Nice bass, interresting day.

[keithdog]

Yesterday was the kind of day that makes ya scratch your head. I started at 6AM when the launch opened. The conditions seemed great. Very cloudy, temps had cooled the past couple days, water temp was around 80 degrees, and a little breeze and a slight chop on the lake. My third cast landed a small bass. An hour later another. By 10 AM, I'd only caught 4 bass and was thinking about packing it in. I'd seen surface action galore right off a favorite point I fish. Bass were chasing small fish at the surface, probably small gills since there are no shad in this small natural lake. However, whenever I would sling a rattle trap into the feeding school, everything would stop and I wouldn't get a single hit. I did get one hit on a Strike King Rage Frog worked over the top of the feeding school of bass but that was it. Even my bluegill pattern Bandit 100 wouldnt draw a strike. So there I sat wondering what gives? They should be on the prowl in conditions like this. I should be catching much more than I had. Around 11 AM, the wind really picked up and the skys cleared leaving me mostly bright sunny conditions with just a few passing clouds. I'm thinking thats it. The days just gonna be even tougher now. But, to my surprise, the bass bite really kicked into high gear. Still can't understand why they would wait untill the conditions became what most fisherman would deem less than ideal for bass fishing. Over the next hour, I caught 11 more bass including a nice 6 pounder taken off a Strike King KVD spinnerbait in bluegill pattern. The trick was, I had to be fishing in the deepest shade I could find along the southern shoreline. Actually very close to the bank. And with all the brush and grass back in that shade the spinnerbait was made to order. They were killin it. If you cast anywhere outside of the shade you wouldnt draw a strike even if there was nice weed covere there. I figure the bright sun had pushed the bass into the deep shade as I had fished these same shoreline features earlier in the morning without getting a single strike. The morning bite was all in 10 foot of water over the tops of weedbeds. I tried fishing these deeper weedbeds with a t rigged peca craw and 3/8 oz. tungstin weight once the sun came out figuring the bass would sink down low into the vegitation. But I caught only one fish this way.