Headed out into the pre-dawn darkness & fog this morning.  Wanted to be on my spot right at first light hoping for a topwater bite.  Arrived as planned but didn’t see much in the way of fish or bait movement up on the flat.  It’s a rather large area so I poked around a bit.  Focusing on isolated weed patches, I was throwing a walking bait which is usually a solid producer and a good way to cover some water.  I wasn’t drawing any interest (except from the gulls) so a few minutes after sunrise, I reluctantly switched up to a popper.  Knew I was going to have to fish much slower but if there were a few smallies around, this one has been producing lately.  It’s all about that ‘pause’.  

  Didn’t take long.  First Cast it got absolutely clobbered !  Fortunately had the GoPro running and managed to get a decent chunk of that whole deal on video.  After some give & take and a lot of praying by me, I slipped her into the Frabil.  She was gorgeous and at 5.88 lbs (5-14) my biggest of the summer.

  Worked that popper all over flat for the rest of the morning but that was pretty much it for the topwater action – but I’m certainly not complaining.  

 Before noon and for a complete change of pace, I busted out the A-Rig and went to heaving that mess around.  Once again, for whatever reason, the darn thing got hammered right off.  First fish on it this season and a totally decent way to start – this one was 5.22lb (a tad over 5-3).   After letting her go I was thinking maybe I was onto something.  Didn’t pan out that way.

So the morning’s tally was 2 brown bass that went over 11 lbs.  Nice. 

And it’s only the second week of August. 

A-Jay

 

 

What a toad!