The challenge is still on! Weather is threatening an early start but storm chances, at this point in time, are only as high as 40%. My goal is to be up and on the water between 7am and 8am. Since I have never fished this lake before I’m not exactly sure how we’ll start. I am thinking as the sun comes out and the temps start tp rise that fishing along the dam with craws and drop shots will be the ticket… maybe even around the island as it transitions to deeper water fairly quickly. I think my opening plan will be fish toward the back of the lake. It seems the further you get away from the ramp the shallower it gets. Maybe with such a big Shallow end there will be some good frog fishing in the morning or even in the heat of mid day. I have been pumped all week and am very excited to get going tomorrow. I pulled the most recent IADNR electrofishing survey from 5/26 and the results excite me. In their survey the shocked 17 bass from 14″-16″, 7 bass from 16″-18″, 3 bass from 18″-20″, and 4 bass 20″-24″! The fact that they shocked that many bass shows me that this could be a good fishery since they only shock a small sampling of a lake when they do shock it. Hopefully those fish are still there and are hungry for my lures tomorrow. I have rambled enough, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings. I am hoping for at least 1 bass of 4-5lbs and that shows my optimism right there.
One Reply to “Upper Pine Challenge 7-23-11”
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Well, let me lay the ground work first on water and weather conditions. Friday night a heck of a storm blew thru the Eldora area. The water was super muddy and was higher than normal. The weather was completely different. The wind was blowing 10-15 and blowing right down the middle of the lake so boat control was very hard. There were storms to the south of the lake but we were in the sun the whole time fishing. Okay now that I’ve given the excuses here are the results. We did pretty darn good! We did catch a 4lber (Bert on a Yum Gonzo Grub) and we ended the 4hr fishing trip with a total of 7 legal keepers landed. Bert and I pretty much stuck to two lures the whole trip. Bert used a Texas rigged Gonzo Grub and I used my Frog. The shore was littered with blow downs and over hanging branches and looked like a froggers dream however we found the fish were pushed out away from the shore 10-20ft out. Whether that was from the weather or just the lack of fishing pressure that has pushed other lakes bass into those kind of areas I don’t 100% know. But we did catch just about an equal amount on each of the lures. I will say that Bert ended up with 5 of the 7 keepers. So the bigger fish definitely liked that Gonzo Grub. The only other thing noteworthy is the blowup/miss on my frog. This fish was big! The miss was a completely different sound than other blow ups and Bert and I caught a glimpse at the tail and it was over 5lbs. So all in all my optimism was right on the money and I think this could be my new favorite lake due to what appears to be low fishing pressure and a good population of bass. We are already in the planning stage of another trip up. I wonder when and if it will be as good because I can’t remember a time or a lake that produced over two daily limits of bass!