Settling for The Green Bass

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Rick & Dan were back this morning for another day of fishing. This time they were joined by my brother and hopefully it would be equally as productive as their previous day. All I wanted was for the forecast to be wrong as giant winds were expected!

We headed across the water to our first spot in 2 footers and I decided to take refuge in an area for largemouth bass. All the smallie spots would be a real challenge with the winds today!

I don’t usually target largies when I fish bass but under the circumstances we didn’t really have much choice. It was blowing quite hard and open water was not the place to be!

It didn’t take long before we had our first encounter with a bass when Mike latched on to a really good fish. He had thought that it was a weed by the light bite and unfortunately it took to the air and tossed his bait. Not the way I wanted to start the day but at least we had confirmation that they were here!

A little while later Rick hit another and this time he managed to get it into the boat. This too was a really good bass and well worthy of several pics! A few missed strikes followed before Rick locked up on another one. All the bass we were seeing were quality and this one was no different.

With the water temps still holding around 65 degrees, these fish weren’t moving far to get the baits. We had to really slow down in order to have a chance at catching anything. I held in each place and had them make multiple casts to all the water before moving on. It was a challenge but the results were definitely worth it!

We spent the entire morning fishing this place and although many chances were had, about 50% of them turned into landed bass. Eventually we had to make a decision about where we would go next but our choices were very limited.

I attempted holding on an open water reef that had been very king to Rick & Dan yesterday but trying to keep them on fish in 3 to 4 footers was next to impossible. Plan B soon went to plan C & D and we were no better off. With each attempt at another move, reality set in. This wasn’t looking very good!

After having attempted multiple spots to fish, it was unanimous. We were officially done! Now all I had to do was get back to the ramp, safely. The open water looked more like an ocean rather than a lake and I knew it was going to be a little splashy on the way back. White caps were more pronounced now and the waves were much bigger. Three footers were average with occasional 4’s & 5’s every once in a while! Fortunately we were in a Ranger and I knew it wouldn’t be a problem.

After tacking multiple times along the way back, we were finally at the dock and still dry. When we looked out all we could see were walls of white with many wind surfers enjoying the big rollers. It definitely looked nasty out there!

All things considered, we managed to make it work but the fishing was still tough. It felt like I was handcuffed, not being able to get to places that I wanted to fish. Tomorrow is another day and both Rick & Dan will be fishing the morning before heading back home. Hopefully Mother Nature will be a little kinder with the winds allowing me to put them on plenty more fish. We’ll see what the morning brings!