Peaceful day on Lower Crooked Lake 5/23/2015

[djkimmel]

There are a few lakes that I like for too many reasons to list, and they don't always have to have the best fishing. Lower Crooked Lake is like that for me and has been through many, many, many years of up and down bass fishing.

I went fishing there yesterday (5/23/2015) on a close to perfect weather day with high expectations that were not to be realized. There's a little campground there that rents small rowboats - the exercise is good for me.

On the way to the lake 3 deer decided to make the drive down I-69 a lot more exciting but being from here and knowing deer crossing signs are just meant to lull you into a false sense of security that everywhere else is safe I was ready... unlike the lady in the car in front of me... she had more excitement than I did because she didn't appear to be aware that sometimes... they come back the other way... exciting!

I had a feeling right then that things were going to be weird but going to one of my favorite lakes quickly makes me forget weird feelings. Shortly after starting out on my row and electric motor combo trip to the back of the lake I saw Turtle-zilla and that was another omen... I'm talking 100 year old turtle of the lake snapping turtle here with moss growing on its back!

I was hoping to get into similar action on the Lower as I had on the Upper but the Lower is a lot shallower on average and the whole back end of the lake was already one big completely covered pad field! Talking a couple hundred acres of just lily pads! Where to start!?!


I tried several key little differences like roots. The second patch of roots I guess the morning, the deer and the turtle got the best of me because I had a bass on 3 casts of a stickworm in a row and lost or missed them including one I was sure I had but it took me into a tangle of lilies and that was all she wrote!

Finally, on the 5th or 6th drop into hole made by the roots I caught my first bass - a small keeper. It was fun and I have no idea if it was the same bass or a 2nd, 3rd or 4th bass?!?

I tried The Freak again. I threw the Ragetail Shad, the stickworm and even switched to a Horny Toad because for some reason the bass on the Lower lake seem to prefer the more subdued Horny Toad than the flapping of the Ragetail Shad. Later I had one hard blast by what I'm guessing was a smallish bass with a big heart on the Ragetail Shad but that was the only one on the Ragetail.

I have done well on this lake in the past on spinnerbaits burned or slow-burned over pad roots, pad pods, pad points and other differences so I spent some times doing that too while I was in the back end of the lake. Finally, I went into one of the very few little depressions or troughs in the giant pad field and fished this distinct edge in the giant field of red pads (with a few green pad clumps mixed in).


There was one patch of green pads on the edge that jutted out like a mini-point and I whacked a nice keeper bass on the spinnerbait from there. I threw past the little pad point and the bass hit instantly so it was exciting trying to get it around the pads for a minute - I swear the bass on Lower Crooked fight harder than average but that could be my romantic notion about a favorite lake...

I took the above picture a few minutes later and the very next cast right up the edge of the pads I got drilled again from a smaller bass that came out from underneath the bog/roots of the pad field. That is always exciting!

I did not light the world on fire for awhile after that and kept moving looking for the magic formula but it was clear that the bass in the shallows were way past the spawn already. I finally found one ball of fry after I got my stickworm grabbed but that was it. I found a bunch of small bluegills on a regular bedding sand/gravel point but couldn't find any ambush bass nearby.

I went into a spawning bay thinking the bass would be in there post-spawn and/or guarding fry. I was fishing red pads and doing unwell. I had fished through a bunch of dollar pads and done nothing so I figured this bay would be mostly clean, big green pads - that something different. Plus, I know that some bass spawn in the bay every year.


Right after I saw a bass boil away over an isolated clump of milfoil mixed in the clean green pads I found another ball of fry thinking I'm improving my odds now. This is about 1/3 of the full school of fry this daddy bass was guarding.


The bass guarding these fry were very shallow but after switching to the Horny Toad I got blasted a couple times but did not hook up. I didn't find a lot of fry though and some of the bass grabbing my various baits I could see were what I call little bank-runners - big enough to go after any bait but a year or two from being a 'keeper.'

I decided I had to change tactics completely and go into the main lower half of the lake that has a little deep water. I was seeing a few fish hit the surface outside of spawning panfish. They were just out from the inside weedline where there was some old bass beds - textbook post-spawn bass fishing area.

I started with a red Redeye Shad and had a small follower right away. Then I want to a wake bait and had another small follower. But some of the surface blasts I saw appeared to be coming from full-grown fish so I started walking the dog with a gunfish. Nothing... nada...

I vacillated between going to the wacky rig stickworm, a soft jerkbait, a shallow crank, maybe even pitching a creature bait but in the end I decided to go with a medium-sized swimbait.

First cast I had a fish on twice and did not hook up. About every other cast or more I would get grabbed and some of them pulled back pretty good. Before I lost them again. Fairly quick I saw that some of them were small bass but many of them were long and skinny. With teeth. Either there was a hatch of muskies / pike in Lower Crooked Lake this spring. Or someone has planted a whole bunch of bigger than fingerling muskies recently in the lake because I put together in my my mind by the end of the day that I must have seen close to 20 of these toothy creatures all over the lake! I have the slash marks in several baits to prove it!

Despite my best efforts I was running out of finding what the bulk of the bass were going time. The Lower lake has been a little down for a few years now in bass fishing but I don't think I figured them out well this trip. I came thinking I would see some sightfishing and instead found a lake 2 or 3 weeks farther along than even my best guess based on the weather patterns lately.

So, I quit bass fishing and went bobber fishing. Because I like bobber fishing. And there was a buttload of panfish beds along this same shoreline. And I like bobber fishing.

The simple joy of bobber fishing!

I actually proceeded to whack the bejeezus out of bluegills and pumpkinseeds. Without having to work too hard for it. I only had Gulp! maggots for bait and I put a small ice jig with a tiny bobber. Sometimes the bobber would hit the water, dip down and just stay down! That's actually pretty fun.

I was pleasantly surprised that some of the panfish were actually pretty good chunks. Four of them actually were bigger than the palm of my hand body-wise. Here's a beautiful Pumpkinseed that ran off with my maggot!


Who doesn't want to catch big, bull Bluegills like this anytime? I've always said if gills consistently got 14 to 20 inches long there'd be a Gillmasters as big or bigger than Bassmaster. Because these little suckers pull so hard using their tall body very effectively. I had a great time catching them. You can see this male had been busy building and keeping a bed clean.


The real reasons I go to this lake still happened. Even for Memorial weekend it was pretty quiet (first jet ski I've ever seen on the lake). I heard an eagle, a cakking Cooper's Hawk, made a nesting pair of large Osprey ornery (they were on my spot), watched a big ole pair of soaring Red-tailed Hawks and many, many other birds including some I could not identify like a mostly bright yellow and black bird that squawked away a Red-winged Blackbird out of its territory.

I saw lots of green frogs and their tadpoles. All kinds of mixed wildlife except no muskrats. I almost always see muskrats on this lake so I don't know what that's all about. But who needs a muskrat when you have turtlezilla!

[YpsiBass]

Dan, it's may. The fifth month of the calendar year. May want to revise both of your posts to reflect that you fished in May rather than April...

Or maybe you're just having a senior moment.

[djkimmel]

Whoops... I just call it a 'Dan' moment. I was 53 years old last year for 4 months until my wife said... 'why are you telling everyone you're 53? you're 52?!?'

In my initial writings of my little stories I kept saying March instead of May also.

Now... I'm 53. Going on 73 apparently...