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Little southern Iowa mid summer bassin.


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rellison8

Tue Jul 27 2010, 09:25AM

Crankbait Rookie!!!!!

Registered Member #337

Joined: Tue Mar 20 2007, 06:54PM
Location: West Point, Ia
Posts: 3970

Hey all,

After a long day of fish Sunday I didn't get moving as early this morning as I had planned. I was still in the water before 6am.

Those clouds that appeared to be rolling in from the south had me thinking that maybe the topwater bite would go a bite longer this morning. That really didn't materialize and it was a mostly bright high sky's kinda day.

Water is up at the lake. Prolly a foot or so. Basically it is level with the wood on the dock framing and it had been down a good deal from there.
Main lake is nice and clean, farther up you go the dirtier it is. Bout normal. I made it to pelican but that was it. Also bout normal.

For the early morning I had planned to throw a frog. I also planned to video tape it and see if I could get any decent shots while the bite was hot and on top. I'll make a video of it and get it put up. I think I did get some decent action. You'll see as I am talking pulling away from the ramp on the 4th cast I believe it is a nice fish blasts it and I got one in the boat just that quick.

Caught 6 or 7 on a frog. I wasn't super pleased with that and the sun was getting high so I put the frog away and picked up a SK Series 6 crankbait and went out to the middle of the lake. Kinda the polar opposite of what I was doing. Basically I worked over several main lake humps. Spent maybe an hour draggin around a couple cranks, hanging them both up in the tree's and also a 10" worm. Nothing really going on at all.

So I head up the lake into the trees, heading back toward the first silt pond. Using that bank as shade to try and get the frog back going. Didn't happen but I did get a couple more on a frog later and on that bank I did pick up the white spinnerbait and they started hammering it. Fished it back there to the island and then headed out. Sun was getting high and I needed to get focused deeper for some bigger fish. So I go to the deep bank right on the point coming out of that area. Put down the moving bait and up came my flippin stick and a beaver. Nothing at all in the first 20' of bank, that's too long and this spot is too good. Down with that and start over. 10" black/blue power worm. 3rd cast. Slam! Fish comes up and its not huge but a 19" or so. Shakes off. I retie, (yes retie, I think that spot is that good) new worm. Back at it. Maybe 10 flipps, SLAM! Again, another fish in that range.
(Pardon my crap photos, IDK what happened today, somehow the fish got in the way of me.) :scratch:

I take the pics, repeat the retie process and back at it. Maybe another 10 flips and again, another nice fish.

Ok, now that was fun. Looks like the ole power worm is gonna be close by the rest of the day.

At the road bed jetties I caught the other frog fish. I always catch a frog fish right there. Maybe they are the same ones. That's kind of a shallow jettie.

Up at pelican I couldn't do anything but get snagged up and miss fish. I know I had 5 bites around that thing and deposited a couple tungsten weights but never a fish.

Now back up to the road bed jetties, now on the north side. Spinnerbait all the way around them to the pads. 4 fish nothing special. Now I am back toward the main lake so its off to the handicap jettie and working around to the north ramp area.

I am cranking a Lucky Craft SKT MR american shad at this point and flippin a beaver when I was in my sweet spots. Crank caught 2 and beaver caught 1 but it was pretty dead in that area. As I pull away from the jetties there to that shallow flat right by the north ramp I always pick up the swimbait and drag it in that area. Specially when the water is up. Had 3 blow ups before I got hooked up. 1 on each side of the ramp. I swear some of the best fishing I have is right at the launch ramps. :shrug:

At this point I am remembering how hard it is to get that swimbait bite and hookset down. Its so different from any other that I can see why guys specialize in it. If you do not do it a lot and just get fresh with that feel, you miss a lot of fish. After doing so good with it earlier this year and making it my primary bait other than the jig. I was no where nearly as good with it today as I had been. It still got lots of strikes, I just missed them and didn't feel confident with the hookset again.

Here is one I did catch on it though. No giant either but a nice fish.

So now I swimbait the entire main lake perimeter. Steady bites and lots of misses. It will get bites when other baits will not. The wind picking up a little this afternoon helped too.

So I am back at the emergency spillway where I have to flip that rock bank. NOTHING! Bummer. Just wasn't there today. So back to the swimbait. Now back to the power worm for a minute. Good bite and wrapped me up. Broke off. Now back to the swimbait, nother nice fish in there on the swimbait. Skip over the jettie there cause someone is on it and around to the south ramp again. This time the fish is on the LC crank but out of the same spot as the frog fish.

Then over to the jettie where we met at the end of the tournament. Around it with a beaver and swimbait and all down that rock bank. 1 short fish. Ok, I think I've had about enough. I am not waiting for the evening bite and the day bite is over.

While going down that bank there is a bass boat that a guy just took out parked right along the road. Older 17', good shape, odd registration. I am looking at it and the guy comes around the side. "Hi, ya doing any good" (Southern accent) I say "Been steady all day but nothing huge." You? He said, "Caught 2 big ones yesterday, 2 little ones today." In the mean time I figure out his boat registration is from North Carolina. :shock: Long drive! I asked how big the big ones was. I figured from down there who knows. He said 19" ers. Not bad at all. Today's 2 smalls was 12" fish. Only 4 fish I caught in 2 days of fishing. Never seen the place before and visiting family. Be here all week. Looking for any better lakes.

I told him about the flooding and bla bla and next thing you know 45 minutes later I am back around the jettie and taking the boat out.

Kinda interesting though how 2 people fishing the same lake but with him seeing it as so new and me getting so tuned in on it. How different the catching can be. I didn't keep track but I had to land 30+ fish today. There was still points too where I was begging the fish for a bite. It gets to be a grind in the hot afternoon sun. Water temps between 84 and 86.

Looks like the lake has a thermocline setting up around 16'. From what I could see on sonar. Fish are confirming that too based o what you can tell.

Baits for the day. Its a hodge podge for sure.
White spinnerbait
10" power worm
RI sweet beaver
SK series 6 Crank
LC SKT MR Crank
SK 5" Neon ghost minnow swimbait
Spro Bronzeye frog, (green one, don't remember the color name)

Bout all I got for ya till video time.

Good day, good lake, fun times!

[ Edited Tue Jul 27 2010, 09:36AM ]

Randy Ellison

BS pro staff.

HawgHunter

Tue Jul 27 2010, 09:32AM

Can't catchem from the couch!

Registered Member #1

Joined: Wed Feb 22 2006, 05:02PM
Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA
Posts: 6365

Excellent report Randy! I wasn't sure if anybody was still fishing, I sure know I haven't been

Thanks for posting up your trip.

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Xpressman

Tue Jul 27 2010, 02:09PM

Xpressman

Registered Member #473

Joined: Tue Apr 24 2007, 02:18PM
Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Posts: 538

Attaboy Randy! I need to get back out, it's been over a week.

CycloneJim

Tue Jul 27 2010, 06:30PM

Swing taught to me by Charles Barkley

Registered Member #300

Joined: Mon Feb 12 2007, 01:45PM
Location: Roland, IA
Posts: 5450

Great report and photo's as usual with you Randy. I'm like Darrin, I just gotta make time to get out on the water and to hel! with the rest of the world.

~Jim

Sinkers are like Ice Cream, the more the better!!