Fish Catching Travel

The 3/8th ounce Bleeding Bait spinnerbait, white with silver blades, and the Swimming Jig and Craw were the baits today.

I got this comment from RL, and if you like to live vicariously when you can’t get out on the water this story is for you.

Great report and pics! For those of us who are highway warriors this really makes the week go by and feel like we are right there with you.
Thank You.
RL

Thanks for the comment RL and I wish all of you had been with me today, it was fun.  So if you are stuck in the house or at work, enjoy.

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Whether you fish the salt, like I have a couple of times lately, or freshwater, which I have a couple of times lately, the fishing is good right now.  No matter where you fish we are right in the middle of our good spring fishing.

Since I hadn’t fished Coleto since the big rise and muddy up it was time to check it out.  I was hoping that it was just off colored, which it was, exactly what I had hoped.  And before I forget the punch line, I fished from down lake to way up lake, and caught fish everywhere I went.  So the best advice I can give you is fish with the bait you want, where you want, and don’t pay any attention to the water color, the fish aren’t.

First cove, first bite.

It was around 8:30 when I started in a flat main lake cove.  Throwing a Swim Jig was just the ticket.

Second bite.  Things are looking up.

Like they were last trip, they were on the little flatter side of the coves with the sparser cover.  Before I got out of the first cove I put 8 in the boat, all on Swim Jig.  Just tossing it up in the stuff and swimming it back.  Next is was a real big flat cove.  That was the first place I caught one on a swim bait.  If you remember Randy in his report on Coleto last weekend lost a big fish on one, so I put on a 5″ with the big flat tail on a 4/0 hook with the weight on the hook.  Now I am no swim bait fisherman by any means, but it was a cool bite.  And it proves my point about sharing information.  Randy told us about losing a good one so I tried something I would never have thrown, and it worked.

The first one, the little guy choked on that bait.

Though I only caught one in the second cove, it was on the swim bait, and it gave me the confidence to keep throwing it.  Just tossing it to the bank in the shallow places and swimming it right along and when one wanted it they would smoke it.  With the hook riding the top of the bait it would swim right through the cover. Not having thrown it much I did miss and lose several.  They would just smoke it, often I could see them hit it, but I lost a couple of big fish when they jumped and threw the hook.  I finally figured out, heavier rod and braid should help, and it did.

This one came on a swim bait.

I lost count when it was 11 on Swim Jig and 6 on swim bait, but I just kept throwing the swim bait.  It was something new for me and it was fun.

Of course I threw the spinnerbait, and it started working.

So now the sun is high, there is almost no wind, and the fish will bite a Swim Jig, a swim bait, and a spinnerbait.  They were not concentrated, but everywhere I fished from up lake to down lake had at least a few fish.

There is the swim bait.

Now I don’t know which bait to throw so I just alternated between them, and they all worked.  If there was a flat point, there was a fish, if there was a flat with scattered brush, there was a fish.  I was buzzing the Bleeding Bait, and while they were not really crashing the spinnerbait, I think only 1 missed it.

I think you get the point by now.

While no big ones made the boat today, it was good springtime fishing.  The fish are positioned where they should be, coves and flats, and if you find the right one, a flat cove.  I saw some beds today but did not check them out, not my thing, and there were quite a few tilapia around.  One thing I wanted to say is when I cleaned those bass for the wife last week 4 were females who had not spawned yet.  And the guts on a couple of them today said they are not done spawning yet, so the fishing should remain good through the next moon.

 It was cool to catch fish from 8:30 to 5, nice and steady.  If I had done a better job on the swim bait early there would have been a couple of good ones over the side.  When the only 5″ swim bait I had finally tore the only size I had left was a 6″, and they were not interested in the bigger bait.  It was cool to see them roll up and eat it as it swam by cover.  That should give you an idea of how shallow they are.

And the new trolling more was a real improvement.  The locator worked great but wasn’t really necessary as the fish were shallow.  I did flip just a little, but had no bites and gave up on that pretty quickly with the way they were eating other things.  It is not to often that you have 3 baits all working about the same.  I will say that the best average came off the spinnerbait, but if I had boated the 3 big ones I lost on the swim bait it would have been another story.

So if you can hit the lake, the fishing is good and it won’t last forever.  I am really happy about how high the lake is, higher than I have ever seen it.  The spawn is on and there will be lots of places for the fry to hide this year.  This kind of timing can lead to an epic year class.  And to add to the confusion the coastal bite is on.  Where next?  Not a clue, but it will be another week of both places, the order is the only thing to be determined.  So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines