21 April 2009, 1700 hrs. Sunny, light breeze. Surface temperature ~72 degrees. Wind ~2 mph from west. Water temperature unknown, but best guess ~62 degrees. Water clarity / visibility – clear / ~7 feet.
Tackle: 7’ Light Cranking Castaway rod, coupled with a Shimano Chronarch 50 MG, strung with 6 lbs test Trilene SensiThin, tied to a 2 ¾”, ¼ oz, Shallow Diving Yo-Zuri “Huntin’ Shad” (discontinued).
Technique: Drifting in 8-10 feet of water, making long casts into 6 feet of water, through a thick coontail weed bed submerged 2 feet, approximately 20 yards from shore. Slowly worked the crank 2-3 feet under – ticking and grazing the tops of the weeds. I did not “rip” the crank through the weeds when it got caught. I slowed down even more and eased the lure free. That’s when the lure was inhaled. I made casts parallel to the shoreline, straight through the weed bed.
The fish came out of nowhere, but it moved so slow that I watched her inhale the entire lure. Then I set the hook. She immediately dove into the weeds with the entire lure in the mouth. I had to chase because the 6 lbs test would not have been able to horse her up. She got stuck in the weeds a few times, but stayed hooked. As you can see by the picture, one hook on the back treble was the only thing that kept her buttoned towards the end of the battle. I lost a nice fish the same day.
I was throwing a weightless Bass Pro Shop 5” Watermelon Red Stick-O on light spinning tackle. I was making monster casts from 10 feet of water to submerged laydowns in 2-3 feet of water. There was sparse vegetation around the shallow flat. I was slowly dragging the rig until I hit a clump of veggies. I stopped, counted 15 seconds and twitched the rig out of the clump and let it fall. I felt another clump, but this clump moved so I set the hook. I had made such a long cast, it was difficult to get a good hook set. It took about 5 yards of drag, rolled, and came unbuttoned. It was a five pounder. The two bass still seemed very lethargic when eating both baits. A couple of days before, I was burning baits for a few hours at the same time of day. One thumped and unbuttoned from a medium diver I was ripping through the weeds and I caught a short one (~10 inches) burning a tandem willow bladed 3/8 ounce firetiger skirted spinnerbait through the weeds. It seems slow is the way to go for now. Give the lake a couple more weeks. Many anglers will have a lot of fun on this lake this summer . . .

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