We had our best fishing day ever yesterday afternoon at Sulphur Bluff Deer Trail. Clear and sunny with a variable breeze from the south, about 70-75 degrees, a great day to be outdoors. Water was very clear. Lots of vegetation everywhere including on the bottom in deeper water. Cattails and water lilies are dormant with no foliage.

Launched the little boat there and caught 3 fish in the first 15 minutes! A great start! We caught small to medium sized fish (1-3 pounds) just north of the launch site on the west side, a few along the dam and the northeast corner in the only tree stumps on the lake. One aggressive fish hit my soft plastic so hard that it came out of the water on the strike! Another 3 pounder.

Working along the east side we caught some along the shore. We usually beat the shoreline with shallow cranks, spinner baits and soft plastics. Today while the boat was at an odd angle for my wife, she casted several times toward deeper water, and caught a couple of nicer fish in the 3 pound range. So I tried it and caught a whopper! My digital scales went dead, but it measured 22 inches. Steve Alexander tells me it is probably around 6 pounds!

To round out this report, we took a break on shore then fished 5PM to sundown at 6:35 with topwaters with no luck. Only got two strikes and no catches, very surprising. One of the strikes was a huge fish though and made the biggest gulping sound I've ever heard -  but no bite.

So this lake known as a numbers lake with lots of smaller fish but, also has some lunkers! Altogether we landed 26 fish in an afternoon, by far our best day ever!

And it's a great place to bring beginners. Or discouraged wives who have been skunked lately!