Well I said I would give a report when I got back from fishing so here it is. I went to my favorite little lake near my cabin with my dad. The lake has got a good population of nice sized bass. I hit the water around 8am it was quite cool outside with very little wind. I started the day out throwing a buzzbait near the shoreline with the trolling motor hoping to locate a couple fish, No Takers...After about 30 minutes I decided to head to the deepest part of this shallow lake and work the weeds with senko's (my #1 stand-by on this lake) Here is a look at the area we were fishing....

We spent a good portion of the morning in that area working it over with senkos and flukes. Here is a look at some of the fish.


Not too bad but also no bruisers which got me thinking about what Deitz and Cecil were talking about in my earlier post "Confused on Patterns". I figured maybe with the cooler temps some of the larger fish decided to move shallow so around 10am we moved. We ended up finding a few fish under docks with Jigs, and Senkos but unfortunately the size of the fish that I had hoped for were not shallow either. Here is what we found....

little better...

Not bad but not great.....(Love the pic though)

Feeling slightly discouraged that I couldn't tangle with any really large fish we decided to work the original shoreline back to the launch. We casted our lures towards sparse reeds I was using a white willow blade spinnerbait. My dad was using some crazy green lure that had to have been from the 70's it looked like a cross between a Northland Jaw Breaker and an In-Line Spinner. Just as my dad says "Man I find it hard to believe there are no fish here" WHAMMMMMM!!!!!!! A fish just annihaltes my spinner bait. It was pulling hard and I was almost positive it was a northern until it jumped! It was the monster I was looking for all day long. Look at the belly on that thing.

I realize I have a dumb look on my face but I don't care, my knees were shaking at this point.

Now I have a little ruler stuck to the side of the boat so I tried to measure this fish. From what I can tell (without the fish laying on a board) the bass went just a hair over 20 inches maybe 20.5 but it had a belly on it like it had been eating well for some time. I've caught 20's in the past but this easily was my personal best weight wise. All in all it was a good day on the water. We were even entertained by a family of 5 in a boat next too ours arguing and swearing at each other for as long as we were in the area I kept thinking they should have been on some T.V. sitcom, it was hilarious!

~CP

Hard to say from a pict but that fish looks great.. what were the measurements?

Congrats and thanks for sharing sir!!!

All i had was a ruler taped to the side of the boat. I held it up to the ruler real quick and let it go, from what I could tell maybe 20.5 inches. Couldn't get a measurement on the girth which was extra thick for a fish of that length. And I don't own a scale. Fun fish though...I'd say it went and EASY 5 lbs.

Nice fish Craigums!

Awesome report and great looking fish. Its always a great time to get out and ripp a few nice ones.

A 20+" that fat will be 5#'s or more for sure. Nice report!!

Hey, I know what lake that is. That answered a long standing question I have had about bass in that lake. Now, my question for you, Craigums - Have you ever duck hunted it? I don't know if you even hunt, but that lake does have some nice places to setup.

Nice fish!

Great fish ... congrats on a fun day out on the lake!

No Ray I haven't duck hunted it... But I know I have seen lots of duck boats out there in the fall, Are you sure you know what lake it is? email me if you think you do. I refuse to say it on this site because it is a GEM!

cplummer1983 @ yahoo . com

One thing I have learned in life... Never doubt Ray... The man knows lakes.. and has darn near fished them all... You could be like "I had permission to fish this private lake in Nebraska, it was awesome.. Ray would say "Did you fish the point across from where you put in? They were loaded there last week."...

Never EVER doubt the Esboldt!

Haha I just learned that first hand!

That just means I have an ability to store trivial things in my brain. If I could purge all the fishing, sports movie, and music information I store in brain, I may actually be able to accomplish some things that are important.

Deitz, I finally caught some decent fish on one of your local lakes on Sunday during a club tournament. I'll fill you in, but believe it or not I caught all my fish on texas rigs and crankbaits. Never used a spinning rod the whole day. Do you believe that.

LOL, are you sure your Ray?

that bass is so fat it looks like its a small mouth from the profile of its chin. lol

nice looking fish craig looks like you may haved [PoorWordUsage] your pants judging by your face! when you going to your cabin next