Tough but fun day on Round Lake 5/17/2016

[djkimmel]

Finally made it out on to Round Lake for the first time this year on May 17, 2016. What a difference a year makes. They must treat this lake in early summer with weed killer because on May 17 Round Lake was 10 times weedier than it was all the times I was on the lake last year!

Big, thick milfoil beds, lots of crinkly cabbage mixed in though not as noticeable with all the milfoil beds. And lots of algae already! Like a different lake almost than last year!

What to do. What to do. Just go fishing I guess and that's what I did.


On the first weed point I did okay catching 3 bass pretty quick on a Strike King KVD 1.5 in green shad color wound through the edges of the milfoil bed where I was seeing some evidence of minnows and feeding. I caught this small keeper above that someone pointed out it looked like a Great Blue Heron might have briefly had hold of it!

That bite died and I moved along out onto a bigger point it was challenging to fish a lot of lure because of the thick weeds and algae. I didn't try topwater yet because it seemed early and they weren't busting the surface a lot. It's possible I should have tried it but that is hindsight.

I couldn't see many bass beds at all though I looked - I did find one real obvious shallow one later that I couldn't get to bite at anything other than one half-hearted swipe at a clear shad stickworm one time. I found some bluegill beds though not a lot yet. Nearby I did find some cruising bass but they were not real interested in biting, and seemed shy and jumpy.

I tried moving off of them more and hitting holes in the weeds-algae but I couldn't seem to find something they would actually hit, not the keeper-sized ones anyway. Of course, the pike were biting good as usual but I wasn't seeing or catching any dogfish - odd for Round Lake though I admit I haven't fished it this early in the season before.

It was challenging for sure. I didn't see much happening yet on most of the normal summer spots. I finally settled on going around the shoreline tossing the Kustom Kicker Jigs Deposit Spin Titanium Revolution spinnerbait (bream color). I stayed near the drop and cast out past the drop off.

That worked just enough to save the day!


I was near an eventual lily pad covered point and throwing out over deeper water when this long, lean maybe post spawn female bass slammed the DSTR spinnerbait! It was a really nice bass despite being very lean.


A short time later on the other side of the eventual pad point I tossed out over the inside turn into deeper water (for Round Lake) and got slammed hard by this almost 4-pounder! Another solid Deposit Spin Titanium Revolution bass!

I worked my way along the rest of the shoreline and didn't get any other bites on the spinnerbait but at least I caught a couple bigger ones doing something so it felt like I accomplished something this day despite apparent tough conditions. Plus, I'll be back!