I took the nephew for a day of fishing recently over to my home lake, Isabella and we had a blast! We pulled out of town at 0445 and headed over to the lake.
As we were driving along shortly after cresting Walker pass, we rounded a turn and there in the middle of the road was a deer, luckily we were going slow enough to be able to stop. As we drive along I noticed that all of the cows in the fields were feeding. This is something I have always watched for ever since I was a kid. Shhh, it’s a secret that my dad shared with me. On your next trip, take note if nature in general is active, if it is then chances are the fish will be active as well.
So we arrive at the lake and splash the boat, I can hardly wait till Josh, my nephew, is old enough to pull the truck up into the parking lot so we don’t have to tie off to the dock and block access for others to launch, even though its just for a couple minutes.
So off we go to my first spot. We start out tossing Sammy’s looking for the top water bite and the bass didn’t let us down. We caught 7 nice bass pretty quick then it just died so instead of slowing down the presentation I make the call to fire up the Mercury and off we go to spot number 2 looking for more active bass.
As we pull up to the spot I notice that the water looked “nervous”. What I mean by that is it looked “rippley” yet there was no wind, woo hoo, shad activity. I pick up my BBZ1 slow sinking shad and make a long cast. After it hits the water I do a ten count and ten start to reel, BAM! A good solid 3 pounder. Josh decides he wants to switch to a Spinner bait and on his first cast he sticks my fish’s twin brother. We continue to catch bass, 4 more, for about the next ½ hour then the spot dies as well. So that’s 13 bass and we’ve only been on the water for about 1 ½ hours, looks like its gonna be a great day. Time to make a move to find more actively feeding bass so off we go to spot number 3.
Next spot I try tossing the big trout swim baits for awhile but I’m not getting any followers. Meanwhile Josh manages to put 2 more bass in the boat on his blade so I figure I’ll switch up to a DD22. After about 5 casts it felt like I got stuck on a rock so I try pulling it free when all of the sudden it starts to move off. “Holy Crap, that’s not a rock!” and the fight begins. I look at Josh and tell him, “This is a good one, grab the net.” I would reel up 10 feet and the fish would take 20 back. After what seems like forever I finally get him to the boat and he turns out to be a 8 pound channel catfish, that’s dinner so in the livewell he goes. We continue to fish the spot and manage to put 3 more decent bass in the boat.
The time now is about 9:00, the reaction bite seems to have slowed down some but we’ve managed to catch 18 bass and 1 catfish, what fun.
I continue to throw my DD22 and Josh has switched to a Deep Little N, we are working this rock pile in 12 foot of water when we get a double hookup, once again we boat twin 3 pounders. 2 casts later Josh says to me, “Uncle Mike, I’m stuck” I tell him to use the bow technique to pop it free so he does and the lure pops free. As soon as it comes free from the rock pile I notice the line moving towards the boat and Josh is not reeling it. He finally catches up to the fish and realizes he has a big one., it ends up being a 6 pound catfish which goes into the livewell so the other cat now has a room mate.
After about 30 more casts without a bite I toss a Senko onto the rock pile and WACK, another good bass in the boat. Josh wants to try a drop shot. We continue to work the rock pile but nothing is happening, the bass seem to have shut off so now its crappie time.
We move off to the trees in the channel and look for them on the Lowrance. After checking 3 stets of tree, bingo, there they are. Roadrunner time! We lost count of just how many crappie we caught but by the time we were done the second livewell had a limit of good 1 ½ to 2 pound crappie in it, yes they were packed in there like sardines, HA! Lucky for them my Champion has deep livewells.
The time is now about 11:30 and we deciede to call it a day and what a great day its been, 21 bass, 2 catfish and a limit of crappie. We stop by the fish cleaning station at Paradise cove and fillet out our catch of catfish and crappie and Josh calls up his mom and my other sister to let them know that were having a fish fry.
On the ride home Josh asks me why all fishing days are not like today was. I explain to him that they all cant be like today but the more times a person goes fishing the better the odds of having a day like today, as long as he learns something from every trip
Its days like this that keep kids interested in fishing and make the days when you only get a couple bites worth it to them because they know the potential is always there of having a great day!
Thanks for visiting my site. Be sure to tell all of your fishing buddies and come back soon
Until Next Time, Good Luck and Tight Lines To Ya!
