Mike & Ryan along with Jeff, Mike’s brother joined me on another local lake today looking for some bass action. We were into fish almost immediately as spinner baits & soft plastics were hooking largemouth in shallow, weedy bays from the start. Overcast skies looked like rain might be brewing, but we got lucky as the sun eventually over powered the sky by late morning. I knew that with the cooler water temps that the smallies were going to be a problem so I concentrated mainly on the largemouth today. Just like yesterday, we covered lots of water today catching bass pretty much all over. There wasn’t anything huge today, but there were several fish in the 3.5-pound range landed making for a few good pics. As usual, Ryan was on fire landing over 50% of all fish caught. I think I’ll just rename him hoover from now on as today he became the human vacuum! Being in the front of the boat played a big role in the outcome as he had first crack at all the best water before the others. With all the sunshine today, the water had a chance to warm up a few degrees causing the smallies to finally show up in the shallows. Unfortunately, all we did was look at them due to their lack of aggression. By 5:00 P.M. we decided to call it a day & headed back to the ramp. Lots of fish were caught, but nothing big again. I can’t wait for the water to warm up allowing us to hook into multiple, big fish every day, once more!

Today I fished with Ed on a local lake for a multi species kind of day. It was an eerie start with dark clouds & high humidity making it seem more like the end of the day. Very low light conditions slowed the bite for quite a while as we trolled stick baits looking for walleye & pike. Water temps remained low at 67 in the best areas & air temps were in the 70’s, but felt more like the 90’s with all the moisture. Floating weeds made trolling difficult & only a handful of pike & one walleye were caught so we opted for casting for bass. One decent largemouth from a small clump of grass in a smallie spot was all we had to show, so we moved again. A few more smallies on a crankbait in another spot & off we went once more. Just about everywhere we fished some action was had, but nothing like I expected. We hit about 17 spots & only had the last area produce multiple hook-ups when Ed got into several fish on a spinner bait. Crankbaits also caught several fish along with tubes today. But overall quite slow. Ed even caught another walleye on a tube in one of the shallowest spots too! I guess there were about 25 fish caught with many others lost as well, but with these conditions it just seemed like they were shut down today.

Darren & I hit the lake this morning looking for largemouth bass. It was pretty quick to find them as soon as I located the warmer 70 water I was looking for. Air temps were 65 but reached almost 80 degrees during the day with high humidity. Winds were from the SW at 10 to 15 knots & late in the day layed down as a storm approached. We got into fish in shallow bays fishing spinner baits through the new weeds. Plenty of smaller bass were caught with the largest going about 3.5 pounds. There were even a few smallies taken from some of the rocky areas later on, but nothing larger than 3 pounds. We had to cut it short late in the day when we noticed a storm approaching & the static electricity was getting too close to remain safe enough to fish. There were plenty of fish caught today, but nothing really huge.

Frank & his son Alex were fishing with me today in hopes of getting into pike & walleye. The weather was quite warm with winds blowing from the SW at 10 to 20 knots, getting even stronger later on. We started out looking for pike, trolling weedy areas with very slow action. Although we were getting some smaller ones, I wasn’t satisfied & began looking a little deeper when one of the reels went off. To our surprise, it turned out to be a nice walleye of 4 pounds and went right into the live well. Not long after, another reel fired & this one was a 5-pound walleye as well. We trolled the area thoroughly in anticipation of putting more of these tasty fish into the live well, with only a few pike to show for our efforts. Finally we connected with another fish & this one was a 3.5-pound walleye as well. With all the wind, there were too many floating weeds making trolling this area almost impossible & we looked for fish in other areas instead. Unfortunately, all we could come up were a few more smaller pike & decided to try something new. Casting for bass in the shallow waters, we were able to pick up a few largemouth, but the smallies just wanted to follow. The rest of the afternoon was spent caching a few largemouth & trying to get out of the wind. By 3:00P.M. We called it & ran back to the ramp in 3 to 4 footers due to the winds increasing. Overall, a productive day with the walleye, but slow on the bass & pike.

Back on the water again with Steve & Steve this morning looking for smallies, largemouth & pike. We rolled out at about 7:00 A.M. and went straight for pike action, trolling stickbaits around weeds. It began slowly, but picked up when the sun popped out & reels were screaming with fish almost on cue. Steve # 2 was having some great action catching 5 & 6 pound pike until he finally got into a real good one. Unfortunately it came off at the boat before I was able to boga grip the 10 pounder & no photo was had. I wasn’t worried though as I was sure we would get more, when another reel began to scream. This pike was even larger & we were able to finally get a good picture of another fish over 10 pounds. When the sun disappeared & the fishing slowed down, I decided to go in shallow & try for largemouth. We were deep in the vegetation & working soft plastics slowly to get bites. Several smaller bass were caught & then Steve nailed a 3 pounder right beside the boat, before we called it a day. It was only suppose to be a half-day, but I had decided to stay a little longer showing them a new shallow technique for largemouth. It proved to be a good half-day never the less with many fish landed.