First Day on the Lake

[BigBassin144]

Some of you know I'm teaching a friend of mine how to fish this year. I figured we need something to do besides study, lol. Well we finished up finals on Thursday, got some gear and the boat together that night. We left my house at 7am with the boat in tow. Wanted to get there by 8 when the DNR shows up to get my MI state parks pass.

We were on the water by 8:15. I was letting the motor warm up when it slowed way down and stalled... Long story short, the float in the carb was stuck. I thought we fixed it last year when my dad and I took the carb apart after we had the same problem. I hit it a few times with a wrench and after a couple tries, it stopped spewing gas and the engine ran fine.

Water temps were warmer than I expected, so I headed to our favorite shallow back bay to check how the weeds and pads were growing. No pads yet, but plenty of weeds. I started the fishing lesson for the day with a couple knots. Tied on a couple of jigs and went at it. Nothing but weeds. I tried a spinnerbait, with no luck.

We made a move to a shore with a few good laydowns. My buddy wanted to pick something to fish, and ended up with a T-rigged lizard. a few casts in to the shore and he hooks one. He quickly lands his first, although small, bass. It was skinny and about 12-13". He was psyched regardless! I hooked another small fish on a spinnerbait.

We found an area with less weeds and started throwing lipless cranks. We each got one on those. I switched to a swimjig with a 5" paddle tail trailer and almost immediately got another fish. He was maybe 10-11" about twice the size of the swimjig. I hooked another on the swimjig, a bit bigger, but not a keeper.

My buddy ties on a swimjig and lands another small bass. I hooked into a keeper, but lost him at the boat. My friend caught one more on the swimjig before we called it a day.

Overall we got 4 each, but not a single keeper. I was glad he caught some though. He's looking forward to getting out on the water again. Also he's doing pretty dang well on a baitcaster already, using one of my old ones and a few from my current arsenal. But I can see the monkey lurking already.

He's got pictures of his first couple fish on his phone, but I didn't get anything picture worthy. So no pics, sorry.

BB