Red Rock Lake, Iowa Aug 2

A cool morning greeted us as we headed out to fish Red Rock lake on Sunday August 2nd. As I drove out to the lake to meet Rick, morning temps were showing 55 cool degrees. We made a plan to hit the lake around 6:30AM and get things going. The weather was forecasted to warm to 87 deg by the end of the day and south winds up to 20mph. Them darn weather guys were right this time…LOL.. Our target for the day was white bass. They have not been as aggressive as normal for this time of the year but still biting. We were trolling crank baits for the most part. Color of choice was chrome and blue and shad colors. We did manage to hook a few on a castmaster and a little cleo. Again colors were the chrome/blue or chrome/lime green. We began the day with water temps in the 74.5 to 75.5 deg range. Kind of cool for this time of year.

It took us about two hours before we started to find the fish. Actually we were marking quite a few fish but could not get a bite. They had lock jaw. We made a run up to the outlet at Roberts Creek and starting trolling there. As I mentioned we finally managed a fish after two hours, only this one came on a 3/8oz chartreuse jig head with a white twister on it. The only one on that I might add. It was a decent fish so we threw him in the live well and started trolling again. I had another decent strike on the jig so we decided to drop the trolling motor and start casting in that area. We found quite a few cooperative fish in about eight foot of water or less by casting to them. We landed six fix in that area and all were keepers. However just like a light switch, they were gone.

For the most part we were either trolling or casting in about 14 foot of water with most fish coming in that depth or less. Rick managed a bonus largemouth bass during our casting period. His lure got hung up on something on the bottom of the lake close to shore. As he freed the lure, the bass hit it. Nice 2-3 pounder We decided to do some more exploring of the lake in search of some white bass and headed west towards the mile long bridge. We trolled in that area for a little while, but had no luck at all. We continued up past the mile long bridge and started trolling once again. During this troll Rick had a nice fish hit his lure. I looked up at one point and saw it jump. Long skinny body…I thought…”alright!!..we hooked a northern”. Well after we got it up close enough to see…it was a gar.. LOL…dang fish. Well at least we had some “success” up on the west end.

So giving up on the west end of the lake we made our way east. I mentioned to Rick that there was an area east of the Roberts Creek outlet that I had some success on a few weeks ago so we headed in that direction. We decided to give our first spot a try on the way and again trolled in this area. Made a couple passes with no luck and kept on trolling east. There was an area with a sandy beach we trolled by and as we made a pass I hooked into a nice white bass. This one hit my chorme/blue crank bait. We kept it, started trolling again and bang!! had another on. Except this time as Rick was reeling in he hooked up as well. DOUBLE!!.. We boated those two and made another pass.. within minutes a had another vicious strike. Once again as Rick was reeling in he hooked up again..Second double in less that 10 min. What a great spot! We ran up and down here for quite a while and hooked into some nice white bass. On one of our subsequent passes I had another really nice strike, except this one stayed down and pulled hard! After battling the fish, wind and waves, I managed to get this thing close to the boat. It didn’t act like a white and was shaking it head pretty good. A moment later and up it jumps..a nice large mouth! We boated that bad boy, a nice 18.5 inch 4-5lb bass. BONUS!! What a great day of fishing. Those whites are fun to catch!. Thanks Rick for hosting me on your boat. The temps for August are coming up so the white bass fishing should come up as well. Good fishing and tight lines all!!!