Opening Day

I got out to Norway Lake a little before 7 am and the wind was already blowing. Little did I know what was in store for me. It kept getting stronger and stronger throughout the morning. When I got back home in the afternoon the weather report said the winds were 20 mph with gusts to 30 mph, but by that time the wind had gone done considerably. I'm guessing most of the morning it was a steady 30 mph + with gusts over 40 mph and maybe close to 50 mph. It was brutal. With wind like that it really limits your locations and techniques. Even the calm areas were windy. I actually started off pretty slow but after a few hours I figured out a pattern throwing a Strike King Red Eye Shad in chrome sexy shad color in 2-4 feet of water. I ended up catching the majority of my fish this way. I'd guess I ended up catching 25-30 bass with the biggest couple being only 2 1/2 lbs. At about 2 pm I was sick of the wind so I headed in for a little break.

After eating lunch the wind was not going down at all so I tried to think of lakes I could fish with a wind like that. I wasn't really coming up with anything and then it hit me. Eagle Lake! It runs north/south and has a pretty high bank along most of the east shore. It was actually perfectly calm all along that bank. It's no secret what I did to catch fish out there. I started fishing docks and was catching fish under almost every one. What surprised me though was with so many fish using the docks I could only catch 1 fish per dock. Then finally on a little nothing looking dock I popped 5 good fish. That was the only dock they were grouped on though. I ended up catching about 25 more fish on Eagle with a lot of them being in the 3-4 lb range. My biggest fish went 4.10 lbs on my scale.

That was a lot of fun but there was one disappointment. I skipped my tube up by a pontoon motor and immediately one hit it. I set the hook and right away I knew it was a big one. I got it out from the dock and realized it was a giant smallmouth. I played her nice and easy and got it up to the boat and got my hand on her but then she flopped one more time and slipped out of my hand. Right when that happened I saw the bait fly out of its mouth. She was gone. I'm gonna say that was a 5 lb fish and if it wasn't it was damn close. At least it wasn't in a tournament although if it was a tournament it would of been in the net. That was a tough one but I'll get over it.