Last night I headed to a local lake, and found two different patterns. The first one that my buddy and I found were fish either on the beds or staging on the inside weedlines or docks on or near the spawning flats. Because of the wind we were unable to sight fish at all, but we caught these fish on jigs, swim jigs, shakey heads, and swimming sencos. If you have not fished the new swimming sencos, you need to pick up a pack or two and give them a try. They look great in the water.
The second pattern that we found were the prespawn fish both the males and females. We caught all these fish on the deeper weedlines or sunken islands with swim jigs, rattletraps, and shallow running crankbaits. The key to catching all of these fish was to get stuck on the tops of the weeds and then rip the bait free. This is really the first time that I did this, and man these fish absolutely crushed the baits. We caught a lot of 15-16 inch males, and a lot of 15-16 inch females that looked like they were ready to pop. The big fish was a nice and fat 18.5″ female that went 4.1 lbs (sorry forgot the camera at the house) that was caught off one of the sunken islands. On the night we probably caught 25 or so, which is not to bad for only a few hours of fishing. I will give another report after the long weekend, and this time I will not leave the camera at home.
Good luck on the water and tight lines,
Ben Otto
***On a side note, can anyone tell me how to post a fishing report on the home page. Thanks in advance.