Moon Effects

Mark was in from Arizona and looking forward to catching his first smallmouth bass today. We met at the ramp by 7:30 and were on our way soon after. As with yesterday’s weather, today was a carbon copy with high sun and intense winds. They were once again blowing 10 to 20 from the SW with stronger gusts at times. Water temps fell slightly due to the overnight lows when we hit our first location. I had him throwing a spinnerbait to try and find some active fish but after 10 minutes, switched him up to a jig. Nothing seemed to be moving and we needed to slow down. He was having a difficult time with the head winds and missed the first few strikes before he finally connected with a good one. Unfortunately, slack line and a jump had this one long line released! After struggling to get only a few more pick ups, I decided to see what was going on and also made several casts. They were just mouthing the jigs and I missed several myself before adjusting once again. This time I switched him up to a jerkbait and instructed him with a demonstration cast and was instantly crushed. Apparently, they wanted this bait as he too had several shots at fish afterwards. After catching a few of the smaller ones up to 3 pounds he finally landed a real nice one over 4 pounds that was photo worthy. Having caught mostly smaller largemouth before, he was amazed at how strong these smallies actually were. Although he did have plenty of shots at fish in this first area, the winds kept him from landing most of them. I decided to pull out of here and hit another section of the lake when things slowed down. We were pressed for time seeing as how it was to be only a half day outing and I wanted to get the most out of this day. I wasn’t sure what to expect but as we neared the area we were to fish, I realized that we were fully exposed to the wind and this was going to be a challenge for the boat control. I actually had to get well above the area and have him throw from the back of the boat just so he could stay on the spot. It wasn’t the best presentation, but it was the best choice in these winds. Mark managed to get into 3 or 4 fish in the short time there and almost all of them came to the net. This too was a challenge as every time we landed one, it seemed like we were a hundred feet from where we wanted to be. I had to motor back up and reposition each & every time. Eventually, I decided that this was too much trouble and shifted over to another area less windy. Here too we were faced with light hits from the bass and only had a few shots without success. Another move had identical results once again and I was beginning to wonder what was going on. The onset of the full moon may have played a big part in their negative attitude with night time feeding going on. One more attempt at relocating had identical results and we called it a day. It was close to 1:00 and we were done! Although the fishing wasn’t what I had expected, Mark still had a great time and caught more fish than he’s use to back home. Bigger & better is always a good thing! Tough fishing but a great day to be on the lake!!