Week of August 3, 2015

In the midst of the Summer heat, night fishing is the way to go.  I got in 3 evenings this week with Rhandy Simmons and my buddy David joined us on Monday night.

We headed out Monday about 6:30 pm and it was still pretty steamy.  Fortunately there was a light breeze that kept it from being too awful.  We hit a couple of good spots with no success.  I think we had maybe one bite.  Maybe.  Around 8 pm the sandbass started schooling nearby so we headed over there to get some "eating fish" for Pippin.  We caught fish almost every cast for about 30 minutes.  We had to cull through a bunch of small ones to gather 18 good ones for Rhandy to clean.  That was still a pretty good mess.

After the sandies quit playing with us we went back to bass fishing.  They just were not playing our game.  Rhandy moved us around to a number of great spots, but we just couldn't get bit.  On a few he found lots of fish on his graph, they just ignored us.  We finally gave up about midnight and went in to drink much beer.

After a lazy day on Tuesday I joined Rhandy about 6:30 pm.  David had to head back to town but I knew once he left the fishing would improve.  Little did I know how much!  Thanks for only messing up the fishing for one night, Pippin!

We headed to a spot we had not hit the previous night and started out throwing crank baits around a hump.  No sale.  So we moved up on the hump to throw at a great little timber pile that had produced many times for us before.  No one home.  So I started fan casting out towards a shelf break and some timber away from where we usually fish.  Then Rhandy snagged one up on the hump.  It was a nice fish around 4 pounds.  Next as I was coming up through some submerged timber my line felt spongy so I whanged on it.  Nothing there.  The first bite I had this trip and I wasn't even positive it was a bite.  The second was a little easier.  I threw back past the same spot and found I had somehow gotten a loop in my spool.  It hanged up and dropped short.  Well I started to pick out the loop when a good fish picked up my fluke and tried to leave with it.  I set the hook and started reeling but after a short fight it broke me off.  It was a pretty good fish.  My rod was bowed over enough Rhandy was grabbing the net for me.  Never saw it.

The next 45 minutes were very fun.  Rhandy handed me his Carolina rig and started retying mine.  I quickly hooked a 3 pound bass and interrupted his work.  The next cast he was further interrupted as I snagged a 7 pound 8 oz good 'un.

I caught fish or had a good bite every cast for the next 5 or 6 casts.  As it got darker I added a couple of 6 pounders to the list.  We stayed tied up to the same tree until 11 pm and totaled 17 bass, none under 3 pounds. Rhandy got 6 and I got 11.

The bugs were buzzing pretty good (if you look closely in the photos you can see them) so we didn't weigh any more fish, but I had several in the 5.5-6 pound range.  It was a lot of fun.  This time of year 17 bass would be a good full day trip.  For a 4 hour night trip it is pretty awesome. Thanks for going home, Pippin!

Wednesday evening we had high hopes of a repeat, though I know from experience that is pretty tough to do.  We high tailed it to the same spot as there were several boats nosing around us the previous evening.  We found it unoccupied.  After a little drifting around nearby, we tied up and locked down and waited for dusk to approach.  We had a few bites, I caught 2 small bass under 3 pounds, and had 1 small fish that broke me off in timber.  That was it.  I guess we put holes in all their mouths the night before.  We finally gave it up about 9 pm and headed for a few other good spots.  Not a bite.  I guess every fish in the lake was on that one spot and we caught them all.  We gave it up about 11 pm and went in to drink much beer.

Rhandy is a talented guy.  Not only does he like bass but he also loves bass.  I don't know what lure he used to catch this one but it's a beauty.  Good thing it's not a slot bass.