location location location - leave to a bass angler to show me!
All morning I couldn't hook up with fish in this lake I know like the back of my dog. Fished deep, caught a few shallow but nada hour after hour. At midday I happened to notice a bass angler flip'n under overhanging tree limbs tight to shore but never saw him catch a fish (at least when I was looking). Beat'n the banks isn't my thing preferring open water 4' or deeper, but ya gotta do what you gotta do - specially when you're hard up for a bite.
Sure enough, some fish were hanging out in shallow shaded water - perch, bass, crappie and sunfish - to name a few. Downsizing lures is also something I hesitate to do but at times deperate measures calls for 1 3/4 inch soft plastics and 1/24 oz ballhead jigs.
It's not that you can't catch larger fish with small lures, but bass always seem to perform acrobatics when attached to a small hook, always capable of getting free on the jump. Makes me wonder what it's thinking in mid air such as, 'and you thought that piddly a' little thing could catch me?! Ha!' After 5 more of those little guys, I went to a larger lure and jig hook size so those buggers couldn't get loose. 6 of these posed for pictures:
https://i.imgur.com/hlaTHPj.jpg
Even the little guys couldn't get away:
https://i.imgur.com/drGrKsu.jpg?1
So now, this 2 3/4" hybrid soft plastic started really kick'n ... fin!
https://i.imgur.com/hnuMB7V.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/wTAINEe.jpg
Even some of the gills reached a respectable size:
https://i.imgur.com/9Y297QW.jpg
So, I worked my way south and caught 2 doz. fish more along the same shoreline. But then I noticed the same bass angler fishing open water with floats. Keeping my distance, I fished deeper - in 4-5', and started catching schooled fish. First there were crappie and and then perch gatherings (not bad in size to boot!):
https://i.imgur.com/ag2qOUC.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XmCQDzM.jpg?1
Note: fish schools left areas from the north and east where they were previously caught and were now in the southern part of the lake and in the shade along the west shore. Go figure.
After catching 52 fish in total, I decided to call it a day. I talked with the bass angler and he said he didn't do well but I thanked him for putting me on fish - even unintentionally LOL. I even used his boat as a marker to stay on fish keeping my casts within a direction a bit to the right, left and center. Odd though, he said he never used light jigs and plastics. I think he will start after I told him the number caught that day.
