9/3: Lemons to Lemonade: Bass Fishing in Tough Conditions

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade....or something like that. That life lesson pretty much summed up my last bass fishing trip. Here's the report and lessons learned:

Tuesday evening Shawn Skidmore sent me a text stating that he might be able to fish Wednesday night, however, he wouldn't know for sure until Wednesday evening around 1pm. Since Wednesday was my only weekday off  I didn't want to wait around all day and possibly find out that Shawn couldn't fish, so I decided to hit the water early and meet Shawn later that evening if he was still available. Wednesday morning I loaded up my bass gear, kayak, and grabbed three rods to which I had tied on a weightless sinko, a creature bait, and a crankbait. Around 12:15pm I hit the road. As I was pulling into the boat ramp I noticed one major issue....

Life giving me a lemon!

A massive mat of floating algae covered 95 percent of the lake. I knew that the lake was home to some large bass, but I wasn't real sure how the algae bloom had affected them. Since I was already at the boat ramp I decided to give it a shot. This algae mat was thick, and it was clinging to everything it touched. I couldn't take a paddle stroke without having to shake the algae off of the shaft of my paddle. Add in the fact that my kayak only piled up the the algae instead of cutting through it and you have the beginnings of a very frustrating fishing trip.

I had prepared for this trip by tying on 6 feet flourocarbon leaders onto my flipping rods with the intentions of tossing creature baits and weightless sinko's.....needless to say that wasn't going to happen. I quickly cut off one of the flouro leaders and tied on a hollow body frog. I began working the banks as if the algae wasn't even there. I hit the shaded banks and the fallen trees, or at least the areas where I thought the fallen trees were.  After an hour I was really beginning to second guess myself, I had even began to mentally prepare for fishing another lake up the road. Once I got about halfway up the lake, I started seeing movement under the algae. Every time my frog hit the water a little too hard I noticed something take off from the bank. It could have been carp or catfish so I didn't let myself get too worked up. A few minutes later I paddled/push poled up to a group of fallen trees and began working my frog around them. On my first cast I placed my frog under an overhanging tree and quickly pulled it into an open spot of water. I immediately got hammered in that very small pocket of open water. I set the hook and felt the weight of several pounds of algae.  The battle was over before it had even started. I pulled the five plus pounds of algae and fish to the side of the kayak and began looking for my catch.

Since I lost my hawg trough in the river last week I had to go "old school" and break out the fabric measuring tape. She went ~18", not a giant but a good start to the day.  I quickly released the fish and went back to tossing the frog along the fallen trees. A few casts later a fish busted through the algae and missed my frog, I paused and then gave it a twitch.....nothing. I quickly reeled in and made another cast right to the same exact spot, where the bass was waiting for a second attempt. He didn't miss this time.

Two fish over 18" in less than 10 minutes, It appeared that I was well on my way to making lemonade. I continued down the bank until I reached the shallow end. In the next two hours I picked up 2 more fish in the 16-16.5 range and a half dozen or more under 16". At about 3:30 the wind began to blow from the south end of the lake, which eventually cleared out 2-3 acres of water on the shallow end. Most of the open water was less than 3 feet deep, but it gave me the opportunity to switch things up and take a break from frog fishing. At this point I was getting tired of throwing the frog anyway so I decided to tie on a buzzbait and hit open water for a little bit......and I'm glad I did.

On the first ten casts I averaged a fish every other cast, none of which were over 13"but it let me know where most of the fish in the lake were. I quickly racked up a dozen or so bass in the 13-16" range. I couldn't help but to brag so I sent Shawn a text while he was at work.....

"They are killing the buzzbait dude. The wind cleared out the shallow end and I'm blasting them in less than a foot of water. 5-6 KW's (kayakwar fish.....>16") and tons of 14's and 15's."

It appeared that I had managed to put myself in the right place at the right time. I gave the buzzbait a break for a couple minutes just to let the water calm down a little. I got something to drink and grabbed a handful of trail mix. About 2 minutes later I noticed a small school of baitfish that looked like they were getting chased into the shallows. At that point break-time was over, back to the buzzbait I went. Eventually, I had worked myself into some really skinny, shallow water. My kayak was sitting in no more than 8" of water and I was casting in no more then 2 feet of water. Amazingly, I was still catching fish so I continued to work further up the lake.

On one cast I put my buzzbait 5 feet into the algae on the other side of the lake, I gave the rod a quick jerk as to flip the buzzbait up and over the algae mat. Once my buzzbait cleared the algae I began to slowly roll it across the main creek channel. I looked away from my buzzbait for a split second when  all of a sudden the gurgling sound of the buzzbait stopped and the resistance of the buzzbait on my reel was gone. I quickly reeled down and set the hook into a solid fish. The fish began throwing up a mud trail as he ripped from one side of the lake to the other. He made a few good jumps and then swam up to the side of my kayak.

It went 4.5lbs and 20.75", which happened to be my largest bass on a buzzbait to date. I took a few pics and then put her back. I only had an hour to fish left since I was set to meet Shawn around 7:30pm. I spent the next hour fishing the small clearing of water with the buzzbait but failed to find another decent fish. In a little under 4 hours I managed to land nearly 40 fish including a top three fish total of 57.5" (20.75, 18.75, 18). It wasn't easy but I managed to make the best of a tough situation......In other words, I made lemonade out of the lemons that I had been handed. 



 At 7pm I loaded up my gear and quickly hit a local sub shop down the road. At 7:30pm I met Shawn on the water and we began working a small creek arm. Of course I couldn't put the buzzbait down after the action I had just left on the other lake. I quickly picked up a small bass around 13" by working the buzzbait around private docks. Shawn too picked up a bass on a buzzbait before dark, his went 18".

The sun soon set and we began to fall into our night time tactics, jigs and creature baits. The bite was much slower than it had been the last few trips. In the first three hours I managed to get two bites on my jig but failed to hook either of the fish. Shawn was struggling to find fish as well. At midnight we worked our way into a the creek arm that had produced a few fish a week earlier. I managed to get yet another small bass on a buzzbait from a lighted dock. I was now up to 2 fish in 5 hours, nowhere near the numbers that we were used to seeing. Eventually, we worked our way back to the take out and to be honest I was ready to go. Shawn had another hour or so left to fish before he had to be home. For some reason he wanted to hit the other side of the creek arm and see if he could find a few fish to salvage the trip. He paddled across the creek and began working a small flat near a steep drop off.  I worked a lighted marina near the take out with my buzzbait. No more than five minutes later I heard what appeared to be a fish flopping around on the bottom of a kayak. I waited to hear if Shawn needed help, but he didn't say a word. About five minutes later I heard another fish flopping on the floor of Shawn's kayak, and that's all I needed to hear. I paddled over and began working my jig through the area where Shawn had just fished. At 1am we began paddling back toward our cars. Along the way Shawn hit the shoreline near the marina, he was just going to take a few casts so I continued to paddle to my car. I drug my kayak out of the water and began putting my things away. As I was nearly ready to load up my kayak I see Shawn round the bend. As he gets up to the bank he tells me that he just caught a 20.25".....and sure enough he had.

The bite was slowly picking up, probably because the water temperatures were cooler after midnight than they were at 9pm. We both had things to do in the morning so we called it quits. Shawn managed to salvage his night and pull together a three fish total of 55.5. (20.25, 18, 17.25). All in all we did fairly well. We were both persistent (Shawn after dark and I in the thick algae) and it payed off.