O. G.

Cold front after cold front this year, disrupting the typical patterns we see this time of year. Spending lots of time fishing the lower portion of the water column with drop shots, free rigs, Waco rigs, t-rigged creatures. Topwater is really spotty....ok in the mornings but shuts off at 10a. A bit tougher this year, than past years. Water temps are running about 5-6 degrees cooler than the same time last year, based on my records. The wife asked me if my coike's were decorations for the boat, hahaha.....I guess actually, that's what they are.....I've been able to hook only 2 fish, all year on these urchins. So, maybe they are decorations. Lol. Tight lines!

Caught 8 fish all on topwater. 6 smallies. Smalliez were active yesterday. On a different note, is there anywhere local, where I can sell some spare, very lightly used and some new, fishing gear? 5 each of spinning and baitcast combos. All have either pline tactical fluorocarbon or seaguar smackdown braided line. I'd like to get $100 for the 2 nicer set ups and $50 - $75 per, for the rest. No super high end stuff like Dobyns, etc...it's mid-range stuff like Kastking and Piscifun, which is all good stuff. Just doing some spring cleaning. Wife says no more tackle / gear purchases unless I sell some of existing stuff.

I got most of my bites on a topwater. Lots of activity at about 15ft. See my FFS screen shot below. Each of those blips is a fish. I threw EVERYTHING at them. EVERYTHING I could think of...drop shot, wacky, neko, minnow, hair jig, coike, jerk baits, crank baits, bladed jig, lipless crankbait. Each time they would swarm my bait, swim all around it, but no takers....so frustrating. But, I did hit these 2 on a translucent whopper plopper 90. Also, on a side note, we have our 2nd set of spawners in our slip. We had 3 sets of spawners last year. Look at all those eggs!!

The spawn is on! We have our 1st set of spawners on the pillar, at the dock slip, over about 60ft of water. Lots of eggs on top, stuff that looks like snow.....that's papa close by watching me closely. He's 4lbs BTW. That's his mug shot. Don't worry, all of the photos of him on the nest were taken hours AFTER I caught and released him....he's doing just fine and went straight back to the nest. Gestation period can be from 2 to 10 days, depending on water temps and external temps. I'll be back on Sunday. There might be babies by then.

I have caught 122 fish this past week. All between 1.5lb to just over 3lbs. The smaller males have moved up. I'm seeing them stacked up at 35ft to 50ft of water, on the main points. It's been a pretty slow winter. So, it's fun to go out and put 20+ fish in boat every time I go out.....even if they are smaller ones....they're still tons of fun to catch!

Too many photos to upload. No photos in this report, sorry. You all know what a bass looks like, anyway. So, the lake is definitely waking up from the winter slumber. I caught 32 fish on Saturday and another 54 fish on Wednesday. All fish were between 1.5lb to 3lbs. No larger fish caught, but still made for a very entertaining day! There was a stretch where I caught a fish on ELEVEN casts IN A ROW! That's a new PB best for me, as far as consecutive casts w/ fish.

I had not previously witnessed what the pros call "bass being stacked up like a cord of wood", until this past week. That's probably because I hadn't had FFS until this season.

They are literally stacked up between 30ft to 50ft, off of the primary lake points. I am seeing literally hundreds of fish on the sonar.....so many that I'm not looking at the sonar screen, just using it to ID where the thickest part of the stack is, and casting into it.

I've been using 4in to 5in minnows (crush city and sakamata shad) on a 1/2 oz head to get down there fast, and stay along the bottom. ALL of my hook ups are happening while I am bumping the bottom while shaking the minnow.

I even caught about 5 fish on that new "Coike" dice bait from Japan. But, they definitely like the minnows better.

When I'm landing the fish, upon observation, many have half swallowed shad in their gullets - I thought the shad that they would be feeding on, would have been smaller. But, most shad I'm finding in their throats are between 5 - 7 inches. So, adjust the bait size accordingly.

When I switched to a 6 inch bait, I started to consistently hook 2lb to 3lb fish.

The big ones have to be staging somewhere else. I'm going to look deeper in the water column, this week.

Overall, the lake is waking up from it's winter slumber!

Lake temps are rising, but still between 56 in the morning, and up to 62 in the afternoon.

Afternoon bite produced a lot of 2lb + fish. Not sure if that is a pattern, or just coincidence. But, I'll track that next time I go out, on SAT.

Time to get out there and have some fun!

Tight lines!