Finally, after a very long winter and a lot of fly tying it was time to get out and do some Bass fishing. The weather forecast wasn’t favorable. They were predicting thunderstorms in the morning with clearing later. I set the alarm for 3AM and checked the radar and it all looked good so off I went.
The recent rains and late spring have the lake level up and the weed beds down. It’s “early” out there, and it was obvious that the South end of the lake had significantly fewer weeds than the North end. The trick this morning was finding a quiet spot on the North end of the lake with a brisk Southern breeze. Water temps were 60.3 degrees over the whole lake. The lack of shallow weeds puts cover at a real premium. It paid to carefully approach and thoroughly fish every stick, rock, dock and weed you could find.
As usual I was Fly Fishing with my 8 weight Albright XXT and WF9F Sharkskin line. Before first light I was using a simple black foam popper and later on a Dahlberg diver. The action wasn’t frantic but steady. A fish here and a fish there. With the lack of cover and the water clarity, it was very exciting to watch fish appear out of nowhere and deliberately suck down the top water fly.
I also managed to break in the new boat floor in the first few minutes of the season, kicking over my coffee cup. After 4 hours of breezey drizzling 52 degree wind I decided it was time to call it a day and get something hot to drink.
Rootski
