Round Lake Post-Spawn Big Bass Bash 6-17-2016

[djkimmel]

I had to return to Round Lake one more time before I left Saturday morning for the MUCC Convention on Friday morning, June 17, 2016.

I started out fishing my weedy point I usually start on. I started out with the shallow crankbait again because it has been working real good. Little did I know that I was going to have one of my best big bass bites ever on Round this day!


I caught a dink on the crankbait fairly soon after starting. Then things slowed down for me on fast baits.


I managed one small keeper on the crankbait about an hour later (not counting dinks and small pike with the occasional dogfish too) but things were definitely different so I switched to the slow presentation early and started fishing off the drop offs more. (Yeah, that's me squinting into the Sun trying to see the screen.)


It took about an hour or so but it paid off with a solid, quality largemouth bass off the break on the Bullet Craw - black and blue again! Mostly fishing the drops now and concentrating around visible schools of small panfish feeding along the top I picked up another solid chunker keeper bass on the Bullet Craw. I would catch a nice one and maybe 1-3 smaller ones and a pike or two before moving along to find another bass.


I was fishing off the end of a point when I hit the Motherload! I had to go out a little deeper around a small boat that was anchored and fishing panfish. They were catching them pretty good too. I tossed up hooked a big bass almost 4 pounds. I lost it on the jump but that was the big clue. I fished a little longer after throwing out my own anchor since I was in deep, open water now and didn't want to lose the exact spot. I hooked this bass over 4 pounds on the black and blue Bullet Craw with a 3/8 oz Tungsten bullet sinker. I was in 11 to 12 feet of water, maybe as deep as 13 in some of the casts. Got the panfish anglers excited. They thought I had a 6 pounder!


On the very next cast about to the same spot I got thumped hard again on my Bullet Craw. Set the hook and this time it was a big Hawg over 5 pounds! The bass jumped 2 awesome jumps on the way to the boat while I'm trying to keep it down and get it in. Sealed the deal for me. I decided to see what I could do with this spot by staying there.


A few minutes later I got tapped again and caught another nice keeper deep on the Bullet Craw from the same anchored position. I think bass were roaming outside of a deep milfoil bed because I was not getting snagged and was getting bit casting around almost 3 sides of the boat!


The bite slowed so I switched in almost dead calm conditions to a 1/8 oz bullet sinker with  the old Green Pumpkin Power Worm and quickly caught another nice keeper bass practically from under the boat!


I caught several more nice keepers like this one and the next one by switching to the lighter weight and worm fishing it with a slow drag and small hop presentation!


Another deep worm keeper. I also caught several dinks and a couple pike before the pike really moved in and messed up the bite!


Things went down hill when the pike started biting more. I got bit off twice and caught several bigger hammer handles to small keeper pike that start hammering my worm and Bullet Craw.

I thought I had them figured out now! But in future trips the same tactic works more on dinks and pike than big bass but what a day this day was for fishing a small 80 acre lake without a lot to it!