Fishing Report 7/4/11

[Baron49]

Was able to get out by myself for a day on the water.  Launched at my favorite lake around 6:30 AM and headed to a little weed covered rock shoal that is my usual early morning spot.  Fished it with a Pop-r.....no bites, crankbaits.....no bites, tried jigs, tubes, beavers, worms, shaky heads, and finally a wacky rig and got no bites at all.  It appears the long holiday weekend was harder on the fishing then I had imagined.  In this day and age there are no "secret" spots and for the next several hours was finding fishing to be very tough.  By 11 AM had lost one small largemouth, caught a mudfish, and a huge Northern Pike.  Not exactly a great day for my favorite lake. 

Stopped to look at where everyone else was fishing and all the normal spots were being fished.  Decided to head out to deeper water and check the deep edges and that was the ticket.  Most people locally fish the weedbeds and the shorelines.  This lake does have several deep water edges with deep weeds that get very little attention.  My first fish came out of 15 foot of water just off a weedy point.  It hit a jig and pig and weighted in at 3 lb 14 oz.  Not bad for the first fish of the day.  All the rest came off the edges of deep weed lines in water that was at least 12 to 15 foot deep.  I rigged a 4" tube on 4/0 Owner EWG with a 3/8 oz weight and a round plastic tube rattle and worked the deep weedy points to just inside the weeds and found small schools of 2 to 3 lb bass on most of them.

All in all was a great day and caught several dozen fish when it was all said and done.  Had the deep water all to myself and never saw another fisherman on them for the rest of the day.  Jigs produced the biggest fish and tubes produced the most fish.  Did catch a couple on a shaky head, but they were small undersized fish.  Did not get a single bite on any topwater of sub surface bait. All fish came out of 12 foot or water or deeper.  The fish are setting up on their Summer patterns on this lake.  Water temps were in the mid 70's most of the day with surface temps climbing higher in the afternoon sun. There was a light breeze about 10 mph that put a little ripple on the water and cooled things down perfectly.

[yar]

baron, seems like you put the puzzle together and made a day out of it.  good job and nice first fish you earned it(lol).wish i had gone out and did some fishing over the weekend. since selling my boat 2 yrs ago i really don't get out much except for TX. and it shows (lol). hopefully if all goes well i have a boat next yr.