Reservation Number : 31237
Property Name : Frannies Lake
Reservation Date : 03/03/2022 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 51 bass up to 6lbs 10ozs, 3 crappie up to 1lb 6ozs
Lures Used : Chatterbait/Neko & Sqbill/CRIG

My good friend Cody and I got out to Frannies this fine Thursday afternoon and honestly, the fish never stood a chance…

1. Fished from 7:30am-2:30pm with no break – slow start – strong 9am-1pm bite, slow finish (and I was pretty heartbroken the last hour after missing a very large fish).  

2. Water was 52 degrees warming to 61 degrees by 2pm – heavy stain – visibility of 18 inches or so.  Air pressure was stable and falling from prior days (30.12).  Wind was mild/non-existent.   Lake is a good 2.5-3 feet down from the fall. 
3. Almost every fish was caught in shallow water 2-6FOW, but with access to deeper water next to secondary points.
4. Caught nothing off the timber in the middle of the lake.
5. We threw a bunch of stuff but 95% of our fish were caught on chatterbait with a neko follow up or a small sqbill with a crig brushog follow up (short leader, small barrel weight).
6. We focused on aggressive, staging fish and didn’t really touch the deeper water too much as the pattern we were running was keeping us hooked up consistently.
7. We both had 20lb+ bags, with my biggest coming in at 6lbs 10zs. 
8. I did get 2 fish between 5-5.5lbs on a neko rig – seemed like they bigger fish wanted something a bit more subtle as they day wore on (and the wind faded).
9. Fish were MUCH heavier in relative weight compared to when I fished it in the fall.  Didn’t catch as many, but most were aggressive, pulled hard, and fat.
10. Highlight – my buddy hooking a good fish while on the phone with a client and me netting it for him – laughing continuously as I did it for the absurdity of the situation.
11. Lowlight – pulling a near 8lb fish to the boat and the same buddy not getting down to net quick enough and the fish getting off (took me a while to mentally recover from that).
12. We caught very few culls – I know that is our job out there on some level but the small fish aren’t going to position the same way as pre-spawn/spawning fish and it just wasn’t a part of the pattern we were trying to run.  Same reason we didn’t get after many crappie.
13. We did not go into the little coves on the sides – would not have gotten the pontoon through. 
14. Overall, a simply fantastic day – can’t thank the landowners and PWF enough for days like this.