MadWags Memorial bass fishing report 5-20-17

[djkimmel]

Well... I have no pictures even though I had a great day thanks to bob o! Didn't set the world on fire or anything but I did manage to land 6 smallmouth bass of 4 pounds or better! Landed a few more from over 2 pounds to about 3.5 pounds also. For some reason I never stopped to remember to take a quick picture... maybe because the wind was trying to push us around so fast that your opportunities didn't last long!?!

We started several feet deep in the back of one of the bays. We couldn't see anything because the water was stirred up enough to limit visibility. The wind was blowing pretty stiff as you remember if you were there. There were quite a few boats around and only a few bass were seen caught mostly by anglers dragging various soft plastics.

We never had a bite there for a little while of effort. bob o asked me if I had any ideas and I mentioned that I knew of a stretch that bass always spawn on that is shallower, that we should be able to figure out where some beds where. So we motored there.

There were actually a decent number of beds there that we could see fairly well, and even a few times were able to see the bass on them too when we drifted right over them! At first, the wind was pushing us too hard to accurately get a cast into the beds. I was throwing a tube on a jighead with nothing to show for it after 20-30 minutes.

Then bob o started trying to hold near a bed, or two or three for a minute or two despite the stiff breeze. I switched to a big darter on a jighead, and things started to happen. Ended up catching bass off of maybe half of the beds we could see. We went around and around a not too big area to limit out and 'cull' a few.

After a couple hours we went to check some deeper reeds that sometimes have a few beds, but more often have roaming pre/post-spawn bass using them. I warned bob o that if you throw too far back into the reeds you start catching big pike. Also warned him that muskies like to haunt the outer edges too in the spring...

We did have much success though I did see one round dark spot and threw my spinnerbait past it. I got whacked by a solid 3 pounder but it wouldn't help us since we already had over 20 pounds. Moments later, bob o's spinnerbait got whacked and completely cut off clean!! There's one of those muskies I warned about...

Later we returned to the original flat from the morning and made a few fast drifts but once again we came up empty there. Still couldn't see anything and didn't have a good idea where to head shallower based on all the boats around. So we headed towards the opening of the bay stopping to check one more shallow reed bed. We only found a couple big beds in there but nothing appeared to be on them. We fished them a little bit risking more pike or muskie but nothing exciting happened. The end...