Weekend Reports

Well the catch and release season is officially open and I did manage a little time on the water but not exactly what I had hoped for. Saturday I went to Portage and had the whole day to myself and could not wait to unleash the new tackle. But to make a long story short, my trolling motor took a dump and by 10:00 my fishing day was over. I put the boat on the trailer and drove directly to D and R sports in Kazoo and dropped it off at the service department. One week before the season opener and I'm not taking any chances of not having a boat.

But I did manage to do a little damage to the fish in the two hours I was on the lake. I saw lots of fish cruising inside weedlines and some big largemouth as well. I had water temps in the high 50's and actually found a few largemouth on beds. I caught three on beds and two of them were over three pounds apiece and were caught on tubes. I expected to find smallmouth bedding and never realized these fish were green until I hooked them. I never did find any smallies but like I said I had limited time on the water.

Sunday morning I got out on Columbia with a couple of fellow club members but in slightly different conditions. Cold air temps and rain do not mix well with spring bass fishing but we stuck it out and actually caught quite a few fish although not many keepers. Water temps were around 55 degrees which was probably a slight decrease from last week and I never saw a single bed although it was quite windy and visibility was tough. Most fish came on jerkbaits and a few on shallow crankbaits and grubs as well. It got pretty miserable towards the end but Sunday is my fishing day and I was not going to quit early.

As far as the weather goes it looks like a warm up is coming towards the middle of this week and into the weekend for our first tournament. I hope to get the boat back in a few days and get out on Baw Beese by Wednesday. I'm kind of hoping that there will not be a lot of bed fish available for the tournament because that's tough to do with two in a boat when bed fish are limited. I am not a great bed fisherman anyway and pre-spawn tactics are more my speed. I will post my reports and any other I hear about later in the week.