Pretty Water Lake, 8/9/2013

[Allen Morgan]

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.