Holy cow was it warm yesterday. Water temps continue their upwards march with main lake temps around 74, and some late afternoon river surface temps well over 80 (!). There is some green starting to show up in the warmer areas, and some floating grass on the lake. Summer is here!
I got out for a little pre-fishing in the afternoon heat. Managed one small eye pulling new X-rap shads on leadcore on some main lake structure. Pretty disappointing overall.
Sully and I opted to pitch and drag bait for league last night. We fished a mix of crawler halves and leeches. It’s my impression that crawlers took the majority of the fish, although our big fish of the night, Sully’s 18+ shown above, came on a leech dragged in ~ 15 fow.
We fished in the Chip well above the lake as well as on a main lake community spot. We had an early flurry in the Chip that produced about a half-dozen eyes (all in the slot, with 2 in the 17″ class), a couple of bass, a pair of sub 20″ channel cats, and a very small flathead. That bite fizzled faster than I had hoped. We finished strong out on the lake at dusk, with another half dozen or so eyes, although the average size was smaller (largest 15.5). Dragging crawler halves in 7-10 fow did most of the damage here.
On a night when the average league scores were pretty low, Sully and I represented IDA well with a league victory for me and a 4th place finish for Sully. Thanks for putting us on those main lake fish Bud!