I had another chance to get out on the water the other day as we made a little weekend trip up to my in-law’s place on the lake. The trip started in frustrating fashion as I was on the search for fish and not finding much. Due to family stuff I was also pretty limited for fishing time initially. So the first two days I was skunked! I should mention a few other factors, first, it was Labor Day weekend and the lake was hopping. I have fished the lake enough to know that the fish turn off as the lake activity increases. The second negative factor was another wicked algae bloom. Water clarity was terrible! Because of the poor water quality I tried to switch up my tactics to get a little more vibration, thus throwing a big spinner bait and fishing topwaters. It didn’t work!

Thankfully, I had a fateful moment on a family pontoon ride. We crossed through a small channel into a smaller lake and the water clarity improved dramatically! That part of the lake hadn’t had an algae bloom, and I was pumped to get over there and fish. I also saw a floating mat of weeds that I was anxious to try out.

Weather Update: The weather was HOT and very sunny. We had pretty light winds and a steady barometer. I expected the fish to be biting. The algae bloom was because of the warm water temperatures and ample sun. The bloom greatly affected visibility in the water which hurt my chances. The weather was very steady through out the 4 days I fished.

First chance I had I ran over to that part of the lake to get some fishing in. Right off the bat I got bit on a green craw shaped Havoc bait (I think it was the Bobby Lane design?), rigged texas style. I picked up 4 more fish in a short stretch of shoreline pitching my bait into inshore targets like clumps of weeds and docks. Then I got to the floating mat and things really took off! I caught 5 or 6 more fish off the edge of the mat. The fish were incredibly aggressive! I got the same fish to bite several times (after I missed him!) on a few occasions. I fished until I literally couldn’t see anymore and called it a night.

It was awesome to finally put it together and catch some fish. The challenge of putting together a pattern and the successfully catching fish is my favorite part of fishing. I caught all my fish on that same craw shaped creature. A contributing factor to my success with the mat is that it was sitting over the deepest portion of that section of the lake at about 8 feet. I went back the next morning and caught another 8 fish off of the mat in about an hour and a half. It was a blast!  This time around I caught a couple on a top water and the rest on my creature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also wanted to share that I got a BOW and have been practicing with hopes of doing some bow hunting this fall. I told myself that I would get back into it when we moved back to Wisconsin/Minnesota. I got the bow used on Craigslist and put together the rest of the pieces and parts for my birthday. Looking forward to another excuse to get into the woods!