Upper Crooked Lake redux 4-27-2016

[djkimmel]

I love spring bass fishing if you haven't guessed at that yet! 

I returned to Upper Crooked Lake on Wednesday because the rest of the week was not looking too hot. You've got to get out when you can get out if you can.

I ran to my favorite pocket again (well, plodded would be more like it with the little Minn Kota electric motor though rowing too helps with the speed) but this time I had a strong Easterly wind blowing right down the guts of the pocket making waves and very chilly cold front conditions.

I started out off shore again hoping for some bigger bass but did not even get a bit until I was near the back end of the pocket where I caught a small bass on the Deposit Spin spinnerbait again.

Finally, I was coming back out the other side of the pocket in the back end when I saw my first bed! And there was a bass on it. As soon as I tossed in a stickworm (green-pumpkin copper purple again) the bass hammered it! I got him!



Warmed me up a little bit. About 25 feet away I spotted another bed (on lily pad and weed stems like the first one). I tossed in the stickworm and the bass hit so fast I blew the hookset again like the other day! But letting it flutter this bass swam up and smashed it again so I got him! Not very big. Maybe a keeper.

To shorten the story I moved shallower and started checking bog edges, pad stems and other spots like that. On the way to a big bog area I popped one aggressive bass near the end of a dock on the Deposit Spin Spinnerbait!



Once I got the bog edge I found a bed so shallow the bass was only in inches of water. It was so spooky that any movement nearby caused it to race off into slightly deeper water nearby. About every 20 feet or so I found a bass on a bed, mostly on weed roots. I caught one that I saw on a pad root before it saw me pretty easy. But... I was casting too much and not looking enough. I kept having dinks on and some nice crappie that were hanging out nearby, probably also spawning but I would look down to see a bed where I wasn't looking only to see the bass swim away seeing me. Then they got hard to catch.

The rest of the day I practiced bedfishing and spotting, and boy! Am I rusty! I spooked more than I spotted and I would have one on so fast and spit the stickworm that I would miss the bass!

Now, to give myself a little credit, it was really windy so even in the protected corners it made it harder to see and very hard to feel a stickworm with no weight. I tried to pitch weighted lures but some of the beds were pretty shallow and that usually spooked the bass rather than got them to bite.

So I'm rusty and need more practice for sure. Notable was that almost all of the bass I found on beds I could see where small, sub-keepers or just barely keepers 14-15 inches. I could not find any bigger bass nor could I catch any bigger females nearby. I tried real shallow, heavy cover and working my way out from the beds on any available cover, especially a little deeper. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Zero...

To add to the fun though the crappie where bedding nearby the bass and just hanging around pad roots so I couldn't help but take some bass breaks (because I live catching fish period) and go for those. Here's a really nice one I caught pitching a slip bobber and Powerbait maggot combo!



On one pad root hole I had my bobber pulled under so fast and let go I couldn't even set the hook fast enough. I pitched back into the darkness (it's usually several feet deeper in these little holes) and the bobber popped up. I set the hook and got this small bull bluegill instead of the crappie I expected.



Better than nothing. So I'm typing up a quick post to Instagram and I have my hook and bobber hanging over the side of the boat. I often lose my Powerbait maggot to the bigger bites so my hook was bare - just a small gold Aberdeen hook. I glance down and this big Pumpkinseed has swum up and grabbed the bare hook and is swimming along with it. A fat ole female I think judging by its belly!



I easily got her after a short line fight next to the boat on my Whip'R panfish rod! What a dumb fish... my favorite ! They sure are pretty fish though, aren't they? Lucky for these fish I wasn't planning on a fresh fish dinner. I just enjoyed catching them and tossed all the panfish back. I could get into this pitching for crappie. Fun!