A really good outing. Better than I can write at present. After a day so busy at work that, while the customers made me feel good about the work I had put in to supply them, I just feel exhausted this evening. Have to turn in early, anyhow, because I'm up again at 5:40 a.m. I might finish the post tomorrow afternoon.
My head was in the right place Thursday afternoon and evening as we fished. That's leaning towards hypomanic, rather than dwelling on the spot that could later sink into depression, but altogether safe and secure within the situation--not escalating at all. The medicine I use is great stuff. Never once have had any problem with my head getting foggy. Clear as a whistle. Use the bare minimum dose, because it's all I need. I stay stable because of good thinking habits more than because of medicine. I'd refuse medicine altogether if I didn't think a little of it is a good thing, and my attitude towards the prescriber is that we visit just so I can get my refills. I don't tell her that, of course not, but that's what I go for. Nothing else matters between us beyond that, and meetings are very short.
Writers all through history--the great ones--have been manic.
To call that a superpower is cheap.
If most of what you read feels breezy, it's probably because the writer doesn't get underneath his subject matter and look upward to see the refection on the surface. If he were to write from within the substance of the matter, no breeze could affect him, because there is no breeze or wind beneath the surface of the water.
I must have thought of half a dozen themes for this post while out there on the lake. More than a dozen patterns crossed my mind. I didn't limit myself to one, as at least used to be the style of Bassmaster Magazine. The persuasion. Find a pattern and stick to it. Brian might point out I was pretty fixated on the Yum Dingers, but I threw jerkbaits and topwaters, and my last fish of the evening, a pickerel, hit my favorite trolling plug, the Storm Hot 'n Tot. I own two of them in the larger size. One of them smaller.
From the moment I first connected, catching a small bass about 12 inches long on the Yum Dinger cast beyond the edge of weeds growing up to nearly the surface in eight feet of water, I felt this outing was going to go well. I caught a bass on the next cast further out from that edge visible to us, and those two and the three other bass I caught, plus one of my two pickerel, came on a Yum Dinger. Brian caught his two largemouths and a pickerel on Senkos. But besides the Pop-R and the Hot 'n Tot, I also trolled a ShadRap, and it seemed curious to me that nothing ever hit it. Most of the time I trolled the Hot 'n Tot--nothing hit that until the very end, either. I've been on the lake in July catching pickerel after pickerel trolling that plug. Caught a smallmouth in July trolling the Hot 'n Tot, too.
I wish I could have written this post right after getting off the water. Almost all of my posts that account for outings are that fresh, and it makes a difference, as the impression on my brain habitually creates a line that draws the reader into the substance of the story, and of course the longer you distance yourself from an event, the less memory serves you, at least in some respects I think are important and serve as thematic details. I know that the ways I fished on Thursday made distinct impressions on me I wanted to write about, and other times I've taken such impressions home and delivered them to you quite intact. I used to hit on grand themes that came off well, too.
We had "gone to the left," as Brian puts it, meaning nothing political at all by all I can tell, and fished the same weedbeds where herring schooled during May. No herring were there Thursday--no surprise. Wind came through like the hand of fortune. Its palm pushed us at just the right speed to get a good casting drift to fish the area thoroughly. Brian quoted Eddie Mackin, "Never leave fish to find fish." We put three or four in the boat before I motored us over to the far side of interconnected weedbeds, where nothing more happened and pretty soon I snapped on the ShadRap.
Brian made the point that he hates to continue fishing where fish aren't turning up. I had a certain island in mind.
We took the shoreline to the right all the way down into the back of the lake. We did the same last we were here just weeks ago, and on that trolling run, I felt it odd we caught no more than one bass. On this one--not a hit. I'd like to know why all the trolling we did panned out very little, but I haven't enough information to sort out and draw any conclusion. In the back of the lake, nothing happened along the shoreline that was quite productive last time, either.
But I found my island.
I had told Brian I couldn't find it last we were on the lake, nor when I was here with Brenden, because the rock that's usually exposed above the surface is submerged. (A distinct threat to trolling motors set on high speed.) But on Thursday, I saw flowering tendrils had broken through the surface. Brian had made the point earlier that weed mass had increased dramatically since we were here last. He also spoke about the reduced action. I told him it's about how the lake fishes in July and August, though the lake can fish a lot slower. We put 10 fish in the boat on Thursday. The last we were here, we caught 12. My island made a difference, as we caught three of that fish total way up in the shallows and as deep as 10 feet or more.
I had told Brian that my son and I once caught a number of bass in 30-foot depths, which happened to be associated with that island. We used quarter-ounce bullet sinkers and Chompers worms on inset hooks. I felt rather interested in trying deep Thursday, but I had a bass on from the shallows right away. Having lost that one, I was interested in more, though I did get my Yum Dinger down into 18-, 19-foot depths, feeling quite curious about that. A lot of sunlight overhead, though that breeze chopped the surface, water temperature at 75 to 77 degrees.
Yum Dingers sink a lot faster than Chompers. Twice as fast. In July, I'll fish an unweighted Chompers on an inset hook, taking advantage of that slower sink rate, but Thursday I felt completely comfortable with the Dinger. Brian pointed out that you can free one from the weeds by a quick yank, and the hook will be clean.
Two of my bass were about 17 1/2-inches long. Brian got one about that big, too. I'm hoping for a real big one here, but it just doesn't happen.
About 17 1/2 inches for Brian
Long and skinny is common here.
The pirate Bluebeard with a pickerel.
Not a bad bass, but why not twice as big?