Crankin’ & Tubin’

Darren & Jack were back with me today after a long lapse from the last trip. Darren was going to meet me a little later, so Jack & I fished for a brief period before we ran back to pick him up at the ramp. The weather was nicer than it had been with warm air temps of almost 60 degrees under cloudy skies, right through the day. The weatherman had called for strong winds around noon that were to gust as high as 25 knots from the W and that never happened. The winds never went above a 10 knot blow at the worst and for once they were wrong for the better! I was shocked to see the water temps had fallen to 49 degrees in the first area but apparently it didn’t matter to the fish. Jack locked up in just a few short casts on a spinnerbait and was officially on the board. Within 20 or 30 minutes we had probably 10 or more bass on and even a walleye to add to our catch. It was a good start before we picked up Darren and raced off to another area to begin his day. As with Jack, Darren also was locked within a cast or two and I thought it was going to be one of those days. They both landed several smaller than usual bass in this area and I began looking for bigger ones in some other areas nearby. Pretty much every spot was holding fish, but I was seeing below average smallies and that wasn’t what I wanted today. Jack was catching most of his fish on a crankbait and Darren was into his on a tube but both of them were landing smallmouth. We literally ran all over in our quest for larger bass but couldn’t bust one bigger than 4 pounds. Plenty of fish were caught today but the caliber just wasn’t there. Somewhere around 4:00 in the afternoon, I dropped Jack off at the dock and Darren & I continued to fish after for another hour. Many fish were missed but only a couple of bass were landed on these last locations before we packed it in and called it a day. I think the next time I fish this spot I am going to concentrate on the cleaner water rather than the stained, cold stuff just to see how it goes. At least there they will have the visibility needed to intercept a moving bait. November temps in October definitely have the fish in a different mood and they are just all over. I need them to begin to concentrate in order to take advantage of the higher number spots instead of covering all kinds of water through the day. Overall, it was still a pretty good day to be on the water!!