FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

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I really did mess up by not fishing yesterday but I had a couple of things to do.  It was beautiful and warm.  In fact, when I went over to Jeffish’s house at 5:00 it was 72 degrees, and when I went home at 7:30 it had risen to 79.  The wind was blowing hard out of the south as it tried it’s best to fight off the front that was coming last night, and it lost big time.   This morning it was 41 degrees, a 38 degree drop from last night, and the wind was blowing 20+ straight out of the north.  So the obvious choice – Go Fishing!

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Weather

47/39  Cloudy with a 90% chance of rain.  Wind N at 15 – 25mph.

Solunar Time

10:28 am t0 12:28 pm.

Lake Level

Today 96.71 msl   Monday  96.72 msl

This was definitely a “put on your big boy pants” day.  It was cold and ugly, and did not improve one bit.  Take the lowest number above, add in wind at the top of the forecast, and a constant drizzle which just about covers it.  It really reminded me of fishing what was called the Bass-A-Thon every winter in Arkansas.  Held 4 consecutive months in the dead of winter, it was not cancelled no matter what.  So with that in mind off I went.

One of 4, I could not be anymore proud.

First up I headed to the back of a good spawning cove to check the water temp and lo and behold, it went from 64 degrees Monday to 60.  No surprise.  In fact the whole lake dropped an easy 2 degrees.  In some spots it dropped a good 4 or 5, and the most stable temp was way up lake.  Obviously the fish were out the back ends as they took the biggest hit.  So I took the long bumpy ride up lake.

Today I went to a shad colored crankbait, but one that ran a little deeper than the Sunny B due to the front, figuring they would be deeper.  So back to why I am confused.  The water temp was 59 and I fished about half of what I have been fishing and put 4 in the boat and they were surprisingly shallow.  Nothing big, but with the weather like it was I can live with it.  I should have stayed up there the rest of the time as I would have kept catching a few, they are still biting the crankbait.  But I could not help myself knowing the water temp was still in the 60 – 62 range below the outflow cove so I headed back down.  I mean, they have to be biting there somewhere, right?

Oh so wrong.  It just puzzles me to no end why the fishing is better in the cooler water, and why it still continues to be one here and one there down lake in the warmer water.  Not a bite there on swim jig, crankbait, or spinnerbait.  And that was on windy banks, calm banks (There weren’t a bunch of those today.), coves, and a couple of other places.  One interesting thing about the water temp difference, up lake did not drop as bad as down lake.  Near the damn really shallow places would have a 5 degree drop in stretches.  Being clearer there that is not unusual, it might have affected them a little more.

So what to make of it today?  First, it was nuts to be out there, and great fun in a suffering kind of way.  It just “might” take the bass a day or two to recover from this, the lake will only cool off more tonight.  At least if you keep grinding the bill off a crankbait from the bank to out about 6 foot you can catch a few.  But what sent me over the edge and out in that this morning was I heard Todd and a few of the Austin Boys are coming for the weekend and I will be joining them at POC.   With a couple of things that need doing before going I need to get a little responsible tomorrow so I had to go today.  (At least I told myself that.) The boys always fish hard, with any luck maybe we put a couple of big trout in the boat, or on the stringer.

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My friend Jeffish sent me this the other day, and it made me laugh.

Our local channel is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  This was the accompanying graphic on the story about a lost donkey and his return.  The graphic stayed up the whole report.  Guess the cows were happy, but how do you tell with a cow.  Guess they missed the donkey.

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Looks like the Austin Boys are headed here with some rain in the forecast.  They seem to drag weather of some sort most times they come.  At least the temp is going to get back to normal, and hopefully the fishing will be good.  I am really looking forward to seeing how it goes on the bay this weekend.  Lots of the reports I am seeing are pretty good and I have a couple of good ideas on where to give it a go.  So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines