Covering The Water

David & I were back on the water today for another crack at some big smallies on the fly. We decided to try another lake to see if the bass were a little more active and eager to eat. The drive to the lake was a little wet as we went through plenty of rain along the way. We also had plenty of it on the water while fishing too! Winds were out of the N/E at 5 to 10 knots causing a little discomfort while false casting, but he managed alright. Water temps were around 69 degrees and the air temps hit about 70 degrees in the afternoon. Our first area to fish had bass cruising all over the place but they just weren’t interested in the flies and we moved on. The second area wasn’t much better and we wasted no time shifting once again. I thought I would try something different and went to a spot completely out of the wind looking for some big smallmouth, but only managed to get one 2 pound largemouth instead. Off again and another largemouth fell victim to a surface popper in the 2 pound range once more. The fish definitely weren’t in the areas I was checking and after several more attempts at locating them, I finally hit on one that had feeders. David was locked up after he thought he had picked up a weed and a nice smallie of almost 4 pounds came aboard. After a short while, another one of 3.5 pounds took the fly and things were looking up. He managed to land several more decent bass up to 4 pounds in this area before we decided to move again. The floating weeds were the biggest problem today as the north winds were blowing them into every area we fished. We even went into the shallows to see if there were any largemouth that wanted to eat and only managed two hookups that never got landed. A couple more unsuccessful stops on rocky areas only produced several rock bass and one more largemouth before we threw in the towel and called it quits. It wasn’t the most perfect day on the water and casting flies didn’t make it any easier either. David did manage to land some really nice bass on the fly though and that’s what we were looking for on this dismal day on the water. I’m sure that given some sunshine and slightly better weather, it might have ended differently. I guess that’s fishing!!