This report is for Sunday the 26th. After my success in catching a Largemouth the day before at beaver, my buddy and I decided to try our luck at bitter to see if we could locate some bass on the bottom with his fish finder. But let's just say that things didn't turn out quite as planned. We initially thought that we'd be able to find some fish schooled up off shore in deeper water but we didn't see a thing on the bottom. Bitter lake essentially is just flat and has zero structure on the bottom when you go offshore.

Even though our original plan was to try to find largemouth or rock bass, we both decided that we would try to fall back on catching a trout. We switched between trying for bass and trolling for trout several times throughout the day. We trolled around the whole lake several times in the process and tried the entire shoreline many times. Our thoughts were that if the bass weren't hanging out in the barren deep water, that they might be tucked deep into cover a bit more closer to the shoreline. We pitched Jigs and a Drop Shot in the trees, and left over vegetation that still remained but no dice. I also tried throwing a swimbait around to see if I could get a hungry largemouth to commit.

The low point of the day was when I was casted off my River2Sea S-Waver 168s. With upgrades such as Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings and VMC 4X Treble Hooks, I watched about 25 bucks go flying. I am a bit mind boggled as to how this happened because I didn't backlash on my cast. Somehow the blood knot joining my 65 lb Power Pro Braid to 20 lb P-Line Fluorocarbon snapped mid cast as the lure was flying out. I had made tons of long casts prior to that and my knot looked just fine as I periodically checked it. I'm still pissed but oh well. This gives me an excuse to spent ~$40 or so on the 8" 3.5oz River2Sea S-waver 200 when it comes out in the next couple months.

The highlight of the day came towards the end when we were freezing our butts off and giving one last shot at trolling. We were just trolling from the south west corner to the north east corner (close to the public shoreline) when I hooked into a trout! It was the first fish I caught on my newly acquired 7'10" Quantum Tour KVD Signature Series Crankbait rod. I horsed it in with my Lew's Tournament MG Speed Spool that was spooled with 8 lb Big Game Monofilament.

I turned on my hatcam once I got it close to the boat and saw that it was hooked well. The brief footage can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtQGPcPPRiY

It was a 13" Rainbow Trout that was pretty chunky which tells me that it was eating well. I caught it on a Strike King 3XD in Chili Craw. A lot of people seem to question the effectiveness of crankbaits for trout but I assure you that they are productive! I caught more trout on crankbaits than I do with spoons or inline spinners. You just gotta commit to putting in the time to throw them.

The weather for this upcoming weekend doesn't look too great so I probably won't get out. But I am planning to keep fishing throughout the remainder of winter until all the best lakes re-open on the 4th Saturday of April!

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