20150909-Wixom Lake -~ Prolific Mixed Bag

20150909- Fish Pattern of the Day-Shallow water, wood and slop

you could tell from the start of the morning it was going to be a beautiful day…. No wind and a hazy sunny sky. I love days like that especially fishing from a kayak. Wind is the enemy. Lol. I thought I would take advantage a and get a trip in early for a change. For the past few years I got into a pattern of mid afternoon or p.m. bite to dusk as a fishing game plan and consistently have done well. Fisherman at the docks coming in from the morning fishing and im headed out. Fisherman historically likes the cloudy dreary days and I’m planning the outing for a bright hot sunny day. Against the grain.

Yesterday I planned on doing something different… going out in the mid morning late morning bite. I launched the kayak and hit my new hotspots. Once there I could not beg for a bite. I pretty much settled on drifting slowly and studying the bottom contours with the sounder when I got my first hit with the slip float and waxie. I like casting the slip float pkg in situations like this because it is accurate. Fixed float casting cartwheels and wobbles thru the cast and accuracy is lost.Fish on! It felt like a brute of a B’Gill and the fight fell short when I was trying to pull it from the dense weeds. The fish came from an accurate cast next to a lay down in about 1-6 FOW. The casts are made to small open areas or pockets in the vegetation, shore or wood. A successive cast to the same spot produced a fat 8.4” or 8” class B’Gill that tried to bull its way into the weeds but luckily this one pulled thru. CPR’ed and quickly released. Felt like the bite was kicking in.

Then it happened… a few cast later I made pinpoint casts into a slop are filled with wood and weed canopy next to the bank. The bobber took only a second before it disappeared. Setting the hook sent a freight train to deeper water. Here we go I thought!. It happens quite often catching a big pred on the small UL float setups. Fish in fishy water and its only a matter of time. The fight stayed deep and it felt like a largemouth from the very hookset. The inside weed edge was light and clumpy and the fish made every effert to tie me up. Luckily the 6# braid sliced thru and I was able to land after one last acrobatic leap. Indeed it was a fine stocky LMB over the 20” mark. Put an instant smile on my face.

After that battle I decided to let the spot cool down and moved to adjacent spots with the thought of coming back and picking up some more targets. That never happened. It was mid afternoon and sunny and my bite was turning red hot. Many casts were made into the slop pockets and edges and many targets were brought to vessel. I was in my comfort zone. The day ended with many midsized crappies caught in larger confined open water areas… inside turns producing the best in numbers.

The day ended with a nice sunset over a calm lake … I love September… and my sunny mid afternoon bite!