5-15-10 Fifteen Pounds a Flippin

LAKE/LOCATION: Rodman

WATER TEMP: 75-82

WATER COLOR & VISIBILITY: tannic, but clear clear

WEATHER: partly cloudy, winds kicked up ~9ish 10 SSE

ESTIMATED CALENDER PERIOD: pre summer, summer

BITE TIMES: till 8am, then after 11:30

FISH BEHAVIOR: Right off the bat I ran to the lock canal and went to fish the pad fields just north or the campground figuring there would be new matts coming up – there weren’t.  Spent a bit tossing a Rage Tail around the pads without luck although there was bait all over on top.

I ran back down the barge canal and threw the Rage Shad to the north side at any matted hydrilla.  I ended up taking one 3 lbs that hit on the inside edge of the grass and then missed another in about the same area.  It seemed following that (and a mess of boats with the Wolfson tournament) the topwater bite shut off.  I flipped a bit in mixing in a trap and a worm.  Got a couple bites on flipping but no takers.

Just outside of Kenwood I flipped some matts of hydrilla along with some isolated spatterdock  that was wedged in between pads and cattails.  Had a couple bites and took a dink on a BDS from a 7’ channel between matts but that was about it.  There were a bunch of left over – I’m assuming – bream beds but I didn’t see any bass cruising them.

Moving further south I tossed a frog on the scum/hydrilla flats next to the river channel (south of Orange Springs in the stump field).  I moved pretty quick pausing in the holes but couldn’t get anything to come after it.  There were definitely some fish in there but whether it was my cadence or what, I couldn’t get them to bite.

I finally started getting into fish when I started flipping isolated matts.  I caught fish both off straight hydrilla and pads inside of matts.  It seemed however that isolated pad clumps inside of matts were more consistent.  Basically, I would flip (1.5oz, punch skirt, bb cricket) small isolated patches – sometimes as small as 5’ and then start the motor and idle to another matt.  Fish bit both on the drop and on the pump along with on the edge and a ways into the matt.  The main key was pads mixed in and “isolated”.  The matts that produced a bit better fish were along those cuts coming from the barge canal and thus deeper water, i.e. 9-12’.

3-28-10

LAKE/LOCATION: Rodman

WATER TEMP: 64-67

WATER COLOR & VISIBILITY: tannic, clean

WEATHER: overcast/rain/storms, breezy after 9, winds 10-15 ESE

ESTIMATED CALENDER PERIOD: pre-spawn

BITE TIMES: 11ish

FISH BEHAVIOR: I started off fishing the channel cut that comes out of the state park near the dam.  Basically I wanted to just cover water to see if there was a school anywhere around the contour changes – there wasn’t.  With the wind picking up I moved into the lock canal and started cranking.  I worked the point and the north side of the channel picking up 1 dink on a crank.  I didn’t find any really good hard bottom however – except for right at the entry into the canal.

I decided to see if the fish from last weekend were still home so I fished the 3 cut back into the main lake.  I took 2 within an hour (2 5lbs) one on a trap and another ripping a crank.  Both fish were a bit shallower and relating to grass over the hard bottom area in ~8-10.  After that however, I couldn’t get bit.  I tried to get a football jig bite to no avail.

In retrospect I spent too much time there after those 2 bites.  If there weren’t any fish biting the football it was a sign I did what I could and should move on.  Also I wanted to run up canal to fish the little channel that intersects the lock canal after the bridge but a storm blew in and things got a bit hairy.