Lower Crooked and I find them again!

[djkimmel]

I returned to my rowboat rental at Lower Crooked Lake again under much nicer conditions than the last time. It did snow twice and got real cold but now we've had sun for 3 days already, getting progressively warmer each day for the 2nd real nice stretch of 2016 weather. Finally!

I decided to make a 'long run' to shallow water to go for broke. I fished a shallow bay full of brush, floating goo and a little weeds and pad stems. I thought I was going to be on them because the bay was absolutely loaded with small panfish (and turtles)! Even better, they were real nervous panfish! Something appeared to be occasionally flushing them out and even maybe eating them! Alrighty then.

I broke out an old PT spoon - no longer made bent weedless spoon with a rubber skirt on it. It can crawl through lots of gunk. I tossed to a whole in the brush and it immediately got eaten by something that swam off with it. I set the hook and pulled out this dink.



Uh oh! Might this be dink-eating bay?

Sure enough, I kept casting the spoon and aggressive, but tiny bass would eat it sometimes only grabbing the skirt and swimming off to the side with it. I didn't even set the hook sometimes because I could see the bass was tiny and/or didn't have the lure in its mouth.

I saw a few bigger gills too mixed in with the little ones so I took a Whip'R rod break a few times and enjoyed the joy of watching a slip bobber get pulled under. I really do enjoy that.



I alternated between trying to catch bigger gills and bass fishing around the whole bay. I did have one more really awesome bite in a hole in the cover and even got a good fight out of it but it was only another 12-incher here! Better than nothing anyway.



I eventually gave up on dink-eating bay and worked my way out to whatever cover I could find a little deeper outside the bay hoping to run into bigger bass capturing panfish on their way into the bay. That trick sometimes works. But not this time... I actually some evidence of more panfish outside the bay getting nervous but could not prove it was anything other than more aggressive dink bass.

I finally gave up on the idea thinking either the bigger bass aren't coming or I'm must too early for them. I moved out to a main point instead and started hitting the inside weedline - though there really isn't a well defined inside weedline anymore like their used to be. I wasn't seeing much action so I pulled out farther on the point to some pad roots and finally got a small keeper that ate the Kustom Kicker Jigs Deposit Spin Titanium Revolution spinnerbait as it bounced up over a pad root!



I hit all the pad roots nearby with the spinnerbait moderately bouncing it off and over the roots without another bite so back to the undefined inside weed edge. I traveled that for awhile casting parallel down the shore just outside the heavy shoreline cover and sometimes casting out away from shore searching with the spinnerbait for some clues.

On a cast parallel to the shoreline a nice big buck bass slammed the Deposit Spin hard from out of nowhere. I never saw the bass until it was on my spinnerbait though it it shallow and pretty clear. Wham! Things are looking up.



Except. I went another couple hundred yards without repeating the procedure. Apparently it is still a little early. Or... the bass are doing something different. So I went different on them!

I pulled back off shore looking for those deeper depressions that pocket the shallow lake. I approached one of them and casted about to the edge of the weeds when BAM! I'm into a good 'un!! After a couple minutes of hard, close-range fight on the Deposit Spin Titanium Revolution (DSTR) I landed a 20+ inch hawg female bass full of eggs and meaner than a distempered rattle snake. Now we're talking!



I release that bass and cast down the same edge. Only 2 or 3 casts later WHAM! The DSTR gets slammed again. Another mini-hawg almost 20 inches long! My heart is pumping now. Both bass came from isolated lily pad roots right on the edge of the depression! Exciting and I think I have a pattern.



Like 2 casts later - BLAM! I get slammed again. Another isolated lily pad root stem and another mini-hawg about the same size! YES! Now my heart is beating fast. I get the fat bass to the side of the boat. It's about the same size as the last one or a little bigger. But with way more attitude. I get it to the side of the boat and as I fiddle with my phone to get ready for a picture the bass dives, wraps around a pad stem and pulls off!!! Shoot! No picture... oh well... where there are 3 there could be more.

But I get no more bass from that area even though I strain it with a Bullet Craw.

So I head towards another depression. I find a nice crappie I spook on the first pad stem I find along the edge of the depression. Then a small bass follows the DSTR to the boat but doesn't hit it. Ok, was maybe a keeper but not real aggressive. I move along the whole where I expect there should be some more pad roots and THUNK! Down goes my rod tip as a strong fish hits the Deposit Spin and runs right into the pad roots!!!

I have 20 pound test P-Line HALO on the rod. I pressure the bass and it breaks free of the 1st pad roots and runs right into the next set of roots. It goes under the roots and pulls off somewhere down there! Darn! Felt like another really good one!!

No more hits around that depression so I head for another one. I'm fishing my way towards the depression when KA-CHUNK! The Deposit Spin get whacked again and down into newly emerging pads. I pressure the fish cutting a few pad stems along the way and land this really nice bass pushing 4 pounds but without a fat belly like the other ones. I wonder if this is a huge male bass? I don't know how to tell so I release it after a quick picture.



I'm out of good depressions and time now with a long 'run' back on the little electric motor and oars but I stop to fish a few key pad root clumps on the way in. I pitch the Bullet Craw to one clump that looks way too good to not have a bass and I get thumped. Set the hook and I'm into another really nice, fat largemouth bass. The bass run right at me cutting pad stems and ripping through sparse weeds. I see it an it's another 3 1/2 to 4 pounder!

As it runs past the front of the rowboat it just pulls off the hook!! Double darn. Would have liked a picture of another quality bass but time it up and it's actually been a fun, nice inland lake day for me again. So I make the long 'run' in rowing for about a half hour to get a little extra workout out of the day.