Fun at Upper Crooked but no big ones (bass that is)

[djkimmel]

On April 22nd I headed over for the 1st time of this year to Upper Crooked Lake in Delton. First time I could get on the lake in a little rowboat with my trusty Minn Kota portable electric motor to save me some rowing and do some transom-mounted positioning, which works, though not as good as bow-mounted.

I traveled to one of my favorite pockets on the lake and saw some activity right away. Some small v-wakes, some swirls and a few indications of nervous panfish. All good signs.

In my 1st 10 or 15 casts I saw a swirl near my fun Kustom Kicker Jigs Deposit Spin Titanium Revolution spinnerbait and WHANG! I'm hit! I catch a decent keeper moving the bladed bait pretty fast over weeds and pads.



I head around the bay and on the North side every 20 to 50 feet I whack another solid keeper on the spinnerbait. They are all about the same size like this one. I don't know if they are nice males or small spawned-out females? I'm thinking males but another trip in a few days confuses me on this topic.



All around the North side and end of the bay I keep catching bass. I don't catch a ton but it is decent, fun fishing. I don't go real shallow, staying out from shore a ways around deeper weeds and pads hoping from some bigger bass. Plus the shallow cover is pretty heavy and would slow me down. I'm not ready to slow down yet.

When I get to the South side I get no bites at all until I get all the way almost back to the mouth of the bay, and then I catch a smaller keeper. So the weedier side is the side the bass want to be on today. Plus, I'm getting whacked by lots of pike! Unfortunately... In the past I've barely caught any pike. Usually maybe 1 or 2, and more often a muskie but this year on both Crooked Lakes the pike are biting a lot! By the time the day is done I've landed or missed almost as many pike as bass which is quite a surprise. There must have been bigger hatches the past several seasons with higher water I guess?

In search of the elusive hawgs that normally inhabit this lake in the spring I move out the some semblance of a weed edge and slow roll the DSTR spinnerbait. I sometimes catch bigger bass on shallow cranks bounced through the weeds so I try that for awhile. I catch one dink out in this relatively deeper water. I also try a blade bait in the middle of the deepest part of the pocket but there's just too much old dead weeds to fish it very effectively.

I could have slowed down more and thrown a jig or worm but my confidence that the bass were there just wasn't with me. Hard for me to slow down that much if I don't think I'm around the fish. I could catch a few on the DSTR spinnerbait still and there were more pockets to fish so I left the spot to find another hot spot hopefully full of fresh fish.

On the way out of this pocket I catch a huge crappie that engulfs the big ole Deposit Spin Titanium Revolution so good I thought it was a small keeper bass!



Unfortunately, the next pocket I go to doesn't look like it has in the past. I miss a couple small pike and catch 2 small bass in the middle of nowhere practically. I fished it hard fishing any cover or edge I could find but I eventually ran out of time for the day without finding anymore bass.

It was still a fun day but I didn't figure out what the bigger bass were doing. I did not fish the main lake. It was off-colored water from rain and just breezy enough to make it hard to fish effectively from the rowboat in the open lake.