Round Lake Round Two

[djkimmel]

I returned to Round Lake again on Monday, May 23rd to find a different lake than I've ever seen there. There was floating goo and algae all over the whole lake with little breaks in between. Not even lots of casting lanes for any great length there was so much goo around the lake. Never seen the lake like this.

It was flat calm to so the stuff wasn't going anywhere. For a change, when a slight breeze kicked up a little later it was welcomed by me with open arms because it started pushing all the goo and algae towards the North / NW shoreline so I had more open casting lanes and could fish a bigger variety of lures!


I got off to a good start because I saw a bass going after minnows near the channel from the party store out to the lake as I barely started my day around 7:28am. It wasn't a big bass but it hit the 2K Deposit Spin Titanium Revolution spinnerbait immediately after it hit the water before it could get into any goo-algae.

After that things were slow for awhile. I tried the shoreline casting out towards open water tactic from the last trip but had not takers. It was still hard to find open casting lanes early in the day and get the DSTR spinnerbait through clean.

So, when I found the first big batch of bluegills on beds all over the sand I took a break from the bass casting to catch a few gills. I wanted to see how big they were!


There were some real nice big bulls on beds for a little inland lake. Similar to the deep ones I found while ice fishing there back in February.


Here's one of the bigger bull gills I caught from the beds using my Carlisle slip bobber and Power maggots for bait on a small Aberdeen hook. Simple but something very pleasing about watching a bobber waiting for it to move!


After my panfish break was over I moved along and started finding new bass beds that weren't there the other day I was out. This bed was on the inside edge of the weedline near some bluegill beds. I have just hooked the bass on a Berkley Power Worm green pumpkin Texas-rigged with a 1/4 oz weight.


Here's the bass. Not a big 'un but fun fishing because it is fishing!

I spent some of next couple hours alternating between finding more big gills on beds and catching them, and finding mostly smaller bass on beds that I caught and released too (I'm not much of a fish eater really).


Here's a picture of just one small section of bluegill beds piled on top of each other. My Mom said it looked like Mars though someone pointed out it's not red... oh well. Close.


For something different I started fishing the outside weedline with the Husky Jerk jerkbait. This immediately lead to my pike to cast ratio increasing!! Yikes! But I found a stretch of weedline that dropped deeper faster that had a bass on it after seeing a few bass in the thick weeds and goo chasing minnows too. I caught this bass, my biggest of the day with several other bass and a bigger pike on the outside edge of the weedline pitching the Berkley Power Worm to the visible weed edge more like a summer pattern!


After that spot dried up I moved along the weedline casting sometimes into holes in the weeds and sometimes out from the weed edge. I managed to spook several really nice bass instead of catching them even though I could see bass activity in the thick stuff and bass activity near the outside weed edge. To keep them honest I sometimes threw the 2K spinnerbait and managed to pop one more small keeper bass on that!


After not finding another hot weed edge bite I went back to one of the points on the lake and found a completely new bass bed out there that was not there when I went through in the morning!

Of course I tried to catch the bass and it was an eager biter but I lost the darn bass on 2 different lures a few minutes apart each time! To give the fish a break, and admittedly to have some more fun I hit nearby bluegill beds again.


This is the biggest bull bluegill I caught all day from one of the deeper beds out past the edge of all the other beds! It was a horse for a small lake I think!


I took one more swing at the bass on the new bed nearby with the Power Worm this time. I must have found the right spot in the bed because the bass grabbed the worm right away and swam it off the bed. But... I could see it did not have the head of the worm in its mouth, only the tail. I got it on the next pitch though as this time as it took the head of the worm instead!

I fished awhile longer not finding anymore new beds and catching a couple dinks and pike with a few more bluegills before calling it a day again.