Bass’n in hot water

Finally, we got a day that wasn’t so unbearable by 6:00am. With the cool temps compared to what we had to endure, I was so anxious to get out on a hot bite. Had the pleasure of sharing my boat with Chris who equally wanted to get out and have an opportunity to make up for lost time of sitting in the house.
We hit Fox Lake at 6:00am and made quick order of getting things figured out. The water temps were in the low/mid 80’s, a few clouds, and a lot of guys on the water. To many, that may not seem like ideal conditions. But like the old cliché’, “see what your looking at”. By observing a few early signs, we were able to dial things in and have a great day.

Our first spot looked more like Mitchell Field airport. As I stood upon the bow shaking my head, I quickly realized the merging pack of boats approaching us told a great story. Everyone was stacking themselves up tight on the shoreline like flies on a cow pie. Each was jockeying themselves for position to flip docks and burn spinner baits along the shore. Within a matter of minutes guys were plucking 10”-13”dinks. We stayed out on the deeper edge of a drop off observing the small bass being caught, and taking notice to the amount of fish that I was marking on the locator in 7 fow. Casting lipless Kopper Gizzard Shads in ½ and ¾ oz proved that taking a moment to “SEE” was the right call.
Chris was crushed by a 19” bucket mouth on his first cast to 7 fow. His next few casts were towards shore into shallower water and weeds. His reward was the smallest bass that we boat for the day – about 11 inches. So I focused on keeping the boat further out over deeper water, casting back over the top of the drop offs.

That choice of boat positioning paid off well in two ways. First, with all the competition we had with boats approaching us, guys had no clue to what we were doing. Boat after boat would pass with guys pitching to the shore. I’m assuming they were thinking that we were targeting walleyes in the deeper and paid little to no attention to us.
Second, but most importantly was the fish’s mood on feeding. When we cranked a lipless bait from shallow to deep over the drop off, the bass would explode up and inhale the baits. The proof was in the way they were hooked by the front hooks deeper in their mouth. When casting parallel with the drop, or running them deeper we would get more curiosity “nips” and have them barely hooked with the rear treble.
We duplicated this on three spots on the lake that had very similar structure. The only change we encountered was the lack of wind that occurred around 10:30am. As the wind died down, the sun began to bake us and the water temps began to rise again. From that time until we left at noon, we had a number of bass that hit very sluggish. As we would retrieve, the subtle feeling of dead weight like pulling weeds would suddenly be there. Fortunately, the super sensitivity of the new Quantum EXO’s rods made it very easy to distinguish the difference. In all, Chris and I boated 29 bass measuring up to just over 20” and a few short walleyes that made things interesting.

On a side note, there are a lot of dead pike floating around. Much like most lakes here in central/south WI., the water temps are ranging 85 to over 90 degrees. All fish will have a high mortality rate if care isn’t taken in handling and releasing. Just my opinion on a few critical steps in reducing mortality: 1. Use heavier gear. Don’t play the fish out to complete exhaustion. The quicker the catch, you reduce the stress. 2. Be prepared. Have your hemo’s or needle nose pliers out and ready. If your going to get some pics, have your camera conveniently located and be quick. 3. I’m a fan of rubber nets. Keep the fish in the net and as wet as possible. Avoid the fish dancing on the floor or carpet. 4. Common sense – that speaks for itself.
Good luck and be safe!
Our equipment used:
Quantum EXO and Smoke rods in 7’ medium
Quantum tour Edition reels
Cajun Braid 20#
Koppers Live Target Gizzard Shad in ½ & ¾ oz.
Koppers Live Target Threadfin Shad