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Got Lefty to come out and inspect the lake with me this morning. Breeze was from the opposite direction and did not allow the lake surface to rest, which kept the surface feeding down and made it a little harder to find where the active fish were.
I wound up catching 5 or 6, mostly from the area where the Upper Barton creek channel meets the main river channel. A slightly smaller class of fish today with several white perch, 2 LM, and only 1 good White Bass (who spit out a sweet immitation of my shad rap in the half-digested flesh&scales pattern). Both the bigger LM and the big White weighed out at 1.7lbs - still no trophy certificate since I've been taking the scale. Funny how that works... I had about the same number of fish hooked but come unbuttoned. There was a flurry of activity in the channel from 7:45 - 8:15, then things slowed way down.
I have noticed on the last 2 trips that everything has been biting the back hook and more fish are coming off than they had been. Not sure if that's got more to do with the fronts that have moved through making them a little more skittish or if I need to change the size/color of my baits. Catching smaller fish may have something to do with it too - no matter how hard an 8" white perch tries, he's not going to get a 3" shad in his mouth sideways... I did change from the larger chart/blue bait below to a smaller shad rap RS and immediately got the big white. I felt pretty smart, but it was short lived as I didn't catch anything on it after that.
If you look very carefully behind the massive largemouth in the pic below, you can make out Lefty against the Island at Lower Barton Creek. He caught at least 1 LM and has a pic or two to add (hopefully) - I'll let him post some more details.
I wound up catching 5 or 6, mostly from the area where the Upper Barton creek channel meets the main river channel. A slightly smaller class of fish today with several white perch, 2 LM, and only 1 good White Bass (who spit out a sweet immitation of my shad rap in the half-digested flesh&scales pattern). Both the bigger LM and the big White weighed out at 1.7lbs - still no trophy certificate since I've been taking the scale. Funny how that works... I had about the same number of fish hooked but come unbuttoned. There was a flurry of activity in the channel from 7:45 - 8:15, then things slowed way down.
I have noticed on the last 2 trips that everything has been biting the back hook and more fish are coming off than they had been. Not sure if that's got more to do with the fronts that have moved through making them a little more skittish or if I need to change the size/color of my baits. Catching smaller fish may have something to do with it too - no matter how hard an 8" white perch tries, he's not going to get a 3" shad in his mouth sideways... I did change from the larger chart/blue bait below to a smaller shad rap RS and immediately got the big white. I felt pretty smart, but it was short lived as I didn't catch anything on it after that.
If you look very carefully behind the massive largemouth in the pic below, you can make out Lefty against the Island at Lower Barton Creek. He caught at least 1 LM and has a pic or two to add (hopefully) - I'll let him post some more details.
