Dark Bottom + Slack Water + Wood = Largemouth

We shifted gears and spent Friday and Saturday fishing some community holes for largemouth. Although we were sharing the spots with other boats, most guys failed to adjust to the deteriorating weather conditions. The key was to slow down and move off the bank to the deeper wood.

Fished pool 4 Friday with fellow Field Staff’er, Andy Loos (adloos). We started the morning with some sunshine, 55 degree water and a pretty good bite. Once the clouds rolled in the bite slowed and we had to adjust. The fish moved off the banks out to the ends of the trees and into submerged wood in 4-5′ of water. The best presentation was a texas rigged 3.5" Mizmo tube pulled slowly over each branch. Any dark color seemed to work. A 3.5" double walled tube is ideal because it matches the 4/0 wide gap hook I like to use in heavy cover. The hook slips into the end of the tube without having to go through 2 walls and the double (thicker) wall holds the hook point nicely in place. The bite wasn’t great but all-in-all it was a productive day. It gave us a chance to work out the kinks and re-evaluate the tackle. We caught around a dozen fish in the 12-16" range. We both messed up on some bigger fish (equipment failure and mistakes) but that’s why you need the shake-down outings. The picture of Andy is of one of the average fish. Andy had to leave for work at 1:00 and I pulled out to check on Lake Pepin. I found it rougher than I wanted to fish by myself.

I came back to the spot we shared at 3:30 and had a brief flurry of 7 fish in about 15 minutes. The picture is the best fish of the flurry. After that the bite slowed to about 1 bite per hour.

Saturday was SSDP (same stuff different pool). I fished with Brent Haimes (fishnut) on pool 5 The results were about the same but you had to work harder for each bite. The average fish was slightly better and we managed to mess up on the best bites. The picture is of Brent’s first fish of 2004. To my surprise, we found a lot of water still in the 45 degree range and only a few spots in the 50’s. The improving weather this week should bring a better bite next weekend