Otter Lake 7-10-2016 with Derek

[djkimmel]

Derek and I traveled over to Otter Lake on July 10th in Otter Lake, Michigan for a quiet day of fishing. The difference from past trips is we went on the weekend. It was not quiet. I repeat, not quiet!

Why people love to drive their boats and jet skis in small circles is beyond me but after 11am that is what a bunch of them did.

The lake usually gives up a number of nice solid bass but today we were struggling to get a bite. Derek had one bass blow up twice on a frog but never hook up. And then it went silent. I couldn't buy a bite. I saw another bass boat land a big bass of a key point that they got to before we did. What are you gonna do?

We had until 10:30 - 11 before the lake got real busy and crazy and didn't make the most of it. Finally on an inside bend on a bar I got a bass to hit my black and blue Dock Monkey jig and pig. I stuck to the jig because I figured if I got a bite maybe it would be the big bite?

It didn't work this time as I lost the bass on the way to the boat and it wasn't real big.


A couple minutes later another small bass ate the jig and pig and I got this one.

Derek got bit off nearby. Things were getting ridiculous with skiers, jet skis and other pleasure boaters going around and around the small lake so we decided to take the narrow channel to the smaller Powder Horn Lake. It's a shallow, narrow channel with some wood but we got the old Ranger Z521c through.

We found there wasn't a lot to the lake with pads around the edge that we weren't getting any bites from but every now and then there was some wood sticking out. Some of them were hard to see.


It was along one of these pieces of wood that I pitched back my Kustom Kicker Jigs Dock Monkey jig and WHAM! It got eaten bigtime! I set the hook to find a Big Ole Toad doing its best to wrap me around the log and almost pulling it off but as you can see I got the big hawg into the boat after pulling it from around the log! Made my whole day right there!

A little while later I was dragging the Carolina Rig with the big black and blue Bullet Craw on it in sparse weeds outside the pads, which had a pretty deep edge because this lakes drops right off, when it got slammed too! I set the hook to feel another big fish surge out towards deep water trying to get under the boat but it pulled off. I think it was a big pike because when I reeled in my line was scarred up for a few inches above the hook... but there you go another mystery fish I will never now for sure, and after catching the big hawg largemouth I will wonder if it wasn't another big hog largemouth??

Oh well. I'll never know but at least I got one big ole pig for the day!