Oct. 7-9 Weekend Bass Report

Today was an inservice day for the teachers so we had the day off
I spent the morning doing my homework, and the afternoon fishing bass once my my mom got home from her inservice.
It started out really slow on running slough, which is a main branch in the goose island area. I was fishing a flat that i often fish with a swim jig, and the flow was terrible. I had to get out of there. I went north and i didnt catch a fish until i got around the backside of the island. I caught the first fish, snagged on a swim jig right after i ran into labman who said he was catching fish on a fluke. I didnt catch hardly anything until i went to my spot to try inlines again like last week. I caught a lot of small fish: 10-13 inchers before finally catching a keeper of 14 inches. I also caught a lot of 5 and 6 inchers that i didnt even record because it would be embarassing. I fished my way down, hammering these 10-13 inchers before getting to a cove where i lost my favorite blue and white swim jig I switched back to the inlines and caught a few more, before reaching another cove. I made a cast, missed a good fish, and it came back twice more in the same cast, missing it both times. I threw back in, missed him again, and finally…FINALLY hit him. It was a good fish: a 17 incher, but pretty skinny. I left this spot and ended up catching one more 14 incher on a rat-l-trap, followed by a 10 incher on the in-line. I think i caught over 20 fish today including the 5-6 inch dinks. It a good day for quantity, but pretty rediculous as far as quality goes. I should have switched to a bigger spinnerbait for a couple bigger bass. But my technique countinues to work none the less. I like to throw small baits to get fish quick, and then i throw a swim jig or spinnerbait to catch a biggun. It works pretty good…But today the bigguns were just a little shy.

I will probably be getting out more this weekend, and i will let you know how it goes through this same thread..so stay tuned!

14″

I forgot to add that i got rained on by b-b’s today while fishing. I heard a series of loud shots, close by, and about 5 seconds later they were dropping into the water all around me Luckily, none of them hit me or my boat.

17″

Skinny guy

‘nother 14″

Hey bigfish, it was nice to see you on the water yesterday! We had much the same day as you with the exception of we began at 7:30 AM and were just coming off when we saw you at 4:30 PM. We started off throwing top water frogs and worms. The fish were blowing up the frogs but never taking them. We switched to spinners with no luck. When we started throeing the flukes, we started catching fish! Between my buddy and I we probably caught 20 -25 fish with about a 50/50 ratio between smallies and big mouths. THe difference between you and us was the size! I don’t think we caught a fish under 2# all day! Just about every fish was between 17 and 19 inches. They were really schooled up and we would catch several in a very small area and then the bite would just die off until we found another school. At one point we caught 6 bass, all large mouth, casting into an area just out of some pretty fast current about 4′ x 4′ square! The smallest was about 3# and the largest went about 5#+! What a blast
1 I had seen this happen on the fishing shows on TV but this is the first time I had ever experienced it first hand. I wish I could get out as much as you Cade but work and family obligations keep me pretty busy. Hope you have a good weekend fishing and keep us up to date with your reports!

Labman

looks like there is a better pattern out there. I usually throw the inlines this time of year to catch ’em up but then throw a swim jig or a big spinnerbait to get my bigger fish. Today i will try the flukes. I never did yesterday. What depth and cover were you fishing??? I think some of my spots hold quality bass, but i made a mistake by going for quantity. Today i will be throwing bigger baits the entire time…

Most of the fish came against the bank with the only “cover” being the longer grass hanging over the bank. Depth was generally 1-3 feet. The frog blow ups were in the dead/dying lillies and some weeds about 3-4 feet. There wasn’t really any real cover pattern (like wood, rocks, weeds) but it seemed that most of the fish came from next to the bank, in fairly slack water adjacent to some pretty good current. Try fishing the slew that runs along the shore by shelter #1 and down towards the bridge from there. We caught a few on some points to small inlets where the current break was. Carefull down that way though, we saw alot of duck boats (which we tried to avoid that area)and that was on a week day late morning! It will most likely be buiser on the weekend.

Good luck!
Labman

i caught my 17 incher in the slough behind shelter #1 and a lot of others on the inline. There is a lot of good wood back there including a lot of stumps. I fished a lot of the same areas you are talking about only with the inline. You probably pulled all the big ones out before i got there! lol
Yeah i was down near the bridge when i got rained on by b-b’s here were a lot of duck hunters out there. Anyway…Im set to go today..I just got to mow the lawn and im good. I scrounged up several used flukes and used a lighter to restore them to reasonable condition. We’ll see how it goes today…check the thread later on to find out..

BTW,
Thanks for the help!

Well, after mowing the lawn, i was off to the water again today. I had intentions of seeking bigger bass this time so i was fishing a spinnerbait for the first couple hours of fishing. Things were really slow and bites were few and far between. I finally got a fish in the boat after about an hour of fishing. It was a fat 15 incher. Shortly after, i caught a 13 inch largemouth. About 20 minutes later, i managed a very nice, healthy 17 incher that gave an outstanding fight. I fished all over the place for a while longer, and didnt get another bite until i picked up the rattle trap and threw along a bank on running slough. I caught 3 13 inchers in about 8 minutes along this bank. I left and went south, fishing a couple more spots with nothing and went to shady maple. Here i caught one dinky 8 incher on the spinner bait and i went back to where i started. I was getting really frustrated with the fish so i went back to the inlines to see if i could at least pull off a few more fish before it was time to leave. They wouldnt even go with the inline…So i was back to the banks. It didnt take long before i landed another 10 inch largemouth on the rattle trap. I moved down and picked up a 14 incher on the trap and on the last cast of the day i hooked one more 10 incher. I was out for maybe 4 hours today and it was really quite slow. I caught 10 fish and sadly, only 3 keepers. The 17 incher was nice but i would have liked to have found them stacked. I caught fish early on in the wood on the spinnerbait and got them on the banks, and one in lily pads but it was slow and fish were scattered….Maybe tomorrow……

15″

17″

Hey Guys,

Just thought I’d chime in with what I did this weekend. I also went out Friday morning. We started out in Target Lake and only had a few small largmeouth in the weeds. Next, we ran down to Lawrence Lake. I had two nice largemouth outside of the Lake on some wood. They took a spinnerbait. Inside the lake, we only got one northern. There were several other bass boats in there. Afterward, we hit a little point off an island that is right by the main channel. Had 2 largemouth on cranks. That was about it for us. The area South of the 7th street landing yielded no fish on rip rap and docks.

Then, yesterday, my brother and I fished up by French Lake. Had one nice largemouth in some duckweed along a bank up there, but that was it. Not one other bite on duckweed there or in the shallow wood. There were tons of bass boats up there, though! Saw one guy take a decent largemouth off a dock. Well, that’s it for now…I’m still searching for a real good fishing hole. Probably be back out next weekend or possibly one evening this week. Oh, also caught a HUGE sheephead…it was hilarious!! He was on some rip rap across from Riverside Park. For the record, that current is definitely quick…picked up one smallmouth on that rip rap, but I’m not planning on coming back there.

Try fishing in the backwaters of goose island. there is calmer water and a wide variety of structure to fish. I have found some great stretches right along the banks. Try fishing behind shelter number one, down in the bridge area, and dont over look the rocks near the south boat landing and middle boatlanding. They hold some big smallies.

As for me..today sucked. Caught 5 bass in a couple hours with my dad. Biggest was a 15 incher. I tried Spinnerbaits which worked yesterday and caught 2 but the bites were few and far between. I tried the rattle trap on the banks and didnt catch jack. We tried inlines and only yielded a couple. Whats the deal!? The only thing i didnt try at all was plastics. Where did they go? and what are they doing?!