Well surprise, surprise and it's just Round Lake 6-8-2017

[djkimmel]

I like surprises. I don't like surprises... I guess it actually matters what the surprise is might be the best way to put it.

I said I wasn't going to fish Round again for a week or two because they supposedly treated the weeds on 5/31. You know that can send a lake into a bad funk for a short while.

But... I NEEDED to go fishing AND for one more RARE time this spring they were calling for sunny skies and little to no wind!! I decided I could use another learning lesson and should be able to get the most out of it on a day like that. Luckily, it turns out my neighbor is related to the new boat rental guy at Round Lake. Helped me work out a deal where I can get there now as early as I want without having to call him first (when he's awake).

So, I thought maybe if I get there before the crack of dawn some things will be happening...


A couple reasons I took a dorky picture of just me in my little rowboat... 1) I wanted to prove I was out there on the lake first BEFORE even the crack of dawn (though surprisingly another boat launched maybe 15 minutes later?? on a weekday no less?!?), and 2) I got smart and went to camera shop finding a way better selfie stick for only $5 more than the other one I bought that was giving me nothing but problems!! I need to make sure I things lined, tight and ready to go. Plus, I always like the look of pictures in the early morning light...

One of the many surprises of this day was just how many people had the same idea as me on this fine weekday! There were 5 small boat trailers and another 5 or 6 vehicles at the launch later in the day on tiny little Round Lake - it was busy! Another was there were still tons of green weeds?!? What the...?!? They supposedly doused the place with Sonar??

Regardless, it felt real good to be out with things starting so quiet and peaceful... other than a rooster Pheasant I heard crowing many times throughout the morning! Haven't heard one of those in quite a while!

Since it was so early, I decided to go for it! Right to topwater!! It's almost post-spawn and that can be a great time for topwater! I started on the outside weed edge of a big fat, broad shoreline point. My first cast was with the Gunfish, walking the dog! I had barely started my retrieve when a small bass smashed the lure, and somehow, we both missed each other... that's okay, it was definitely a small bass.

Just a few casts later, I landed up against the thick milfoil and a big wake turned behind my lure. On edge, I started the walk and the big wake came up behind my lure - you've seen Jaws?!? It was like that and then WHOOSH!! A HUGE hole opens up in the water and the fight is on!!! My regular brain is thinking 'that was awesome!!' and 'this is a toad' but... my primitive brain was thinking 'something ain't right here Dano...'

It only took a few seconds for me to realize it was a BIG dogfish!! Oh boy. Luckily, I guess, in my early morning, on edge, big strike excitement, I didn't do a great job with the hookset reaction and on the 2nd jump or so the big doggie went bye-bye. Okay. Saves some time.

Not 2, 3 minutes later my Gunfish lands next to the weeds again and here comes the same darn BIG wake behind it... this time, I guess you can say I'm faster on the draw because as the hole began to open I had already ripped the lure away, and good thing because sure enough it was another huge dogfish!! It came a ways towards the boat so I could actually see the evil Russian sub look of the ancient creature. Going to be one of those days I was thinking...

Minutes later I had a way different strike, not once but twice in a row and we missed both times but I got enough of a look at it - it was another dink bass... A few casts later I landed and another big wake turned towards my slender, expensive topwater... I yanked that thing out of there 20-30 feet... doggies are not getting my topwater today! Well, at least the morning was starting out pretty exciting!!

I decided to cast out over a trough between some weeds hoping a big ole bass was laying out there and wouldn't resist an easy topwater prey opportunity. KABLOOSH!! A medium-sized hammer handle launched out of the depths and crashed down on top of my Gunfish so fast by the time I reacted it had already moved several feet with it!! Not getting away from this one @#$%@ pike!!


I got the toothy critter in. I decided since it was a slightly bigger pike and a fairly spectacular attack I would try out my new selfie stick again... the pike didn't go along. It played possum until I almost had it loose and then it jumped all over the boat bouncing off everything and back into the lake! Thank goodness my Gunfish didn't go with it as so often happens in these instances!!! Whew! I decided to quickly pop it off the last hook and cut my losses. So it was early and had been goofy, so I took another dorky picture of just me with not fish to try out my new selfie stick again... just one of those mornings...

I didn't do much more fishing before I realized that the pike and doggies were on the prowl around any weed bed bigtime this morning so I just put the topwater down and called it good for this morning. I switched to the big wacky rig since I've only been bit off once so far (last trip out) by a pike and mostly left alone by the dogfish. I did forget to mention that I had one nice looking bass blast the topwater just once only to vanish and not even come back for a second try at anything else. I think it peeled back into the weeds (more later).

I wanted to cover a lot of water early hoping for clues so I moved along steadily out the big point without much excitement. Even on the weedy side things seemed to have slowed down a bunch in a few days. I ended up skipping the hump and going to the other side of the lake. After all, there had recently been a lot of bass beds over there so there should be some bass working the weeds out from that flat now, I thought...


It almost worked. I did see something working bait along the outside weedline there. Though I was still thinking I'd probably end up with another dogfish bite I tossed the wacky rig over there and caught this small keeper instead. I didn't mention I had already seen 2 or 3 more dogfish including a BIG one in or near the thick weeds as I moved along. I mean, they were REALLY out this day!! I'm not even sure how many I saw by the end of the day but it was bunch including some monsters!! Some were shy. Some just laid there, and some were curious and swam right up to the boat. Some throughout the day definitely wanted to bite something! I resisted the temptation overall... there's plenty of time for that as the year progresses.

Meanwhile, I moved along the outside weedline still kind of early. At an inside turn that has been really good for me a number of times I cast in the wacky rig and almost immediately set the hook! SOLID!! A really nice bass over 3 pounds jumped and threw the big X-worm right back at me... AGAIN!!! Man!! Am I losing nice bass this year...??

The best way to get over it is to keep casting I guess. I tossed into a big hole in the weed point and a bass slashed my wacky rig but I somehow missed it. I picked up a Texas-rig and tossed that in there and got him! It was a small him but a him. Went I moved in closer there was a ball of fry there - a male guarding fry! He was aggressive! (more on that later)

I decided to check the big weed flat. I even went fairly shallow again but this time I only came across one small keeper that I half-spooked and a number of small bass but no where near the numbers of a few days ago. I didn't see anymore bass on beds though there were still a few panfish on beds. I worked my way back out to the break without catching much and what I did catch mostly on the Shad Stick was small.

I arrived at the thick weed patches along the break. Surprisingly thick still because I thought they'd be dying already like the last two years after the Sonar attack?? (I have now heard that there have been some money issues with the township/homeowners association so maybe they haven't applied a lot to the whole lake or something??) Regardless, there was a major change going on in a huge algae bloom! Almost every other kind of weed is now coated with thick, slimy green algae! Really nice for fishing anything into the weeds...


Anyway, I was now at the break and the next available cover was these big matted milfoil patches... if the bass were moving out maybe that is where they had gone? Because the weed kills in May in previous years had killed almost all the milfoil I had never had a chance to actually fish them on Round Lake before but here was my chance. I mean, the bigger bass have to be somewhere and I still can't figure out why they would be just roaming around out in the couple deeper, basically coverless, mucky bottom holes??

So these mattted milfoil weeds were where I planned on putting some serious time the rest of the day on. I had come prepared. Had my big flipping stick rigged up with 50 pound braid. Had a pegged 1 oz+ Tungsten bullet sinker on with a 5/0 Trokar flipping hook! With a big craw on the end I was loaded for bear!! (I used a 4" greenpumpkin Power Baits Crazy legs Chigger Craw) I went back up the break to the first big milfoil bed of this shore and went right into it!


The cool part is almost as quick as I started doing this - dunking and plunking into holes and through milfoil tops I was pleasantly surprised to feel this really nice bass on the end! It worked!!! Just like it's supposed to! Even on little Round Lake!! (Note: as soon as I checked the part of the weed bed where I caught this bass closer I found another big ball of fry - this would be seen quite a few times the rest of the day - good to see overall, and good to know that's where they go when available after they've hatched.)

Unfortunately... it didn't work that great again the rest of the day... I mean, I caught a boatload of bass doing this for several hours but I never got even another keeper...?? I caught a BUNCH, I mean a BUNCH of ~12 inch bass... even when I found a ball of fry again and again I was shocked to see that most of the bass guarding them where like 12 inches long?!? I mean, go little bass and get you some but geez... where are the bigger males even??

It got to the point where when I saw the fry first I would actually look for daddy and if he was just a little dude I kept going... I probably found maybe 10 balls of fry at least during the day including some off a sparser bedding area I had suspected would be there in another part of the lake where the bass were also using thicker weeds but more of that combination of weird grass and pond weeds.

By later in the day I had tried thick milfoil, and some of the other thick weeds around maybe half the lake including deeper off the big point, and I caught bass out of all of them! But no big ones?!? Late in the day I was even feeling for thick milfoil a little deeper than I could see in a few spots AND I popped a bunch more small bass out of those!?! It got ridiculous.

I guess the only good parts are that I did and it worked, I only ended up catching a couple pike doing it when I thought I might be pounded by them especially in the deeper weeds, and the dogfish, though often visible, pretty much left my heavy rig alone... it just has me now scratching that bald spot on my head wondering where the heck the big bass are??

Either they don't like anything I'm doing this year, or they really are out in those couple deeper, featureless holes just roaming around I guess eating who knows what?!? That may be where I next fish when I go back out there unless things change more like how they have the past couple seasons maybe. But it is a pickle as the old folks call it...

I know there are some more big bass in there somewhere... just for something different I went into some of the other big lily pad fields (that I frankly don't generally catch very many good bass out of most of the time - they're real shallow and don't look right) on part of the wild side of the lake. Of course, just to throw me I caught a small nice keeper bass within minutes off an edge of a pad field up inside a ways on the Shad Stick! But that was the last bite in there I had. The only bass I saw after that maybe reached 6 inches... and I only saw a few of those even. Not many panfish either. Not any dogfish either? Which is odd because there's usually a few of those roaming around up in there. Maybe that comes a little later in the summer.

I did want to check a couple shallow openings back in there a ways because there used to be some sandy bottom there. This time it was all grown in and coated with mossy gooey weeds and more weird grasses. No clearings anywhere. Further down, way back in, I did find some more of those odd panfish beds in the real soft mucky, sandy soil around sparse pads. That wasn't too surprising because I had seen that in other parts of the lake even though there are plenty of big sandy areas to spawn in too. I also found one open circle way back in the pads where the bottom matter wasn't piled quite as thick as the rest of it and there I saw maybe 6 or 8 much bigger beds scattered around various objects that I would bet were bass beds though nothing was around now.

In a smaller opening nearby closer to the drop I found 3 or 4 more big beds that I'm betting where also bass beds a week or two ago. I don't know if they had finished, or where caught? I don't generally see too many boats go back in that stuff because it is frustrating for most people but there are always some who will go after the 'easy' pickings too. I came across an old couple earlier in the day who were using an ancient little gas motor to plow through the shallow, thick weeds of the other end of the lake to get to the shallowest, most remote panfish beds to go after them. People really do pound the panfish when they are on beds...

Still, at least that made sense to see so few bass beds on that whole stretch of the lake because I don't generally catch many bass along that whole side of the lake at any time of the year. So, I still learned a lot... but I still have lots of questions too...?? But I guess that is kind of what drives us to keep going back out there.

[dartag]

Great report as always.   

[djkimmel]

Thank you. It's long because it really has me thinking again! I think I can learn something important somehow if I put in some good effort!

[djkimmel]

It was actually amazing to me that all these little 10 to 12 inch bass would dig out this huge hunk of Tungsten and craw like they did all day long, pretty much everywhere I tried it.

I think I did forget to mention that I was pitching it to the outside edge of a deeper milfoil patch near the inside turn of the big point when I got bit. I set the hook and this time it felt big and solid (though I had been fooled several times this day for a second or two already...!!) but I only had it on a couple seconds and it just pulled off... it didn't hit or fight like a pike but it is possible it was a big dogfish?

Their mouths are so hard that I sometimes don't hook them even when they have a big hook in their mouth... which is okay... but what if it was the BIG bass I was looking for all day?? I don't know. I'm leaning slightly towards dogfish... but you never know??