Fellow Member John Shepard and I arrived at dawn (~6 hours before the cold front arrived) and found PO unlike we have ever experienced it.

Viewed from the bank, the main tank appears to be rimmed by a 20ft (plus) wide zone of dense aquatic grass lingering at or just below just below the surface. Outboard of this very shallow rim, the dense grass gradually deepens to 6- 8 ft below the surface of the water. Fortunately, once we launched our kayaks, we found “grass free” open water in the deeper portions of this fine tank!  

General conditions: water clarity is ~2 – 3ft, a 78F water temp (before the front rolled through), & the water level appears to be down 3ft (the tops of the tree stumps flanking the old creek channel are exposed).

From dawn to just after sunrise we fished from the bank (topwater poppers and frogs) and had good success between the boat launch and spillway, with great action by the first feeder. We caught a ton of dinks (all cull candidates on other PWF tanks) and I landed a 20” before the shallow bite quit.

We launched our kayaks just after sunrise and targeted the grass edge, as well as the grass free areas in the center of the lake. The two of us caught another ton of dinks but we also tied into a few nice ones that really made for a great day. John landed the big one of the day (23.5” 1st photo) and I boated an 18.5”, 20.5” and a 21.5” (2nd photo) before the front rolled through at 12:30 and shortened our day. 

Those interested in fishing this tank should note that the brush piles, and the southern half of the old creek channel are obscured by the submerged grass. The western extension of the tank also has similar submerged grass conditions. I tried fishing this from the bank for a few minutes and only landed a small sunfish that was immediately released. Probably the most interesting thing that occurred to the west of the bridge was a brief encounter with an otter that was intending to swim out of the feeder creek but turned around once he spotted me.

Lures that worked: unweighted nose hooked fluke (on finesse gear), weighted trig fluke, trig senko & worm, underspin, sq bill, football jig with Zcraw trailer and early on poppers and small frogs.

Cheers,

Bob