Launched around 7 am and fished about 5 hours. The bite was slow at first but it picked up big-time around 10:00. Fortunately it was cloudy and cool, which kept most of the ski boats off the water. (I love it when that happens.)
Totals for the day = 7 dink smallmouth bass, 1 decent smallie that weighed between 2 & 3 lbs (see pic), and 1 largemouth bass that was a chunky monkey! (see pic) Not sure exactly how much she weighed, but I'm guessing close to 5 lbs. I really need to go buy a scale. Maybe I can talk the warden (Mrs. Geek) into a shopping trip @ Joes today...
The largie was only 19 inches long, but very, very thick. I was lucky she didn't break off because I was fishing in standing timber using 8lb calcutta co-polymer line. After taking photos and releasing the fish, I noticed that there were a couple of "kinky" spots on the line where it had been rubbed on trees during the fight. If I had been using regular mono the experience could have ended with EXTREME disappointment. Oh yeah, I also hooked another whopper but it was only on for a few seconds before it managed to get off. I never got a look, but it was tugging very hard and felt like another nice smallmouth.
I tried crankbaits, spinnerbaits, topwater popper, floating perch rapala, & a jig-n-pig -- all of which produced squat. In desperation, I fell back on my #1 lure for finicky bass -- weightless plastics. All but 2 of the fish (including the 2 biggest) were caught on a 4" senko (watermelon w/black & red flake). The other two smallies were caught on a 4" curly-tail grub (cinnamon w/black flake). Sometimes grubs will out-produce senkos, but not today. I fish them very differently. The senko is most productive with a "twitch, twitch, long pause" retrieve. With the grub I let it sink all the way to the bottom then retrieve with a constant slow speed while giving it very soft tugs with the rod tip. It looks exactly like a leech and fish dig it. The only thing that sucks about fishing a big grub is when the freaking perch grab the tail and rip it off when I set the hook. This happened three times today. Grr...