Don't go to Lake Ovid

[djkimmel]

Because I want all the bass to myself! I should call this Revenge of Lake Ovid or some other blockbuster-type movie name. What a day... what a day!!



Josh E. Clark of joshimoto son and Angling A.I. fame invited me to jump in his boat for a Lake Ovid rematch this past Wednesday (August 5, 2015) and I gladly took him up on it. Boy! Am I glad! We HAMMERED the bass off and on all day long!!!!

Let's start at the beginning... we met at the boat ramp at an early, but not too early 6:30am to get in on a hoped for morning topwater bite.


That sort of worked as Josh had a nice chunker bass clobber his Pop'R on his very first cast. I immediately ruled that we were suspending all known good and bad luck charms for the day so catching a keeper on the first cast would have no bearing on our resulting day! So I take some credit for the rest of the day!

We got a few topwater bites and my first bass wasn't quite as nice as Josh's but it did come on a buzzbait.


Actually, it wasn't much of a buzzbait bite as the bass just pulled the lure under but it's not a bad way to start a day either.

Surprisingly, though we were getting some frog and Pop'R bites (mostly Josh actually) they weren't coming fast or furious, and we saw someone else catching some nice bass on a wacky-rigged stick worm on the outside weed edge so we already had an idea we weren't doing the hottest thing for this day.

Here's why. Josh picked going to Ovid because he loves... LOVES punching weed mats and fishing in the slop. Problem... when Derek and I fished Ovid the Thursday before there were plenty of big mats of algae-covered milfoil. Thick, gooey, juicy mats of weeds to punch if you choose.

But the Sunday and Tuesday rain storms had changed Ovid drastically in less than a week. I don't know how much the water was up but most of the mats were no longer mats, a few were still there but much smaller and almost all the algae was now dispersed into the water adding more color and cloudiness to the lake. It was like fishing a different lake. We were now fishing topwater lures where there had been solid mats less than a week before. We could fish just about anything but the froggin' cover was much reduced and some of our bites came practically on shore.

Now you'd think the bass would all be crashing the shore with the water up who knows how much for sure! But then we knew the other angler was catching good bass too, maybe a little better than we were, on what you could make out of the outside weed edge (also drastically different in many places because it was harder to see).

We decided to change over the pure topwater bite to a combination of topwater, pitching into visible holes in the weeds and some outside weed edges on humps and points. For a long time we could come up with no definite pattern that dominated but we just kept catching bass scattered on all the areas and techniques, and it started to add up to a good day.

We had one hump that produced 4 or 5 bass but in general the fish were scattered but if we kept moving we kept catching!


Josh was pitching a variety of Angling A.I. lures including a pitching craw to catch a bunch like this one!


I was using the hot, hot Nemesis Baits Bullet Craw and catching some chunkers too!

Pitching soft plastic creature baits like Angling A.I. craw, the Angling A.I. Stinger and the Bullet Craw was becoming the overall leading technique of the day. Sometimes we were fishing them on the outside weedline and Josh in particular was doing well pitching into the visible holes in heavy weeds sometimes where there was a mat maybe last week.


But we kept switching it up such as when I was showing Josh the old bridge and some of the other Little Maple River channel cover. We pulled up near a few logs off the end of one point and I made a cast with a C-Flash crankbait at random towards the point. I bounced off of something hard and bang! This chunker ate the crankbait!

But we got no other bites on that spot. You'd think hitting one on the first cast would be a sign of a school but we couldn't prove it...

We also went froggin' a number of times when we would come to some duckweed or other top cover that was still left. We caught and missed a few, more small than good ones. We even had a big one blast something near the boat just to thumb its nose at us. It never touched our various attempts to catch it!


Then Josh tossed his frog over some duckweed inside a milfoil line and this bad girl swamp bass blasted and hole through the cover. Josh hooked and fought it like a pro! We estimated it at 4 1/2 pounds. A very nice swamp bass and Josh's best bass of the day!

Overall, we were still catching one here and one there but we had caught quite a few. More than Derek and I caught the previous Thursday, but only the 1 big one, though lots of bass pushing 2 1/2 to 3 pounds!

Josh said why don't we go out on the big Southern weed flat since the water is up and just fish over that. We were seeing lots of very nervous panfish and minnows occasionally with clear signs they were getting busted at least by small bass so I said, 'sure, let's give it a try.'

I don't remember what Josh started with but I remember what I was throwing very well...


This is why! I had a Kustom Kicker Jigs Depo$it Swim Jig tied on in the smaller 3/8 oz size. I had on a smoke-pepper blue flake 4 inch Angling A.I. swimbait as a trailer. I made a long cast over the milfoil where there was a slight depth change. WHAM! Good bass!

It fought pretty good at first but came to the boat fairly well. It surprisingly stayed up out of the very thick weeds. I was just swimming it and popping off the taller strands of milfoil and some coontail. But this bass hit as soon as I started reeling the Depo$it Swim Jig!

Near the boat the bass jumped part way out of the water and we both got excited because it had a HUGE head! Being a fat ole girl she didn't quite clear the water but it was impressive nonetheless. We started a fire drill, Josh got the net and after another jump-sploosh and some bulldogging we got the HAWG into the boat! My 2nd 5+ Lake Ovid toad in 2 trips!!

I was feeling pretty good at this point... I think my heart was beating about 180. I kind of wanted to slow down and savor the moment. Maybe get my heart rate back into the normal range...

BAM! Another solid keeper EATS the Depo$it Swim Jig! Heart beat - 200! Man, I love fishing swim jigs and I had just caught the biggest bass I've ever caught on a swim jig moments before!!! Josh had a smaller swim jig on but he was fine with putting on an extra Kustom Kicker Depo$it Swim Jig I loaned him with one of his trailers.

We proceeded to put a serous hurtin' on some bass at that point!! We went around and around that big weed flat and most of the time when we were near some kind of depth change or a school of very nervous minnows or small panfish, we were getting eaten! We had a very good time!

I did have one more big one on but this one immediately dove straight down into heavy milfoil and buried me. I must not have had a good hookset on it because it got off before we got over to it. I thought I was snagged on a piece of wood the weeds I was buried in were so thick and solid! Sure wish I would have got that bass because it felt like another toad!


Josh whacked a good one and we caught a whole bunch of small and medium bass. It ended up being our biggest numbers technique and general area of the day, and produced our biggest bass! What... fun...!!!!!!!

After a while of putting a hurtin' on the bass with the swim jigs, the changing wind and cloud cover seemed to slow down the flats bite. We didn't get any other hawgs so we decided to do some pitching into the heavy weeds. Josh really loves doing this, and I do too when it is working.

Every 50 to 100 feet Josh would rip up on his pitching rig and hook another solid Lake Ovid largemouth bass from some hole in the weeds. I kept trying some pitching and for some reason I keep throwing that Depo$it Swim Jig too ( ) but after awhile Josh was doing too good on the pitching so I put a black and blue Angling A.I. Stinger creature bait on some braid and got to business. When I whacked one almost 3 pounds Josh finally said we should call it day.

We were having so much fun we fished a long day. I could put up another 5 or 6 pictures of bass that would look just like the same solid keepers above but mostly we will just remember all the bass we caught during the day. So many awesome strikes and hooksets!

So please forgive me if I say "Don't go to Lake Ovid." I want it all to myself!!

[TheFishinPollock]

Wait a minute. Wait a minute.............6:30 am?   You are never at a ramp at 6 :30 am......

[djkimmel]

Am now... 7am 8am 6am if necessary. Depends on how far away and how good I expect the fishing to be!

[TheFishinPollock]

So we should expect you at the fall run at say 5:30 am to get set up LOL

[djkimmel]

Not...

[gmetime24]

Dan this is the most fishing I've seen you do since I joined the site! Looks like your having fun and catching some nice ones!!

[djkimmel]

I'm doing much better this year due to a few nice friends and cheap rental boats at Round Lake too. We should all get out a couple times a week if we're lucky!