Do you love big bluegill?

Pretty Water Lake, 8/9/2013

Went to one of my home lakes this morning. I was NOT expecting rain when I woke up, but as soon as I turned on the morning weather shaman to get the forecast, I learned that the clearing line was fast approaching, so I took off.

I had my standard trolling/casting setup on the yak. I wasn’t planning on doing much trolling; it’s a pretty small lake, and I’ve never caught anything trolling here. I was, however, planning on throwing a Jitterbug in frog colors around the weeds.

As soon as I launched, I started following the weeds in a clockwise pattern. I almost immediately got a hit from what I believe was a sunfish. Small little smacking sound, with no hookup. About 5 minutes later, just a few yards away, I actually caught a small LMB. It hit my plug so close to the boat that I never had to reel, just set the hook, and lifted the fish up out of the water, where it promptly thrashed around and spit the hook.

I kept moving, slowly, throwing the plug here and there, trying to find pockets that might hold a fish. I did see one such pocket, threw towards, and just missed, landing my plug just outside the empty hole in the weeds. I’ve learned to let the plug sit a few seconds before moving it. While I was waiting, I noticed that *something* was bumping the water willows close to my plug, and seemed to be moving towards the lure. I grinned, and started retrieving the plug. Sure enough, it didn’t move more than a couple feet when a fish hit it. Unfortunately, I didn’t hook up with it.

I continued paddling and casting. As I rounded a bend in the shoreline, I realized the wind was starting to pick up, and I was moving against it. I decided to troll over to the south bank, protected from the wind, and continue throwing the Jitterbug.

I did that, and turned to follow the wind down the face of the dam. I got about halfway down that, when *something* BIG smacked my Jitterbug. My pole was bent over, and it would pull a little drag as it surged. Darn fish came straight at me, and passed below my boat. I pulled the rod to the side and reeled down a bit, causing my yak to turn towards the fish. That’s when it finally decided to come to the surface. I was expecting a big LMB. WRONG! Channel Catfish!

I didn’t get any more bites, so I decided to paddle back to my van, and swap out the Bass gear for some Catfish gear. I had some stinkbait and nightcrawlers with me. I decided to float some worms under a bobber, but all I got was hits from sunfish. I decided to move to a different spot, in about 10 FOW, and drop some bait down to bottom, as I’ve caught various fish in that spot before. Nothing.

About that time, I realized it was getting to be lunchtime, so I called it a day.