“Oh the wind is lashing lustily
And the trees are thrashing thrustily
And the leaves are rustling gustily
So it's rather safe to say……
It looks like a rather blustery day”

Those words aptly describe my previous three trips in a row, but yesterday was different - oh, so different. In fact, the day was mostly overcast and calm with infrequent, low-velocity gusts – until 3:00, when the wind became steady out of the SE and the gusts increased to a more typical 20-25 mph. The day was overcast when I launched, and a minor solunar period had just started. The water surface was like glass. Needless to say, I was pumped!

I made my first cast along the dam at 7:47, and a two-pounder picked up my unweighted, black/blue flake, wacky rigged Senko just a couple of seconds after it splashed down. Ten minutes later, next to a small patch of dollar pads, I had a smashing strike on a bone Yellow Magic right after I first twitched the lure. That one was just over 14”. Ten minutes later, a 3-pounder tried to take a Senko away from me.  The action was just about like that all day long. After the solunar major period started at 12:37,  I caught bass on three consecutive casts - twice.

I trailered my pond boat at 4:00 because I wanted to get my car and boat under a roof before another bad storm hit. For the day, I boated a total of 37 bass, of which only 3 had to be harvested – and only one was a true ‘dink.’ Only ten of the bass weighed under 2 pounds, but I only caught five that were over 3 pounds. My biggest fish of the day was a 3-05 that caught the trailer hook of an old purple Mister Twister Lunker Buzz II retrieved just fast enough to keep it on top. All of the fish were very strong and healthy. The fish were pretty much all over the lake, and I caught them from the surface down to 15 feet deep, as long as I was putting my lure close to wood. By the dam, I had to put my popper close to the dollar pads or wood, but over the ‘grass.’  Everywhere else, wood alone was the key. Most of the fish picked up my soft plastics, and the larger ones seemed to be relating to the biggest tree trunks I could find that were close to the old creek channels – especially in the west arm - and in most of the smaller drainages. Other lures that worked were unweighted Senkos in green pumpkin and watermelon/red flake (only when the sun was on the water),  a 5” Pit Boss in either watermelon/red flake or black/blue flake, a ½ oz. chrome/black back/orange belly Rattletrap, and the purple buzz bait. Lures that didn’t work were a 10” black/blue Monster worm, chatterbaits (I saw one strike in that clear water, but didn’t hook the fish), jig & split-tail eel, and a Whopper Plopper. I didn’t try any other lures because the Senkos were producing so well. I had several bass surface and come off, even though I did everything I know to keep them from jumping. I also had several fish that hung me up and got away, even with a heavy rod and 65# braid, but they hit after I had cast into very thick and tangled wood.

The water temperature didn’t change much during the day, showing as a fairly uniform 69.1 to 70.5 everywhere.  Visibility was very good:  6 to 8 feet. The lake is about four feet low (see photos).

All in all, it was a productive and thoroughly enjoyable day on the water. Doing the math, I found that I had caught a bass every 11.6 minutes. Not bad, especially compared to my results on those ‘blustery days.’ No big fish, but the numbers certainly made up for it.

Posted By: Tom Dillon