Saturday morning I set out to do some largemouth bass fishing. Conditions were perfect, 70 degrees, light wind, overcast with storms on the horizon. Now storms may not sound perfect but fishing right before a storm is one of the best times to fish for just about anything, especially bass. The problem is, it can be hard to get the timing right, mother nature doesn't often work to your schedule. On this particular day it was looking like the storms would be rolling through sometime midday so this gave me the perfect window to fish in the morning. So I headed out to what was looking like a promising day of fishing.
I got on the water around 10am. Water clarity was perfect at 1-2ft of visibility. I prefer water that is not too muddy/stained, but also not too clear. Water temperature was 69 degrees. I brought 4 rods with 4 different baits to try. I had a shallow square bill crankbait, top water frog, wobblehead, and a green pumpkin jig. I decided to start shallow and work my way deeper as I expected the bass were fairly shallow and nearing spawn. I started out alternating between the crankbait and the frog. 15 minutes in, I caught my first and smallest bass of the day on crankbait. After 45 minutes or so I finally got my second strike and hook up on the frog. The hit was fairly subtle, unlike the typical top water explosion you think of when frog fishing. After two leaps into the air this largemouth had won the battle. It was a decent one at approximately 16", but that's the way frog fishing goes.
I soon started moving out into deeper water as I failed to get anymore bites in the shallow water (1-4ft). I switched up to throwing jig and occasionally the frog into any shallow coves I came by. Wobblehead was only going to be my "if all else fails bait". 30 minutes went by and I only had a couple nibbles on the jig when I finally got the bite I had been looking for. I pulled the bass out of the wood it was hiding under and maneuvered it around my Nucanoe away from the snags. A couple runs later and I had the lunker in my net. Could it be? the illusive Fish OH largemouth? In all my years of fishing I have only landed 2 largemouth at or over the 21" Fish OH mark, although in the past couple years big bass have become much more common. I attribute this to two factors. Bigger baits, particularly jigs, and fishing from a boat/kayak/canoe. And the length..... 20.25". Not a Fish OH but still an awesome fish that I was pumped to catch. The bass weighed on the lighter side at 3lbs 10oz.
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| 20.25" 3lb 10oz Largemouth Bass |
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| 20.25" 3lb 10oz Largemouth Bass |
From this point forward I really dialed in on the bass, mostly due to location. These bass were still holding to deeper structure. I caught several more bass in the 12-16" range on the jig. A couple hours later I even got my first bass of the year on frog. The bass took my frog so lightly that I thought a bluegill had nibbled at it but then my frog was gone. Shortly after the catch on frog I got my second big bass of the day on jig. An 18.5" 2lb 11oz.
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| 18.5" 2lb 11oz Largemouth Bass |
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| 18.5" 2lb 11oz Largemouth Bass |
This was turning into the type of day that I dream about. The wind at this point was almost non existent. The temperature was in the 70's, and the fish were biting. I couldn't ask for more.
A couple 12-14 inchers and an hour later I got my third decent bass of the day. A 17" 1lb 14oz.
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| 17" 1lb 14oz Largemouth Bass |
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| 17" 1lb 14oz Largemouth Bass |
This was when I looked up at the sky and saw this...
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| Approaching Storm |
The storms had arrived. It was 3:30pm at this point. I herd some distant thunder but didn't see any lightning so I decided I'd make this trip last as long as possible. 10 minutes went by and some light rain began to fall. Still no lightning up to this point when suddenly lightning came crashing down just over the hillside with thunder so loud I nearly fell out of my Nucanoe. I quickly hightailed it to the boat ramp as it began to absolutely downpour. I had rain gear but as usual, I waited until it was to late to put it on. I loaded up as quickly as I could in the torrential rain. When I was nearing completion the rain even decided to turn ice cold, how nice of it. When I was done I was dripping wet, so wet that I decided to drive home in my underwear. As I drove home It rained so hard I had to slow to a crawl more than once. With or without the rain it had been a great day, one that I wont soon forget. If anything the rain just adds to the story. When I got home the garage had 2" of standing water, something that isn't all that uncommon as the draining system isn't great. I thought to myself, "Is my NuCanoe going to float in the garage?" As I was pulling my NuCanoe into the garage I noticed my cats food dish was floating around in the water. That's when my cat came wading in and started eating out of the floating bowl, she didn't even seem to mind. I thought that was pretty funny so I had to mention it. Got to love spring fishing!
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