The Low-down on Clear lake, 1 May

Well, I had the good fortune to make our annual adventure on Clear Lake, IA last weekend, although others were not so fortunate. Out of six possibles on Thursday, only three of us showed. The fourth took off Friday morning in his Mini-Winnie and broke down within 12 miles of CR, never making it to Clear. The fifth couldn’t find a dog sitter, and the last, well, who knows what happened to him?!

We got there about noon on Friday and set up camp. The weather was awesome, with the temps in probably the mid-60’s and scattered clouds. We waited for the mini-winnie for a while and eventually decided that a two-way radio and a note would have to hold the welcome party because we needed to hit the lake.

We all piled into ProTiller’s big Lund and headed out onto the lake. With a decent breeze, we figured that Dodge’s point would be a good place to start looking for eyes. Well, we might have been mistaken about that. After a handful of yellow bass and enough bullheads to make me ditch crawlers as bait we decided it was time to move.

We headed over to the outlet and spent the rest of the evening working the gravel flat from just North of the outlet down the shoreline about 200 yards. Casting jigs and dragging a lindy rig, we boated about another seven or eight yellows when Todd tied into the first keeper walleye of the trip.

Now here’s where things get confusing. T boats the eye, we all look at it and guesstimate that it’s easily a keeper. Well, better safe than paying a fine, right? So Gianni takes the fish in both hands and lays it on the tape, which is stuck to the top of the gunnel. What happened next was truly an amazing feat, as the fish flopped in my hands and regardless of half leaving the boat diving after it, he escaped back into the lake.

The remainder of Friday evening was spent ducking low-flying fish, which tend to come out when you’re sitting next to this guy:

Well, we called it quits right around dark and headed back to camp, where we grilled burgers and froze our buns off.

The next morning was a pleasant surprise, with bluebird skies and temps in the low 50’s just after sunrise. Given that we were braced for a half day of rain and thunderstorms, I didn’t think the day was starting out too badly (and also thought, “How sweet would it be to get paid a lot of money to be wrong all the time!”)

Gotta save, windows is shutting down.

Ugggh… Computer viruses are proof that hackers can’t get laid.

Anyway, we hit the water in three separate boats, thinking someone would stumble onto some fish. We all started out on the North shore reef (billy’s?), where we each picked up a yellow bass or two before heading elsewhere.

We split up, and I headed toward the South (windward) shore to pull boards for a while. Things were a little messy getting set up, but once they were out, the fish certainly didn’t disturb the setup.

Well, after a tough day of fishing for all three of us, we ended up back by the outlet again, fishing farther out under bobbers with a minnow over the rocks in 4-5 fow. This landed Todd another keeper, this one a nearly identical replacement for the one that the bonehead measuring-boy had dropped back in the lake the day before:

Back to camp where the yellow bass (and one lonely walleye) made for an excellent supper. I suppose that the fish are transitioning into a summertime mood where nighttime fishing is the way to really get into the eyes, but once we hit the campfire and the showers, it was pretty difficult to justify heading back out on the lake.

A beer and a few fillets didn’t help much on that front.

Thanks for the update Gianni. It’s still better than sitting on the couch any day! I’m gonna give Okoboji a try tomorrow. Taking my boy. May the fishin’ gods be good to me… and you!