Lake Nepessing

[Langer]

I fished the 3rd WCBA points event at Lake Nepessing on Sunday. I was only ale to get out and pre-fish for a short period of time prior to the event, but in the short period of time I was out there I caught 3 keepers and lost a good one. So I felt pretty confident sitting in the boat waiting for blast off. I drew boat 8 out of 10. After my number was called I took off across the lake and was pleasantly surprised to not see anyone in the area I wanted to start in. I started out throwing a Sammy over the weeds in the area I did good on in practice. My plan was to fish this area all day long, I was going to start out with the top water then switch over to my drop shot and wacky stickbait once the sun got up. After fishing for a while with the Sammy and only having 1 blowup I got bored, so I took advantage of the extra hour we decided to fish to go over and check out a canal I noticed while practicing. I figured it would be real shallow like most of the shoreline was. I was surprised when I got to it that it was 4-5ft deep and had a nice break wall along the one side and a few pontoons and docks down at the end. 3rd cast to the break wall I hooked up with my first fish of the day, a nice half blind 2.5lb fish.  A few more cast down along the break wall I felt a solid thump and set the hook to nothing. As I was approaching the end of the break wall I noticed a nice fish setting on the edge of a clump of lily pads, so I cast my stick bait up past it and slowly work it back towards the fish, it turned and followed and picked it up, I wait until it seemed to be all the way in its mouth and set the hook, out came just my hook, the fish slowly disappeared down into the weeds. I tried to get it to bite for a couple more minutes with no luck, so I continued down the canal towards the docks and pontoons. The 1st boat on a hoist I come to I again notice a fish hanging out on the outside edge of a clump of lily pads at the corner of the hoist. This one I noticed a bit to late and it slowly swam off, under the boat on the hoist towards the dock, I didn't have a clear shot at skipping my yum dinger back up under there so I left it for the way out, well my partner (my dad) was not going to let that fish get away, so once I went past he skipped back up under there from the back and got it to bite on the 1st cast, so after a successful net job he had his 1st in the boat, It was a long fish but looked like someone already filleted the fish, it was so skinny but had a huge head. So the canal gave up a half blind fish and a skinny anorexic fish. We fished the rest of the canal without any bites. Headed back out to the main lake to take up my position in the area I planned on fishing all day only to see 4+ boats on it, great! I decided to head over and try a few areas that stackenem told me to try (Thanks for the tips Stackenem) I fished these spots for a little while caught some shorts and lost a decent fish on the jig. Next I decided to move in shallow and hit some of the docks along the northeast shore. I only managed short fish along here.

It was now 12pm  I had worked my back around towards my starting point, only 2hrs to go, On my way to my waypoint I noticed an area that was deeper 7-8ft and had more sporadic weed clumps that transitioned up to 5-6 feet and thick weeds. This looked like a good area to try so I started casting my wacky rigged Yum Dinger out and slowly working it back to the boat, I was casting it out towards the weed clumps as well as along the wall of weeds before the drop. I am glad I stopped here because I proceeded to catch 4 in a span of 40mins that completed my limit. Two were skinny 15inchers and the other two were decent 3+lb fish. I went from cursing the lake to loving the lake in 40mins. I went back and forth in this area trying to get my dad some more fish but he only managed one more. We decided to head back to the canal and try for that fish I missed along the break wall before heading in. fished it all the way down to the end with out a nibble then we got to the boat at the end of it I see the fish sitting there, I skipped my yum dinger up to the side of the boat the fish swam under the boat then my line went taunt so I set the hook again to only get my hook back, oh well I guess that fish liked the Yum's.  Headed back to the launch with 5mins left. Talked to the guy next to me about how they did, he got 5  his CO got two, same with my boat, asked if he had any size to his fish, said he had 3 decent fish and 2 smaller ones, so did I. So I figured it would be close. Waiting to weigh in the winner from last event weighed in a nice 12+lb sack I knew I didn't have that so 1st was out. I weighed in next with 11.04 I believe, so now I'm sitting in 2nd. A couple of 10 pound sacks were weighed in, ok still in 2nd. Time for the guy parked next to me to weigh in, well his small fish were bigger then mine, he had a nice 13+lb sack for 1st.  Congrats to Ken for a nice sack of fish and 1st place, Congrats to Rich for 2nd place with 12+ He's on fire this season!, and I finished 3rd with 11+. Congrats to Mark Clark for the Big Bass of the tourney a nice 4+.