Tough Day but New PB

Sep 07 2020

Stephen Johnston

Fry

Member Since :
2018
Number of Posts :
34

Reservation Number : 25644
Property Name : Tara lake
Reservation Date : 09/05/2020 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 13/ dink - 7 lbs
Lures Used : Fluke, Whopper Plopper, Fluke, Spinner Bait, Chatter Bait, Worm

My son and I fished a full day at Tara Lake.  We started at sunrise and it was muddy!  The shore was muddy and the water was chocolate milk with low visibility.  We started the morning fishing topwater and we had a promising start.  A few minutes in a fish busted about 15 yards in front of the boat. My son cast to that spot and was rewarded with a fat 4 pounder.  That was it for topwater action.   After a quick start the rest of the day was a slog.  The conditions were not favorable with a blue sky and no wind.  The water was like glass.  We caught a fish here and there but could never find a pattern. We caught a few fish more nice fish but half the fish were small.  If there had a 14" harvest we would have culled probably 8 fish.  We threw everything at them but nothing changed.  I did catch a few monster crappie the biggest of which weighed 1.94 lbs, which is the biggest crappie I've ever caught.  

The afternoon was really slow and about 4:00 we talked about calling it a day.  We decided to stay a little longer and I decided to tie on a red lipless crankbait and fish the dam.  About half way down the dam I got slammed and I knew it was big.  With the water clarity being what it was you couldn't see the fish until you were pulling it out of the water.  It was a tank weighing 7.12 lbs packed in a hair under 20".  My new personal best.  That sure turned things around for what was otherwise a disappointing day.  We fished another couple of hours without a bite and decided to call it a day about 6:15.  

Sep 10 2020

Scott Quigley

Admin

Member Since :
2014
Number of Posts :
402

Congrats on the PB, your persistence really paid off!  Not big numbers at Tara but definitely some big fish in there.