Fished Lake Gaston in a B.A.S.S. Region tournament on April 16 and we did not do as well as we thought we should have done.

I caught mine on a lemon yellow wacky Senko at the end of the docks near the shoreline; a watermelon wacky rigged Senko along the shoreline; and on a split-shot rig using a six-inch Zoom watermelon finesse worm. My partner caught his on a shad colored Shad Rap and a watermelon wacky rigged Senko.

And we caught them right and left. We caught over thirty (30) large mouth bass, and my buddy caught a citation White Perch. Only problem was that they were small buck males, all but two being less than 14 inches.  I lost two beauties and my buddy lost one nice one.

It seemed that the ones we lost were just picking up our bait and spitting it out or slapping at the Shad Rap. One of the ladies that I lost grabbed my lizard as it hit her on the head, jumped out of the water, and spit it out of her nest.  And I did not see the nest until we got closer to the shoreline a few minutes later.

The other lady took the Senko and slowly swam with it.  I sincerely thought she had it all in her mouth, but when I set the hook she came unbuttoned. Other than for the small buck males knocking the Senko and finesse worms silly, the larger bass would just walk with the baits, in no great hurry.

We saw the fish on the many beds we viewed and the large females that had just finished spawning. They were big. Beautiful fish. But they were not in the mood to strike our baits.  I told my friend that we could go up to the ones that had finished spawning and pet each one as all they did was suspend about six-inches below the surface under the piers.

The water temperatures were 68* in the coves and the back of the creeks and 62* in the lake, and I think our problem was that we fished too many coves and back creeks where the temperature allowed the fish to either be on their beds or they had just finished spawning. We may have done better in the cooler waters near the creek mouths or on the main lake.

Overall, it was another learning experience on Lake Gaston.

Special thanks to all who gave me some advice. I will PM each person and personally thank him.

Its just that time of year, bucks are plentiful and the females that have laid eggs already are just starting the recuperating process. It will get better soon.

Good report Sam.