Had an exciting and interesting day on my local lake yesterday afternoon/ evening.

The forecast was for thunderstorms, but I went anyway. Took my swimbait stick, one mattlures original paddletail bluegill, a 7" osprey paddletail, and a 7" slammer.

In the first hour, I had like 4 bites/ bumps on the mattlures, and I saw three of the bass: they are all less than 14". I'm like what's going on here? I haven't been swimbaiting that long, but I've never seen something like this. Those little bass were actually trying to eat that bluegill. They had the bait by it's head, and let it go when I set the hook. Finally I landed a 14". It was hooked outside the mouth.. I guess it wasn't big enough to fit the whole bait in its mouth.

Then of course the thunderstorm hit, and I beached the little rowboat and took shelter. Still got soaking wet though.

After the storm passed, I continued with the bluegill, and finally ran across a 14 - 15" that ate it. I landed it and found that it had half-destroyed the bait. Huh?

Switched to the Osprey, and continued getting bites from those dinks, occasionally landing one. The Osprey was rigged with a treble on its belly.

I grew tired of trying to get my softbaits chewed through, tied on the Slammer, caught a couple of small ones and left when it got dark..

Anyone else who throw swimbaits regularly ever had a day like this? When the dinks can't get enough of your soft plastic swimbaits. Catching dinks on the big hard swimbaits is not unusual, but soft plastic baits?

P.S. Sorry if this is the wrong section.

I am sure they felt the change in barometric pressure.

Some of the best fishing I have ever encountered was before a storm.

Wish I could walk over to the local lake and try some topwaters and spinnerbaits with these 30+ winds and the rain. I bet the bass would be hitting everything today.

We had a day like that on a rainy/windy day with 5" hydratail swimbaits. Normally all we catch are 16" or bigger fish with them but we were catching tons of fish with lots of 12-14 inch fish that had the bait gone, you know where you're reeling them in and they jump and all you see is line going down into their mouth and no bait. I've caught plenty of small ones on the belly treble but never choked like that.

I have caught lots of little guys on soft swimbaits. The other day I caught two fish on a trash fish that were about 12 inches. They both had the bait choked including the 8/0 beast hook. The one that really surprised me was a 13in fish I caught on an 8in hud,the hook was inside the mouth. Don't always discount bumps as small fish either. I have had big fish bump a swimbait several times before it commits. Clearlake fish like to do that.

Follow up: So Irene hit VA around Saturday afternoon. I went out Friday evening; I thought fishing would be excellent, and the bass would hit just about anything. Heck, I couldn't even catch five keepers! Maybe I just couldn't find the fish. I went out again on Monday morning, and it was post-frontal, bluebird skies. I did okay.. caught a bunch, including one nice fish. Just goes to show that we should go fishing whenever we can, and not wonder too much about factors we have no control over.