FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

The Wade Right Fishing Belt

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With it looking like it was going to be real hot, and it was, I dropped it in the water when it was still dark.  Right away the drop was evident, amazing how fast it has dropped almost 2 feet.  And the water temp was 90 at the ramp, 93 in front of the discharge cove, and 88 way up lake.  Sitting at the ramp I re-rigged my plastics and tied on the smaller Whooper Plooper and it was deja vu all over again.  I flipped it out and one jumped all over it, and I missed it.  Funny, that is the second time I have had that happen at the ramp in the last 2 trips and with my superior skill I missed it.  As soon as it was cracking daylight I headed up lake.

Weather

76/94.  Parly cloudy, very warm, heat index to 107, with a 25% chance of a shower.  Wind  SSE 5 – 15 mph.

Lake Level

Today  96.66 msl.   1 week ago  98.86 msl.  (Holy mackerel, a big drop in a week.)

Solunar Period

Major  5:29 am to 7:29 am.  Minor  11:45 am to 12:45 pm.

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How hot and humid was it?  For the first hour after the sun came up my sunglasses continually fogged up.  The plan was to stick to the smaller bone Whopper Plopper and I stuck with it.  Early it was slow and I missed the first 3 that hit it.  One looked pretty good and when it missed it the first time I threw back in and missed it again.  (Think I will go to a stiffer rod for this bait.)  I finally boated a small one, and since I was up lake I hit my consistent brush filled bank and like it has been I ended up putting 5 in the boat there on the watermelon red senko.  There is a bunch of fish there, I just have not found that big fish area.   As they were the same size so it was back to the Whopper Plopper.

I saw this one coming from 5 feet away.

The one above came back to back after catching a small one on the cast before.  Today most of the bites came near some kind of a point.  It did not have to be some big point, as long as it stuck out.  And like it has been every bite came right on the bank.  From about 8:00 until 10:30 I probably had 8 bites and boated 4 of them.

This is what the other 10 looked like on both the Whooper Plooper and plastics.  The last bite.

There was a bank down lake I wanted to fish but I only picked up one more, again right on the bank.  Today 2 actually hit it the minute it landed before I could even move it.  One of them took me right in some brush and managed to pull off.  It was a total of 6 on the Whopper Plopper today.

One did not come on the bank, in fact he was nowhere near it.  There are several big coves on the lake right now with schooling activity.  One had several wads of them chasing shad, but most looked small, and the one I caught out of them was small.  And as a side note, one of the plastics bass puked up a small bluegill in the boat.  Maybe they are spawning right now, and if that is the case might be time for the bluegill colored swim jig.

I give the day a B.  After seeing how far it had dropped, and how flat out hot it got, 11 bass for the morning is not a bad summer short trip.  (I quit at 11:30.)  And fishing the Whopper Plopper is fun, but I love topwater no matter what fish I am chasing.

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Over the last year or longer I have been using 4 Lew’s SLP casting reels and I could not be happier.  (Not in the salt.)  They have held up well, cast far, and the drag is fine.  When I had my tackle store in 1974 – 75 the Lew’s Speed Spool came out.  It was $50, which was a lot at the time, but I bought a couple and used them for years until no one would fix them.  If memory serves me it was the first low profile reel.  Amazing how much lighter these are, easier to use but how long they last remains to be seen.  Back then combined with the new Fenwick graphite hand tied blanks I was styling.  I am currently using the SLP on different rods and line weights.  From as low as 8lb to 20lb (As high as I would go with the SLP.) they work with all the different baits I use and the price is right.  Good stuff helps but none of it catches fish all by itself.

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I hate to sound like a broken record but the forecast this week is just plain ugly.  The next 4 days the heat index will be 107, 109, 110, and 110.  We did manage a short shower today, probably just enough to wet the grass but that was about it.  Tomorrow is do some responsible things and then back on the water Wednesday.  Where just depends on how early I want to get up.  Hard to justify spending $30 on gas and who knows how much on baits and ice etc to end up fishing for 4 hours on the bay.  I prefer to fish a lot longer than that when I head to POC.  Sorry but no way I am going to fish in the afternoons this week.  Might be time to do a night trip on the lake, and if it stays this way maybe the same on the bay when the moon comes around next week.  So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines