Return to Round Lake. Again. 6-21-2017

[djkimmel]

Otherwise known as Dan's weekly 'alone-time' therapy session...

I had planned to be on Round Lake at the break of dawn this morning but apparently, it's a lot harder to get up early to go fishing the day after you go fishing when you're 55... so I had a little 'no wake' problem with the snooze button first thing.

...but all was not lost! I was actually making my first casts right around 7am which isn't too bad though I sure had high topwater hopes as I drifted off to sleep last night. I didn't get this bass fishing thing out of my system with yesterday's trip so some awesome early morning quiet-time topwater bites would make up for it!!

Only thing is... the fish didn't get the memo... I did have my 1st cast bite on a Sammy walking the dog cast right to the outside weed edge of a broad point but it was a dink bass and we didn't connect. That happens a lot first thing at Round Lake.

I wasn't so thrilled for the pattern that erupted next though!! Got my first official Round Lake dogfish of the year! Tossed the nice, shiny (expensive) Sammy to the same weed edge 40-50 foot along and the water bulged up behind it as a fish turned and then WHOOSH! Ate it!! Dogfish! Rats.

It was a warm-up 2-3 pounder, and it managed to get off before I actually had to try to lay my hands on the slippery, hard, round, slimy, toothy critter so I counted coup for getting it to the side of the boat, and counted myself lucky that it roll-twisted (how else do you describe what they do?!?) off for me real nice-like!

Like two minutes later - I made the honest mistake of casting my expensive, shiny Sammy back behind the weeds into and inside turn no less and started dog-walking it back knowing I was just asking for it! A Bigger bulge started up behind it (think Russian missile attack sub coming in for the kill by ramming you) and Hollywood-fast (think that scene in Jaws...), slowly came up behind my Sammy!! For a split second, I almost let it completely happen, but my smarter primitive brain screamed GET THAT EXPENSIVE LUCKY CRAFT TOPWATER BAIT THAT YOU HAVE NO MORE LEFT OF OUT OF THERE!! and I jerked it away just as the maw of a big, black Whopper Dogfish tried to unmake my day...!! WHEW, That Was Close!!!

Though I was seeing lots of fluttery bluegills all around, the only thing I could honestly see that was attacking them appeared to be lots of excited, early morning dogfish... so I left that weedline and went to the point because the dogfish, though they are EVERYWHERE in Round Lake, are less numerous and less aggressive on the big point. Usually... They just seem to be more themselves when they're around thick weeds...

I worked all the better stuff on or near the point with no bass bites at all on the topwater. I even threw a popper a few times to see if that made something happen. After all, the panfish, some minnows, and probably some chasing crappie, were all over the surface still...??

I thought... you take this major structure on a round lake with limited features, and add a bunch of little bluegills and minnows right up top where you can get them if you try... it's the low light of early morning... there has to be some bass here in the eating mood, right?!? Right!

So I put down the topwater and picked up the ole Power Worm. After all, the bass on Round Lake really seem to like 7" Power Worms! A simple Texas-rig hopped along the bottom works quite often, and though I'm a firm disciple of fishing fast and covering water especially during the higher potential early and late hours of the day, I really wanted to catch some darn bass today!! So I compromised by deciding I would spot cast the worm, hop it a short ways and then reel it in quick to cast it to another great spot and repeat the same! Because frankly, everyone knows a great way to put Dan to sleep is to make him fish slow bottom dragging baits on long casts all the way back to the boat all day... I'd be falling over the side of the boat into the lake in 30 minutes... not how I saw my day happening (not how I prefer to see any day happening!).

I had topwatered one side of the point (my favored side because the other side seems way more popular with #$%@#$ pike!). I turned around and started pitching the Power Worm out of the shallow drop of the point. I was actually sitting on top of the very shallow point and pitching or short-casting to the weeds just off the break along the point. With the little row boat moving on speed 1 backwards with my 30 lbs. thrust Minn Kota electric I'm pretty stealthy.

I went maybe 100 feet before I found 'em! Here's how my first nice 2017 summer school of Round Lake largemouth bass went -

8am:
Testing various pike-avoidance measures I was back to old school lead bullet sinkers with a red 5/16 oz though it was a Gambler weight with the built in wire screw and tube so you actually screw the weight into the head of the worm. Tears the worm up a little but it works okay. I think I had left Round Lake the last time having switched to the old electric blue color after doing some experimenting. Yes, Round Lake bass do love green pumpkin but sometimes maybe they've seen it too much? I was at a spot that had a little patch of milfoil shallow with a bigger patch of milfoil deep behind it (just a side-note - they've apparently treated the lake again because a lot of this weed is now gone... darn) so kind of an alley in between, maybe 6-8 feet deep.


Felt a tap. Set the hook good to drive that nice 3/0 fine wire worm hook home! Felt good, and it was!! I think I was using my 'heavy' spinning rod rig with 30 pound P-Line Spectrex braid so it's not too hard to drive the hook home solid. After a couple minutes I landed a solid, not big, but no measure nice small inland lake largemouth bass!! Always feels good! I was making short casts and pitches so the bass, if more were there as I suspected, were close. So as I fought the bass to the boat I quietly dropped the obligatory big cement rowboat anchor and tied off on a short lead. I didn't want to move and I didn't want to have to mess with the electric motor trying to keep away from the bass and on the right spot. Too many things to manage when the goal is to catch a bunch of bass!!

I did take the time to take one quick picture before slipping the bass easily into the water on the shallow side of the boat away from the break where I caught the bass hoping the bass would not go straight back and tell on me. The water on Round Lake is pretty dark though there can be a few feet of 'clarity' especially in the low light of an early rising Sun it's pretty hard to see what happens down in the water.

8:07am

I made sure I was anchored good and ready to go. Put down my new selfie-stick with my phone where I wouldn't knock it into the lake! Straightened out my worm rig, and cast it back to about the same spot I thought I got the first bite. For a moment, just for a moment, I thought I hadn't found a summer school of morning feeding bass... but then I felt another tap and set the hook!

They say bass tend to school by size so I figured this was not the same bass but a buddy from the same year class!! But they sure did look like twins... I remembered to (quietly) turn around and face the rising Sun for another quick picture, again let the bass go on the shallow side of the boat and then straightened out the same worm for another go... I was feeling it now!! That rising feel of excitement all bass anglers feel when they think 'IT'S ON NOW!!'

8:12am

I went from twins to triplets - YES!!! I was awake now!! Maybe 2 casts/pitches later I set the hook on another solid, no measure keeper largemouth bass. I'm really feeling it now! I want to get my bait right back out there while the morning bite of this school of bass is hot! Before they move, or shut down, or whatever it is they do when they quit ending up in the boat!! Repeat everything I did for the first two and get the lure back in the water - same spot!! (You can see the big red bullet sinker I was using, and some of the slime on my line near the bass's head that is just covering everything out there this year...)

8:16am

Well... apparently this 'litter' of bass had a runt... but the bass made up for his shorter stature with a solid thump on the Power Worm and a hard 'wanna show you something' fight probably because he was kind of a porker. You know how the big kids used to let one of the smaller kids who tries hard hang out with them anyway... kind of like a charity project. Was still a keeper shorter than the first 3 bass but quite the chunker! I still appreciated it whacking my worm about as quick as I could get it back into the water near the same spot! This was turning into a FUN day!!

8:20am

This one was no runt! I should have known because it thumped the worm so hard that I thought for sure a pike had shoehorned itself into the middle of the bass school!!! I mean to tell you this bass hit the worm with extreme prejudice!! I actually had made 3 pitches in a row back to the about the same exact spot in my little ~10x10 foot square honey hole but let it sit a little bit this time - hard to do when you're impatient Dan Kimmel sitting on hot school of bass in the morning... but sometimes even I admit you have to let some of them think about it a moment. It worked!!! A really nice bass - must be the fullback or linebacker on the bass team!

At this point I was rubbing my hands together hunched over looking suspiciously around for anyone who might want to hone in while quietly cackling with something like glee... mu hu hu haw!! Of course, no one was out on the lake yet, I was anchored and the bass were all mine! Mine! MINE! ...my precious...

8:28am
Uh oh... I've made like 5-6 casts without a bite...?!?  I've probably changed something... got excited... fishing too fast!?! Casting too far to the left?!? Too far to the right??


Okay... maybe considering I've been tossing the exact same lure into a tiny circle of not that deep water to the same packed school of bass, they're just a little on to me... My fishing brain kicked in and I picked up the Nemesis Bullet Craw instead. Shiny Tungsten, oh on, but hopefully no pike were crashing this bass party! It worked! First cast this long, lean bass grabbed it and swam off! You'd think a skinny bass would be first to bite but maybe the other bass don't normally let it play with them?? It couldn't resist the big, meaty B2 watermelon gold Bullet Craw anyway!!

Six keepers from a tiny spot on a lake this small is pretty good! ...but could I get more??

A couple more pitches with the Bullet Craw and I hooked and landed a 7th keeper. I didn't get a picture of it though it would fit right in with the earlier bass... I wanted more!!

8:52am
Once again... uh oh?!? Except now it's been like 15 minutes without a bite... I might be done on this spot... but they say you should never leave fish to find fish, right? So I think to myself 'maybe I've caught all the small ones and only the big, smart ones are left??' Big bass like big baits... I picked up my 'Billy Barou' - the Kustom Kicker Dock Monkey - Case Plastics Cash Craw combo both in mostly green pumpkin and 3/8 oz of big bass catching machine!


IT WORKED!! Okay, not a big toad but another nice solid bass! I made my first cast with the jig off towards the edge of where I'd caught the previous 7 keepers and this good, solid largemouth bass gave it a nice little tunk right away. Love those jig hooksets and bass always!! I was still anchored and hadn't moved though I'd made a few casts further to the left and right, and out a little deeper and into the weeds.

8:58am

Then... It happened!! The often sought after kicker fish that is!! I made a little longer cast back down the edge of the break in the direction of the next deeper milfoil bed I knew was there with the beloved Dock Monkey jig. Felt that mushy feeling about the time time I went to weigh the jig after it hit bottom and gave the rod a mighty hookset!! Rod doubled over in that feeling there may not be another like it in this great land of ours!! And this big girl took to the skies in a 'ready for my closeup' gill-rattling jump!! And I Didn't Lose It!!! Actually jumped another nice exciting leap for freedom but I brought her to hand moments later. Snapped this quick picture and let her go so I can catch her again next year when she's a 5-6 pounder maybe...

As all good things must come to and end, try as I may, I could not get another bite from the area around my anchored boat. After some good effort and trying a few different techniques, I picked up the anchor and moved out to the end of the point, working my way along but no more keepers. Things still looked good and the panfish would flare now and then but I kept tossing the main bass finder for Round Lake (for me anyway) - the 7" Power Worm. If I was at a key spot I would make a few casts with the Bullet Craw and the jig too before moving along, but with visions of another hot spot in my spoiled mind I didn't do too much soaking in one spot if you know what I mean...


Even then, it took me an hour to work my way back down that side (the good side, I call it) of the point back towards shore. Near the base I saw a really nervous school of little bluegills out near the outside edge of a milfoil bed there. They fluttered a little all of a sudden so I made a longer cast out into the middle of them probably more like 10-11 feet deep and let the Power Worm sink to the bottom through them. I had even switched colors to a black shad I got a hundred bag of cheap awhile ago... before the worm got to the bottom the primitive brain once again said 'SET THE HOOK' so I did, and lo and behold another nice no-measure bass had ate my worm!!

Now we're back in business!! Not so fast... try as I may I could not get another bite from the surrounding area. I had automatically dropped the anchor again because I have caught several bass from this area before but I couldn't buy another bite. I definitely saw some small bass attacking the gills, and the requisite Round Lake rolling and blooping dogfish too, but nothing bit my worm.

I tried a few other lures, even topwater a few casts. Even the small bass wouldn't take a swipe. So off I went, moving along...

It got weird after that. The world was waking up, the surface activity was slowing and it was getting warm. It would be several hours before I landed another keeper... not that I can complain after such a fun morning for a little lake that gets fished a lot...

To be continued...

[djkimmel]

Actually, it got HOT!!! I even took off my automatic life jacket... I was sitting on (or standing next to) a cushion so I was legal. I just made extra sure I was sure-footed and careful but when it's really hot and not a strong, steady cool breeze that jacket about gives me heat stroke on my chest. I take turns wearing it, and taking it off. If I move around a lot I put it on just in case.

I do take a LOT of water with me too on real hot days - that's also important. How the some of the pros fish all day without much fluids and don't drop over from dehydration is a mystery I still haven't solved. I'm a pale, light blue eyed red-headed stepchild... I get hot. I sweat a lot. I also have to minimize how much skin I show - some of my skin hasn't seen sun in decades!! - so I guess maybe I just need lots of fluids to keep away the clumsy stumbling semi-brain damaged effect of the heat. Even then, I sometimes think I can't drink enough... I get tired of drinking water but that's just me... I know I need all the help I can get anyways!

So, I'm fishing along. It's gotten really slow. I'm hot. Probably the reflexes aren't quite as sharp as they were at the beginning of the day. The lake is starting to buzz a little with this year's strange mix of jet boats, jet skis, more anglers, crazy pontoons towing people on sometimes odd implements, the one tuna boat guy who doesn't realize the lake is only 85 acres and a few various speed boats, mostly going in small circles (counter-clockwise usually because that's in the rules... apparently about the only 'rule' they know...) because it's a small, round lake.

It's not like there's no action at all... it's just that I want to catch some nice, solid bass, all day I guess, with no break in the action... if only... I am catching a few dinks. I can't completely avoid the small pike no matter what I do though I just plain don't throw hardly ever anymore certain 'red flag' lures out there. I actually manage to save my lures from a couple bigger pike at the last moment, so I've got that going for me!

I even go strolling for a while through what's remaining of the shrinking milfoil mats (not much in the way of mats anymore) but once again only catch a couple 12 inchers dropping the heavy Tungsten right down in on them. I do manage to escape from a couple BIG doggies hiding in there with them!! Just not that desperate yet to go toe to toe with a slippery, armored dogfish.

It's mid-afternoon and I'm trying to think where else I can try (like I say, it's a small lake) that I haven't fished much yet, that also won't be in the direct line of the small pack of loonies whooping it up out there. (Some of the literally do yell, 'weeeee... wee, wee' when they go by you...!?!)

I decide to try a little, slightly deeper turn in the break, sort of in one of the corners (hard to have corners when you're a round lake, but...) of the lake. The loonies have to have an extra shot of loon in them to even be bothered driving down into this corner (though some manage just fine as the summer is progressing unfortunately...  )... It's an area where we rarely seem to get more than 1 bass a trip but it's usually 9 foot or deeper outside most of the weeds, and it's usually a nice quality bass.

So I lean over and turn the Minn Kota on full blast heading towards the spot with renewed hope and vigor. (Okay, renewed hope anyway. I just added that vigor part for effect.) I perk up when I get there minutes later because the weeds still looks like they have a reasonably defined edge unlike many of the fading other parts of the lake. Plus! There's a bunch of nervous bluegills still up high over the weeds and I can see them fluttering every minute or so, like something is trying to get them?!? Oh boy...


Because the gills are flaring as I pull up I run a little farther into the spot than I intended and picked up the Power Worm (I'd switched to the old tried and true black and blue at this point) firing it up actually into the weeds knowing I'd probably catch a bunch of slime, but that's where the nervous gills were sitting here. I needn't worry as my worm never made it down into the weeds. I'm watching my line, counting it down and watching for bottom when I realize my worm is now traveling at triple speed... I set the hook! Another nice, solid bass!! Yeah baby!! I might have said something goofy like this to myself after the long dry spell...

I mean, to me these seem like pretty nice bass for a little 85 acre lake that doesn't have a lot of complexity to it... Maybe I'm just easily impressed too...?? But as long as I'm happy, right.

This turns out to be what I like to call 'a Good Call' as the bass are here - no doubt about it!! The only crinkle to an otherwise really nice spot is... my fish losing disease returns with a vengeance!! dangit.

Because this first bass was right up in the weeds - probably somewhere between 8 feet to 5 feet deep, and the weeds are thick and covered with goo, I put down the heavier Texas-rig and pick up a weightless wacky rig. As far as getting bites, this is a nice move! I toss the stick worm out over the weeds right where this last bass came from and the wacky rig is fluttering down for about a 3, maybe 4-count before it too suddenly picks up speed and pretty much heads for Lake Ovid to the north...!!

I set the hook, kind of like a sidewinder thinking this works good for jigs, it should work for the wacky rig. Man oh man! My spinning rod doubles over and a Strong fish even strips out a few feet of drag, pretty much doing it's best to bury me in the weeds!!!! Not that it has to because seconds later it is gone like last week's pizza! It didn't break off. It just came off... dingedy dangit (one of my favorites). That felt like a real nice bass...

I reel in. Check everything. Pull up my pants a little making sure everything is one straight and ready to do. I fire out another cast. This one sinks a little farther before I see the line jump. I set the hook hard again and this time about before I know I have the bass on it's gone... again... what the?!?

I'm not exactly sure what I did after that. I think I put down the wacky rig and picked up the Power Worm. I know I went back and forth mostly between the 2 rigs casting the wacky rig mostly over the weeds or right to about where I felt the main outside edge was, and casting the Texas rig mostly deeper outside the weeds. I think you can panic and make things worse, and that's probably sort of what happened... because I had some really nice, hard-fighting fish on 4, 5, 6 times... not sure now how many, and lost them all. Some I actually got away from the weeds and had them up to a third of the way to the boat before they just pulled off...??!?

I'm still shaking my head over this part of this day because I might have almost equaled my success of the hot spot of the morning, if I just got the darn fish in to the boat... I think I landed 2 or 3 dinks though I even lost one of those. I landed maybe 2 pike from the deeper side of the weeds more to the right of where I anchored. No problem with them of course...!

I had 2 or 3 fish on over or in the weeds that felt like really, really solid bass, again even stripping drag, on the wacky rig and lost every one of them. I did lose one on a jump again like I've been doing all late spring and early summer so much this year. (I may have solved most of this now weeks later by finally coming up with a hook that seems to work for me - I've only lost a couple bass since I've switched to that hook. More on that in upcoming fishing reports.)

But also losing one or two nice ones on the worm now really got me hot under the color so to speak... I spent the rest of the day thinking how I could have easily finished the day on a real nice hot streak. I think losing several nice bass one right after the other right in the thick of things turned the rest of them off because it appeared this spot was LOADED (for such a spot on a tiny lake anyways...).

By the time I left the spot once it appeared I had worn out my welcome, I only had the one landed keeper to show for it, and a lot of the morning luster had been worn away... not good. Not how it should go... but that's fishing sometimes, right.

It didn't help that I made the mistake of putting on what I now call 'The Pike Killer' to test the outer edge of the weed wall there. I'm talking about the KVD 2.5 in the green gizzard shad. I love the action and look of the bait in the water but when you're on a pike-friendly lake I only imagine the lure must be calling out 'here pike, here' with each seductive wiggle and flash of green... I throw it on 20 pound test P-Line Halo a lot to fish it above weeds and rip it through, but now, even when I want it to get deeper in some spots I'm still throwing it the 20 pound because it minimizes the chance a pike can get to steal it!!

I made one cast, just one, down the outside edge of the weeds behind me on this spot and an upper 20 inch pike crushed it just moments into the retrieve!! grrrrrr... I've lost a lot of lures this year to pike. I especially don't like losing crankbaits and jerkbaits, expensive things like that, to them... I actually made two more casts with the crankbait after getting this pike off the hooks and bending one back into place. On the third cast another pike bigger than a hammer handle came rocketing in and I was just able to violently yank the crankbait out of the water to safety!! I put it back down and vowed not to pick it back up this day on Round Lake...

Since this spot actually drops to 11-12 feet pretty quick I risked some deep cranking too, as I had done in some other spots on the lake and been playing with since the spawn has been done. I got the same results as I've had so far - no nice bass and having to play protect the crankbait from mean, toothy pike. I actually felt a little better that I managed to save the deeper cranks a couple times from pike that snatched them multiple times!! That part was good anyways. I was looking at a number of my most used crankbaits just the other day and happened to notice that almost all of them have bent hooks - all from the battles I've had this year with those pesky pike...

After the bite (other than pike) seemed to have died on this new 2017 hot spot - I gave it a good try and fished more of the weedline inside and out both ways for awhile - several hours had passed and I decided to risk going back out to my early morning hot spot. The crazy boat traffic of this year at Round Lake kind of ebbs and flows throughout the day once it winds up and it was ebbing at this time.

I thought maybe the bass would be having dinner now and they would have forgotten about our earlier meeting... it's worth trying to think these things anyway. I knew I could get right back on the exact spot because of the shallow milfoil bed (now gone like I said earlier) unique to this spot. During the middle part of the day, since I was low on green pumpkin anyway I had cycled through my few colors and was on the black shad I have the cheap hundred bag of. It's kind of one side black and one side silver. The bass were hitting it but I'm starting to think that flashy silver side might be too attractive to pike because in the time since it seems like my bite offs go up a little when I have it on.


So when I got back to my morning hot spot, I put electric blue back on... for old times sake. Thought I might still be able to end the day on a really nice high note. Three times I pitched to that general area and swore I had a bite but I came up with nothing but a swing and a miss each time! Well, Denny does say hooksets are free, so swing away Merle! Swing away! Fourth time was a charm as this time I connected with another really nice solid chunker bass! Much better!!

I had anchored (and I had my life jacket back on being farther from shore on a busier lake now and having just moved out there). I kept tossing back in there. Tried a few different lures and techniques again. I even had a few more bites. At least they felt like bites but I'm guessing they were mostly mean bluegills in the area and maybe a near-sighted dink or two because I didn't hook anything. Most the hits were on the Power Worm again so I just wore that out a little more...

After that, therapy time was over and I headed in, overall evaluating the day as a pretty good day of bass fishing on a small inland lake, though still troubled by the bigtime dropsy I'm having and how it messed up what could have probably been another sweet hot spot...!?! Like we always say - that's why we call it fishing!! I'll be back. I've remembered to reload my green pumpkin worms too so lookout bass!

One final note - it did appear that my experiment with my red lead sinker worked - no bite offs on that rig all day and the bass seemed to like it just fine. But I'm always experimenting, trying something different even if it doesn't look like much of a difference. Plus, I get bored easy and I believe red is awesome when they want it but red is dead when they don't, so I'm careful to pick and choose when I try it and when I take it off. Haven't figured it all out but I'll be back out there soon working on it some more!!