My partner caught fished, I drove the boat.

[cassidyta]

I made it out Saturday for a long fishing session at one of my local lakes. My normal partner bailed on me at the last minute so I invited a guy from a local forum who was looking for a backseat. He had never been to Sutherland before so he was excited about the chance to fish a new lake.
Conditions looked great, the water level is way up and the enitre shorline is full of flooded brush. It all looked so good that trying to find one spot was the biggest chore. The water was 60 degress with less than 1' visibility. I was sure that the key would be reaction baits. I tied on a spinner bait, my partner a fluke and weproceeded to cover shore line. Well this did nothing for the first hour. I switched over to a crank and still nothing. Not a swirl nor follower.
We were marking fish everywhere so we decided to slow it down my partner was tossing IKA's and I switched over to T-rigged brushhawg. Within 100 yards he had put 3 quality fish in the boat. While I am not the smartest guy, I decided that it was a good idea to switch to the IKA. I missed one fish that wrapped me, but my partner picked up 2 more. We stayed on that spot for another hour, but couldn't get another bite.

The wind was brutal and we found ourselves hunkering down in coves to avoid it for 30 to 40 minutes at a time. We pulled into one cove where the water went from 5' to 30' in a hurry. It was full of big rocks and trees. I pulled out the jig and Alin tied on a drop shot. I rememeber thinking that the DS was a bad choice because of all of brush. Well, his "bad choice" produced 5 more quality fish and 2 dinks. (3 fish on 3 consecutive casts). Again I was not too proud to copy him after his 3rd fish. But sadly, it only resulted in one fish caught for me. We worked the area for a solid 2 hours and decided to call it a day.

Totals were 12 fish in the boat/10 keepers. His heaviest 5 made for a 13lbs bag. My 1 fish was a trebble hook away from being a swimbait.
It was still a fun day.