Tough Opener

A road trip for the bass opener today and I met my guests on a distant lake to try & tackle some feisty smallies. It was to be a two day stint and I was sure we would fend well. Air temps began in the 60’s but climbed well into the 80’s in the afternoon. Winds were out of the S/W at 10 to 20 knots causing quite a chop on the lake, but nothing the Ranger couldn’t handle! Curt had fished with me last weekend locally for pike & walleye and had a blast. This trip he had brought Eric who had accompanied him last season at the same time and they were pumped after their first visit. Unfortunately, last year the spawn was a little later and the fishing was real simple for everyone. This time it was to prove to be a real challenge as the fish were in a post spawn mode and reluctant to aggressively bite. We fished our butts off covering just about every possible alley and never really got into the biggest ones of the lake. Although we did manage many bass, the largest ones would have only made the 4 pound range and that wasn’t good enough for me. Plenty of northern pike were taken today along with the bass but the lake left me with an empty feeling and I wasn’t happy. I’m not sure if the water visibility made a difference today but it was probably the dirtiest I had ever seen on the lake and all the floating grass & debris didn’t help either. We made a decision to regroup and change tactics for tomorrow and called it a day around five. Day two saw us back at the crack of 6:30 A.M. ready to put a beating on them just like they did to us yesterday. I thought we would try & see if we might find an active brown or rainbow lurking high in the water column and tried fly rod trolling for the first hour of the day. Unfortunately it didn’t pan out and after 45 minutes we threw in the towel. Bass was the target species and we wanted revenge! I decided to hit the secondary drops in hopes of finding some of the post spawn fish recovering and hopefully feeding. Both Curt & Eric threw spinnerbaits and I tried swimming a spider jig in the deeper water to try & entice something into eating. After almost 90 minutes of washing baits and frustration, I switched locations and began throwing to the outside edges of new weeds and this is where Eric had a huge follower closer to what we were searching for. It was definitely over 5 but we’ll never know as the fish refused to eat and disappeared to where she came from immediately. By switching it up we were able to get into some decent fish all over but I still couldn’t lock onto the mother load. I even tried some deeper cliff points and ledges hoping for suspended fish without success. Eric did however have either a small salmon or rainbow chase down his lure and a really huge northern in the 15 to 20 pound class that left him looking like a deer in the headlights. As a last resort I headed shallow looking for weed beds and this is where we remained for the afternoon. It was also where we saw the most action with both northerns and really nice smallies. Just like the big northern, Eric had a giant of a smallie follow his spinnerbait back to the boat leaving him all messed up for quite a while. Although I didn’t see the fish he claimed that this was the biggest smallie he had ever seen and looked to be in the 7 pound class. We decided right then and there that we would not be leaving this area for the remainder of the day! We had found a small patch of weeds next to deep water and it was loaded with baitfish. They would bust the surface constantly when a predator was around showing us where to cast. This was also to be the most productive location with numbers of bass & pike being caught. A couple of smallies were over 4 pounds from spinnerbaits and even top water. With the strong winds present, they were busting bait and we were monopolizing on the feeding activity. This one area salvaged the entire trip and I was surely glad to have finally located some active fish. We fished till about 5:30 and called it a day when the winds had layed down and the skies threatened heavy rains. Good thing too as I drove away from the ramp just when it let loose! Overall it was a decent trip thanks to the one particular area at the end of day two. All I can say is “Never Give Up”!!!