Bite Was On!
Got a head start on my vacation this morning...fished Stetson Pond from 8-11:30 am... I was glad to see it was cloudy when I got up this morning, and it stayed that way when I go to the water...Water temps in the mid 70's, slight breeze, and ripples in the water..Got over to the location I wanted to fish and I saw a lot of fish breaking the surface/ fins out of the water, so I was psyched! Proceeded to hook up right away, catching about 6-8 LM in the next half hour to hour, all on light swimming jigs for my top water offering, and on a shakey head worm for the bottom...Also caught a 2+lb pickeral on the shakey head, huge teeth on this thing... The LM that were breaking the surface were smaller, mostly 1-2# range...but they were actively feeding on something, I couldn't figure out what though?? Fins out of water, I have only seen this a few times..The schooling/feeding activity reminded me of striper fishing, especially when a boat made a b-line across the water right to where I was fishing, WTF?? No one else on the water, the whole lake is open...Turns out they were nice and kept moving after a minute or two...Anyway, even though the fish were active, the LM were picky, I also tried to speed things up with a crank bait/shallow runner, but they wanted nothing to do with it...same with a fluke on a light jig...but I knew I was on a school of fish, and I knew there had to be bigger LM's lurking below..just like Striper fishing, at least that's what I was thingking, lol.
After regrouping I slowed down with just the shakey head and started getting into bigger 2#+ fish at the bottom...I continued fishing the bottom in about 10-15 ft of water when I felt a small weight on my line, thought it was a weed, felt it again, very slight, lighter than any bite I had thus far and no line movement.... I lifted the rod up with a hard jerk to see, and Boom! rod bent over...I knew it was decent one for sure, I was just hoping it wasn't a pickeral as this thing didn't want to come up...I played it for a bit on my lighter setup, and finally a nice 3.6# bass showed its face....Not a lunker, but for this place, its very good. Maybe my biggest bass I have caught here, and a pound better than the other fish I was catching earlier... I thought I was going to get into the big mama's at this point, but proceeded to get no real bites for the next hour, the bass had moved and I couldn't quite locate them...Then a pleasure boater hit the water with some tubers, proceeded to fly right around me creating massive wakes, and I figured I'd call it a day, as I didn't feel like fighting the wakes...Hit a floating dock on the way in, and caught another small 2# LM on a small tube...Also saw it had a hook in its gill, so I removed that, my good deed for the day...All in all, about 13-15 LM bass caught, with a few pickeral mixed in.... I'll take it any day....