Baseline Lake - 4/29

[Bad Poncho]

Baseline Lake
4-29-2011
Noon – 5pm

Arriving on the water we noticed that the parking lot was packed, with more people waiting to launch. When we finally launched the boat the wind blew us around as if we were on a sailboat. The air temp of the day peaked out at 60 degrees which made it a comfortable day to be on the water. The water temps dropped heavily from 48-51 depending on where you were on the lake compared to the upper 50s it was just a month or so ago. With the water temps at this level we expected that the umbrella rig and a deep crankbait would be the ticket but this wasn't the case today.

We began the day fishing the west side of the lake with the umbrella rig and varying crankbaits with little to no luck. After 2 hours of attempting to pattern the fish this way we decided to troll crankbaits over the deeper sections of the lake, this also proved to be no good. It was at this point that we noticed multiple boats head toward the ramp and pack up.  Finally we headed over to the east side. This is where things really turned on. Here I began to throw a 1/2oz Chart/White spinnerbait near shore and brought it back through the sprouting pads. The main enticement here was to bring the spinnerbait over and into the pad stems or the submerged timber. My father opted for a square bill crankbait just outside of the pad fields. If he found a spot where the crankbait would go 2 or 3 layers into the pads it was almost a guarantee that a fish would strike.

By the end of the day the water had gotten up to around 50 degrees. A major factor today with the blue skies was the wind, when the wind blew at 15mph we had flurries of fish but when it died down we had to really work the pad fields. By the end of the day we boated nearly 40 largemouth topping out at around 5 pounds.

Equipment used:

6.4:1 Abu Garcia Revo Premier – 7' MH Denali Rosewood – 30lb Spiderwire Stealth Braid – 1/2oz Chartreuse/White Advantage Spinnerbait
6.4:1 BPS Pro Qualifier – 7' M Okuma Reflexions – 30lb Spiderwire Stealthbraid – Chartreuse Blue-Back Jackall Bling 55

[bigmojet]

Nice report.

[32eml24]

Baseline Lake in Allegan?

[Bad Poncho]

Yeah, the one off of M40.