Fish Catching Travel
With my brother coming for a couple of days at POC in a day or two I decided to make a quick trip to Coleto this morning. I have not had the flats boat out in a couple of months so I wanted a little shake down cruise to be sure things were all in order, and the boat ran just fine. I forget how well that thing runs and fishes when I leave it in the garage a while.
I got out at daylight and headed up lake to throw a variety of stuff. A buzzbait was my first choice, and it turned out to be a bad one. I fished weed beds without any success. Next I headed to a stretch of lily pads and decided to try a swim jig. The first 4 just seemed to nip at it and I did not land a one. Then I finally caught one.
This was the first one I caught.
For the next couple of hours I pitched to sunken grass, flooded shoreline grass, and anything else that looked good. One would jump on here and there, but they did not seem to have their heart in it. There did not seem to be either a pattern I could figure out, or a big bunch in one place. I did manage to put another 6 in the boat, and most of them were this size or smaller. I did lose one pretty good one when he got hung in some deep grass, but that was the size of it.
With the sun out and not a breath of wind I figured if I went to some heavy grass mats and threw the frog I could scare a few up. That turned out to be fruitless. I did not even have a hit on the frog. This time of year the frog is usually a good choice on Coleto, but they were not having it either. So about 11 I decided to head down lake and fish some deeper banks were there is grass in 10+ feet of water.
Last year at this time I was catching them slow rolling a Strike King 10″ Anaconda ripple worm. So I rigged it with a 1/8 ounce slip sinker which I pegged and it turned out to be a good choice. Over the next hour I put 4 in the boat, all on banks with over 10 feet of water on them. I missed several when I jerked when they hit. It takes a little bit to remember to drop the rod and let them have it. And then this happened.
This was one good fish.
I felt her thump it, dropped my rod, and she started swimming. She was about 10 foot deep when she hit and she came straight to the top and jumped. I managed not to screw it up, and in the boat she came. For her size she was one of the heaviest fish I have caught in a while, really solid. But she was also spawned out and if I had caught her 2 months ago she would have been a real hoss.
So it looks like it is going to be plastic time. While you can still put some fish in the boat shallow early, and on real windy and cloudy days. they are starting to settle in to a real summer pattern. So start looking deeper on deep drops or weeds in deep water near the deeper drops. One thing about that Anaconda, it is a big bait that catches big fish.
And while I was using a light weight to keep it right above the sunken grass, it is also time to start using the tungsten weights that are heavy enough to punch through the grass. Combine it with a Rage Craw or some other compact plastic, like any of the beaver tail baits. It makes it a lot easier to get it down where the fish bury up in the day time. Just remember when it get there to shake it a little. Like my friend Aaron says, think of the grass bed as a spider web. When a spider feels something in the web they come out and make the kill, same with bass that bury up in the grass, they may not have seen it, but they can feel it.
So not a bad morning, the boat was all in working order, and I managed to put some bass in the boat. So off to POC I go, the fish are really biting on the coast and I am looking forward to some serious topwater fishing in the mornings. Thanks for reading my stuff and keep stopping in. Who knows, tomorrow just might be the best day of my life on the water. Oh yea, every day on the water is the best day of my life, the fish are just a bonus.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
