all around 16-18".  See pics below.

My last trip was last Friday and knowing that I didn't have a lot of time, I went down to the Rum River about five minutes away from home.  Once again, slow rolling that same swim jig.  The result was a personal best, I know that much for sure.  No idea how much it weighed or how long it was because I was backpacking it.

So far, I may not have had a very productive year, but I've had a lot of fun anyway.  And I bought a different scale that will be going in my backpack for the next time I hook into a tank like that.

As for now, I'm getting ready to head out and try some of the new swim jigs I picked up by Northstar Custom Baits.  They are a little different than the All Terrain Tackle swim jigs I'm used to and I'm excited to use them because I think the colors are better.  We'll see if the fish agree!

Winter Bassin' - Minnesota Style

Most of Minnesota's water is ice locked. On the local lakes we had 20" of ice and probably a little more after the cold this past week. So, obviously, there aren't many places to scratch that open water itch.

Well, I wasn't ready to put down the long rod in favor of my ice sticks so I decided to do some searching. You see videos of guys hitting open water spots in the dead of winter and figure "there are only so many places that can happen at".  So I did some research and read a few forums and for a while the only thing I could find was pool 2  (edit- I meant to say pool 4) on the Mississippi.  That's a long way to go from my town so I kept looking.  I finally found a spot that's only a little over an hour away.

My first trip out was 1/3/11.  I forgot my waders at home so I was hoping the water would be drawn down a little bit so there would be a bit of shoreline to walk.  When I arrived, no luck, water was high and the surface current looked pretty quick.  So I fished from the launch and managed to land a couple decent smallies.  The first smallies I've caught that are worth mentioning, in fact, seeing as how I've only typically fished waters containing only largemouth, or very minimal amounts of smallmouth.

My second trip was 2/11/11.  I remembered to grab my waders and grabbed my muck boots, just in case.  It's a good thing I did because when I tried to put my waders on, I found that my socks and thermals were too thick and I couldn't get my feet into them.  On with the muck boots and so with the fishing.  I had far better luck this time.

I walked upstream a little ways from the launch and threw upstream toward the main channel.  I started popping it slow, crawling along the bottom.  Rock.  Snaaaag!  Crap.  Walked back toward the launch site and manage to shake it free.  I bet that photographer that was camped out in the Dodge was having fun watching that.  Heh.

Back at it I go.  Except I'm noticing different texture than my first trip.  Mud bottom with a transition to a rocky-sandy-rubblish-whateveritwas.  That's where I was getting my hits.  Not in the eddies, but on that transition.  Pull it up, stop it, shake it and crawl it.  Bite.  Nice.

I had ten smallies in three hours, a mixed bag of runts and a few pretty nice ones. We won't talk about the missed fish or the ones that got off.  We'll chalk that up to "operator error", learn, and get better.

But all things come to a close and this was also my last open water -and bass- trip of the season.  You see, our season closes at the end of the month, but I'm fresh out of days off during the week and from what I've heard this spot can be a zoo during the weekend, and that just doesn't turn my crank.  So I'm solely on the ice now and looking forward to some new friends coming up from Missouri for some ice fishing over the seasons closing weekend.  That's always a good time.

Here are a couple photos from my recent open water winter excursions.

1/3/11

2/11/11