A fellow club member gave me a call yesterday morning saying he was heading to Larabee's that afternoon, and offered up a seat in his boat. What a great guy, I thought! Come to find out later in the day, I was the 7th, or 8th, or 9th person he called. Thanks Jim!
All kidding aside, Jim and I have made a point of fishing together late in the fall (November last year) and we had plans to do so again this year, but this was a last minute, impromptu invite. I was just happy to get out on the water! Our "late in the fall trip" will still be coming up, and maybe more than one.
We met mid-afternoon, and only had a few hours to get bit. With a stiff southwest wind pumelling the lake at 30mph, there weren't alot of places to fish out of the wind. We ended up fishing a long stretch of shore that was pretty windy, but had a great mixture of rock, hard bottom, and scattered milfoil clumps.
Dragging jigs was the ticket again. Jim alternated between a black and blue jig and dragging a Craw Pappy, and I alternated between a Venom Better Beever on a TitleShot jig head (green pumpkin) and a Venom Butt Kicker (black and chartreuse) with a green pumpkin Venom Dream Craw trailer. I did pick up a crankbait occasionally, but the fish wanted nothing to do with it.
Bites were hard to detect, especially with the lines billowing in the wind. Had to keep tight to the jig with the rod tips low, and drag your bait on the bottom. Occasionally, you'd just feel a slightly different "tick" and you'd reel down and swing and prepare to duck, because if it wasn't a fish, then your jig was coming right back at you.
We managed maybe 15 bass over the few hours we fished. They were fat Fat FAT! Best was maybe 3.5 lbs to 3.75 lbs.
Still 6 more weeks of bass season, boys!
The obligatory "double shot".
