Lake Ponemah 4-14-2016

[djkimmel]

Derek met me at the park and ride for our first Thursday fishing trip of the year. He thought with the less than perfect conditions leading up to the day that Lake Ponemah might be a good choice to find some early bass. Of course, last year we had an unbelievable day there in even colder weather with a little snow no less.


Being followed by a Ranger Bass Boat is a good thing!

Today would be a lot different. It turned out to be a decent day with some sun but chilly with a strong breeze but I thought the water temps around 50 plus or minus a couple in the canals would produce some bass.

I was wrong. It didn't necessarily start out that I was wrong though because I caught a small keeper near the mouth out of the thicker than expected weeds on the Kustom Kicker Jigs Deposit Spin Titanium Revolution right away.



We ran into a boat that was catching a few crappie around wood. There's lots of wood in there. The water was up and a lot weedier than last year when we visited in April. We didn't have any bites or see any fish at all until I finally caught a thick little pike on a KVD 2.5 out of the middle of the channel. Then, in a side channel I had a follower on the KVD 2.5 that I told Derek if I didn't know better it was a small keeper walleye, not a pike or bass. Derek wasn't sure if they had walleye in the lake though I thought I had heard they planted them. Odd place to see a walleye though...

Finally, we were in one arm when we found 1 dock (as I predicted believe it or not) that was loaded with bluegill underneath it, plus we could see at least 3 bass including 1 really nice 1 all suspended under that dock without a care in the world. Which is how much interest they showed in our lures as they slowly sank to the bottom and vanished.

The only other fish life we saw in there was a BIG pike that hammered, but missed, my KVD 2.5 out in the middle of the channel again. I'm kind of glad we misconnected because it would have been a tussle and possibly a lot lure if the strike had been better aimed.

On the way out of the canal in the windy part I had a hit on the KVD 2.5 near a piece of wood and then the bass below followed up by chasing the lure down and hitting it again - the most aggressive fish so far. Maybe things were turning around finally as the sun warmed things a little.



We did find a ton of small panfish just coming in to the canal but couldn't prove any bass were with them. We found a new tree that had floated in to get stuck on a dock and watched a pontoon run it over grinding a big chunk out of it! You could see the tree real well so I don't know why the boater just ran it over??

We decided to fish the break outside the canal thinking bass were nearby. Tried grubs, crankbaits, suspending jerkbaits and blade baits in the sparse weeds without any luck at all. It looked good but apparently the bass were somewhere else doing something else.

So we went somewhere else. We ran to another drop off with more weeds along the back side of the lake. Derek was fishing over the weeds and slow along the edges while I cast a 1/2 ounce blade bait out into the depths. BAM! I got hit hard. Set the hook only to find I was fighting a nice walleye about 4 pounds! The drop off went quickly past 20 feet so I'm not sure how deep the walleye was sitting.



Derek kept fishing the shallow side and I kept tossing the blade bait out on the deep side. I angled more towards the weeds so I could hit sparse weeds and the outside edge more hoping for bass sitting out there. As I hit the weed edge and slowly reeled in the blade bait to make another cast, a nice fish grabbed it and took off like a bullet. Pike, I thought! But no, it was just a chunky little largemouth with jets in his rear, apparently.



I thought now with a bass that aggressive I would start catching them but no more bites for a few minutes. And then I lifted up the blade bait out in the depths to feel good weight on it. Set the hook and I was into another bigger walleye than the last one! Apparently, who knew! Ponemah has some nice walleye out there for anglers who want to chase them in season.



That was our whole day of fishing. Not earth-shattering, but fun nonetheless because it was fishing!