Demontreville/ Olson Lakes 8/16/07

My fishing club was up to Demontreville/ Olson Lakes yesterday for our August Mid-Week Outing. With clearing skies, a light northwest breeze, and almost no humidity, it was a great afternoon and evening to be on the water.

I was able to prefish for a hours last Monday, and was able to find a few fish in shallow weed, and shoreline areas. Our Mid-week Outings start at 5pm, and my partner Randy (SenkoKing) arrived about 3:30p. We had a cold front on Wednesday, and I was pretty sure the fishing would be a little slow, and that we would have to push off the shoreline and try some deeper water. The third spot we tried had scattered weed clumps, and also matted weeds. I just have to throw a Scum Frog, just about whenever I have the opportunity. After 10 minutes, I think we had one blow up, and no fish, but we stuck to it, and continued down the shoreline. Finally we started to get a few hits on the Frogs. It was not very fast action, but we were getting enough bites for us to continue Froggin.

A few other boats reported that they were getting a few Bass pitching docks with Senko’s, mostly smaller fish of 12 to 15 inches, with an occassional 17 incher. I told Randy that I thought we were getting just about the same or better bites than those members fishing docks, and I was happy to stick it out with my Scum Frog.

Casting along one of the good looking shorelines with lots of weed cover, is where I caught the Largemouth in the first picture. I made a long cast to about 8 feet behind a pontoon boat pushed up onto the shoreline. As the frog landed I noticed sudden water movement under the boat, and was expecting a Bass strike at any second. IT did not take more than a second or two to reach the frog, and it just sort of slurped it in without much of a splash, as it was coming toward me. I waited the mandatory short count and set the hook hard, expecting an average small bass. Because the fish was coming toward me, there was not much pressure on my hook set, so I quickly reeled down a couple of feet of line, and set again, this time the MH heavy rod folded over into a very heavy fish, and it came flying out of the water moments later. This Bass measured 20 1/2 inches, and was a very thick, and deep bodied LM, easily over 5 pounds. After a couple of quite photos, the LM was back into the water, and headed off to the protection of the cover.

Late evening we hit a long lilypad area without a lot of success. This next picture was an over 18 inch Largemouth that also feel victim to the same frog.

As the sun was setting, we moved over to a long shallow shoreline where I have had some success in the past with throwing a buzzbait. Again I thought it would be a little slow, but it was worth a try, on our way to the boat ramp. We missed a few blowups but we stuck it out for about 45 minutes, and were able to add a 14", and 2- 17 inch Largemouth. I thought with the less agressive fish that working the buzzbait a little slower, and still keeping it on the surface would help the fish find and hit the baits.

We ended our trip with measured Bass of 13,14,14,16,17,17,17, 18, and the big of 20 1/2 inches. We had our chances with a few other good fish, but you can’t boat them all.

Thanks Randy for sharing the boat, and am sorry the fish were not as cooperative as they have been in the past.

I stongly recommend these 2 lakes to anyone who has not tried them. There have been special regs for mandatory release of all Bass for a number of years, and it really shows with the quality of fish that can be caught on a post coldfront day.

The boat ramp is just fine, you just have to be a little careful, the concrete ends about 4 feet from the water, and there is a rock shallow ridge on the back side of the scour hole.

Jack.