Bill fished with me today on a local lake for bass with a friend from Arizona as well. Air temps reached into the low 80’s by the end of the day & water temps were as high as 73. The morning started out a little slow as I began the search for the smallies. Not many were caught but they were quality ones all around 4 pounds. Frank even t managed to get into a nice walleye of over 6 pounds while tube fishing in the same area. Without any wind today, it was a real scorcher on the water! I checked many areas looking for a concentration until I eventually realized how shallow they still were. Finally we were into bass, both smallies & largermouth, mostly on soft plastic baits. In the next few hours plenty of quality fish up to 4 pounds were caught & released before we called the day. There was a big storm brewing & I wanted off the water as quickly as possible! All in all a great day!

Jim & André on two Mountains on the first day of bass. Opening day proved to be a strange one with mostly smaller males of 1-2.5 pounds caught. Weather was warm & sunny with temps reaching 80. Water temps were around 70 in most areas & bass were shallow. Only a few fish caught on top water with most taken by slowly working tubes & soft plastics. Almost dead sticking the baits! No wind today in most areas until late made for a great season opener. Over 50 bass caught & released up to 4.5 pounds.

Well summer officially arrived today with a high of almost 90 degrees. If it weren’t for the 20 to 30 knot winds from the S, it would have been unbearable. Mike joined me today for the toughest day yet for trout with everything else to show for our efforts. Lots of small, smallies & 1 of almost 5 lbs. We found one area on the lake with only 57 degrees there & tried it without success for a while. I think that every boat was taking advantage of the heat wave today as the waves were coming from all directions with the boat traffic.

Well great expectations were met with even greater disappointment today when we arrived at the boat ramp. The winds were blowing 3 footers at best directly on to the launch causing us to change our plans entirely. I had wanted to use this ramp to be able to troll some of the deeper shoals looking for salmon, but had to settle for another game plan as well as a place to launch. Air temps were almost 60 with steady rain falling & 15 to 25 knot winds form the S. We were in 60 degree water & I knew it would be tough to get the lines down deep enough to meet their comfort range, but tried never the less. We had a few short strikes on the deep lines before we finally connected with a fish over 40 feet of water. To our amazement, it was a largemouth over 4 pounds. Several more smallies , pickerel & even jumbo perch were taken as well before we just abandoned the area entirely & called it quits. Between mother nature & the suspended bass & pickerel we had enough. Misty rain with an occasional shower was all we had to show for our efforts today!

What a difference a day makes! Warm temps, no wind & no rain made for a much more enjoyable day of fishing. Unfortunately we didn’t land any lakers that made the slot size, but we did get five that were close. We even tried casting again along the drop off where we were hooking up, but no takers. They all wanted flies on the deep lines down 15 to 20 feet but they were small. Along with the trout were of course more jumbo perch and a few small bass. Water temps on the open lake were 53.5 to 55 degrees & some of the bays were once again close to 60. I could see that most of the bass were now shallow & staging to spawn, so we fished over much deeper water in the 20 to 40 foot range. I might try a different area tomorrow morning and troll along cliffs to see if we can’t get into some salmon or rainbows for a change. No pics again!