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June 16
It appear the bigger bass have calmed down the last couple weeks.
Saturday I fished with a client and we boated over 20 bass, but only 4 keepers. The confusing part is that all of our fish came in 12ft-18ft of water……where we should be getting bigger bites!
We started at the ledge in front of and next to the La Vergne pump house. I figured I would try some topwater(Hoppys Buzz Hawg in white) on the bank close to the ledge……thinking maybe the bass would have moved up for an earlier breakfast. That was not the case. We fished 150 yards from the pump house into the cut through without a bite. Then we backed out into 8ft-12ft, casting Lucky Craft 1/2oz chrome rattle traps and Strike King Series 5(citrus) crankbaits….nada. After 45 minutes we decided to move.
Next we headed to the long underwater point behind Hong Kong Island. There was another boat on the end of the point so we idled around to the right side. After 10 minutes of casting from 13ft, into 11ft, we turned on a school of bass! For the next 30 minutes we caught bass after bass(losing a few)!!! I was casting a shaky head(1/4oz) with a green pumpkin Brush Hog(the bigger one….not baby brush hog) and more client was fishing with a watermelon lizards on Texas rig. We probably caught around 15, but only had 2 keepers. It was a ball!!! The bite died down and we made a move to the hump in front of Byrants Grove boat ramp. Casting same lures……nothing:( They have been pulling the water a little and wanted to check if there was enough current draw some big bass onto the hump.
I moved to the first cut through going down lake from Fate Sanders. Casting the same plastic lures into 10ft and dragging into 16ft, not even a sniff. It was hard to fight all the boat traffic. There must have been 500 boats(big boats) constantly driving by heading towards Stewarts Creek for the air show. I almost fell out of the boat several times!
Next, we fished the long point inside Stewarts Creek on the right. Starting at the PVC pipes at the end of the point, we kept our boat in 14ft-20ft, casting into 8ft. I continued with my brush hogs and a Trick Worm and my partner went with a big jig. While fighting all the boat traffic we caught 3 there with 1 keeper. The fish were sitting around 12ft.
Next we moved to the mouth of Lamar Hill and fished the main channel right point that drops off into the channel. We missed a couple on jigs and I caught one short fish on deep crankbait. In front of the PVC pipe is 6ft and in comes out about 50 yards where it is 12ft. The right side of the point has a steeper drop into the channel where there are a few rocks right on the ledge.
We motored to the mouth of Spring Creek and fished with our jigs and brush hogs. I like to fish the big rock ledge on the left going down creek channel before you enter the creek itself. Keeping the boat in 16ft-20ft and casting into the 8ft we had 3 good bites and missed them all. I broke off on one:(
We headed back to Hong Kong to try our hot spot again and there were 54 boats in the cove and on top of our point. We decided to fish anyways and cast around the boats. We could never get the fish fired up again and decided to head out.
I took us back over to the La Vergne pump house ledge. My thought was that the fish would have pulled out onto the ledge with the high sun. I kept the boat in 16ft-20ft and we cast into 13ft. We each caught a couple there on shaky heads with a Trick Worm(green pumkin) and a lizard. Unfortunately, none were keepers.
Our last spot was between the pump house and the island straight across. Out in the middle there is a small pile of rocks in 15ft of water. I found it on my structure scan a few days ago and thought I would give it a try. We chucked our lizards and shaky heads out(now I was back to my big brush hog). In 25 minutes we were there we caught 4 including 1 keeper. We missed a few, but were excited to see some fish come out of a new spot!
For the day we caught enough fish to have a great day, but I was thinking we would see some bigger fish in the deeper water.
The bass our in there summer patterns where their feeding cycle is spotty. You can catch them on one spot one day and not on the other. Also, they will go into these feeding flurries throughout the day. You never really know when they will turn on, but I try to make a note of the time so that if I am out the next day I can be there at the same time. Deep and slow is the way to go for my this time of year!
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4 Replies
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Gotta love gettin’ into those schools.
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So once you do find a school of them, and you know they are bass, how do you get the school fired up?
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In the summertime, if you can get the first one to bite, notoriously a crankbait can produce some of the craziest back-to-back cast action you’ve ever experienced! Then usually once the crankbait dies off, you can throw a slower presentation and catch a couple more.
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adding to blockel’s advice…
if you find them, BURNING a crankbait through them can sometimes get one to bite. on OH, I’ve found tightly grouped small schools where i could feel my crankbait bumping the fish. after burning through them a few times, i could get one to swipe at it. this is all it took to get them started. then the goal is to keep them going. if you get stuck unhooking a fish for more than 45secs or so, they can shut down fast. it’s the same concept as to what KVD, Jeff Kriet and Russ Lane were doing at Chickamauga. They were fine with fishing side by side because once they could get the first one to bite, they could each be keeping baits in the school and keeping it active while the other guy was unhooking/culling/etc. I’ve found that once they shut down, a jig or worm might catch a couple more… however, i don’t have the patience to stick it out. i would rather just crank elsewhere in futility.
j.
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