The Exotic Species

Jay was finally able to get away from his hectic work schedule today and join me for a tremendous day of fishing on the lake. He brought along Andy and his son Korey to join in with the fun as well and all would remember today, for many different reasons. The weather began with light winds from the N/E which intensified to 15 knots later in the morning. We were in the clouds for 90% of the day with an onset of approaching storms often. The air temps weren’t much more than 65 degrees when we launched but climbed into the mid 70’s by the end with an hour or so of sunshine. Water temps were around 65 degrees where we started as a mix of lures were sent into the lake to figure out what the bass might want. Jay threw a crankbait, Andy chucked a spinnerbait and Korey & I tossed a senko. I think we pretty much had all the bases covered with this arsenal of baits! Jay drew the first fish as a nice 3 pound; chunky bass came to the boat but soon came off before I could land it. It didn’t take long after and Jay was into the second & third fish of the morning. He was really on fire and others were looking on, jealous of his success. When Andy finally managed to get a hit, he locked up on what I thought was a huge smallmouth bass only to find out at the boat that it was actually a freshwater drum. Although it was impressive, it wasn’t what we were after and a slight disappointment in the net. This thing was between 7 & 8 pounds and was just bloated. First time on a spinnerbait and it would prove to be the exotic species of the day too! On we went in pursuit of more smallies and almost immediately, Jay had located some more. That crankbait was really hot this morning and Jay loved every minute of it. I think Korey was wanting to change what he was using as he was seeing all the action on everyone else’s rod, but not his. Although he did lose a nice fish earlier, it just wasn’t working as well as the other two lures being thrown. I informed him that it would be the bait that was going to catch the better fish and to just be patient and keep working it slowly. After several more bass from both Andy & Jay, Korey finally got into a nice one of his own and now it started to turn over. From that point on, the better bites were to come from the senko and Korey was finally convinced that the do nothing approach, was the way to go. By now the winds had kicked up pretty good and we were seeing the effects with the fish’s activity. For the next several hours, everyone was getting into bass and an occasional walleye as well. The senko though, was definitely the hot bait as several of the larger bass up to 4 pounds fell victim to this set up and I had to rig another one for a second person to use. Jay managed to feel the enjoyment of this do nothing bait as well, as he got into several good fish on his own. Somewhere in the afternoon, we decided to change it up and do a little trolling, trying for walleye and a possible northern pike. It wasn’t on fire like the bass, but we did manage to catch a few decent walleye up to 4 pounds with Korey losing the best one of over 5 pounds right at the boat. I told him that sometimes the hooks just don’t stay in and there was nothing he could do to change the end result. He did however catch a really nice pike that practically beat him up in the process. We had to circle the area that the fish bogged him down in and pull the fish free from all the weeds that it had buried into. I really thought it was a whole lot bigger than the 5 pounds that it weighed though and we all had a good laugh. One more walleye was caught afterwards before we called it a day and ran back to the ramp to take out. There was an approaching storm coming and I could see by its direction that we were in line to get wet. There weren’t any disappointed faces on the boat today, just smiles from ear to ear. All in all it was a pretty fantastic day on the water, with plenty of action for a day to remember!