Half Moon Chain 4-30-06

[Hooksetter]

Went to the Half Moon chain yesterday with my son-in-law. We pretty much had the place to ourselves, only saw maybe 10 other boats all day. It was very windy and not much sun.

We fished mainly in Patterson, Watson and Bruin. We caught about 2 dozen bass, a couple of pike and about a dozen rock bass. All except the rock bass were caught on wind blown points on shallow cranks, Sub-Warts in sunfish pattern. The rock bass were caught on spinnerbaits around docks.

We did see a few new beds with bucks cruising nearby, but not as many as I thought we would see.

We found 1 bed in Half Moon with a fish locked on it, but we couldn't get it to bite. It kept showing interest, but we left after 15 minutes to go home. It was about 3lbs.

We saw 2 bruisers in the 5 lb. range cruising in 1 fow in a small bay in Patterson but they were very skittish and we could not get to close.

All in all a good first trip.

[fiker]

Fished the same lakes on Wednesday.  Caught one in Half Moon on small bomber crank bait in perch type colors.  Fish was real shallow.  Funny thing is a rock bass, and a large mouth both hit the lure in 12" of water at the same time. 
I caught both at once.

Caught another in Patterson on a green pumpkin w/ gold flakes.  He was right on the first drop into deeper water.

As I was cruising around, I saw many males in shallow water.  Some on what looked like newlly made nests.  I did not see any females.  About 10 males were on beds, but skittish, and would not strike at my tube as I dragged it through the nests. 
It was almost dark, and I couldn't see the nests until I got right on top of them.  Of course that meant that the fish could also see the boat. 
I'd like to go back when there is more sunlight and be able to sight fish from a greater distance.