Trips: 77 Hours: 203.5 Bass: 828 No. > 5#: 1
Was one of those days I find interesting not because of what I caught, but because of what occurred. I had a couple friends out at Geist yesterday bass fishing separately. One guy was just practicing and had 22 keepers. The other friend was in a tourney which they ended up winning with a 5 bass sack going over 16 pounds and a tourney big bass over 5. So, of course, I got the inevitable phone call of "you need to get over here tomorrow...we're killing 'em". So I drug my butt out of bed at a decent hour and made the 60 mile jaunt over to the lake so we were launched and fishing right about the time when they came across "the bite" yesterday. Went right back to the same areas with the same baits. Weather was damn near identical...highs near 80, sunny, good breeze from nearly the same direction, barometer within .05" of the day before, even humidity within 5% of the day before...a near carbon copy - except for the bass.
This became readily apparent after one hour in the prime area with only a 12" bass to show for our efforts. Lesson learned today is "Past performance is not indicative of future results", or "Don't chase a hot bite". The other saying that comes to mind is "Timing is everything". I'm sure the fish were still in the area, but I also think that these guys caught them at the right time in a nice feeding spree and that the bass had probably got their fill on Saturday and subsequently pulled back today. All theories but one of the intriguing things in bass fishing that keeps us coming back trip after trip.
Interesting occurance number two: We're 1 hour into this "whack fest" when we come across the only other boat we've seen in this area as it comes around a point. Two kids, I'd guess each not older than 10 years old, in a 10' flat bottom jon boat. One kid in the back manning the electric trolling motor, the other one looking at a map or something as they slowly motor along to their next area. We pass each other and ask if they've done any good. One of the kids says matter of factly, "not much", but they did catch "one about 3 or 4 pounds on a spinnerbait" back around the point they just appeared from. No seats, no carpet, no depth finders, no 200 hp engine, and yet they had already caught a bass much like what we were supposed to be catching out of my 20K Triton (LOL). Sometimes the fish just don't care who you are, what boat you own or the number of patches on your shirt - and I love it!
Anyway, we went on to catch about 7 or 8 bass. Two kept, one just barely and my partner nailed one about 4 (see pic). It took all of 3 hours to get that though, so we wrote the bass bite off for the last 2 hours and ran down lake to some crappie spots. By this time the wind was nearly whitecapping the water, but we sat out on a few decent areas and caught a bunch...70-80-90, I lost count. They were all cookie cutter 8.75"ers for the most part, but they made us forget about the poor bass showing for the day. Also managed 1 white bass, 1 yellow perch, 1 channel cat and about a dozen bluegill. Any more, it's all about the bent pole, no matter what fish happens to be doing the bending!
Geist Reservoir has been in the news quite a bit lately due to the blue-green algae scare. The lake is one of the best bass fisheries in the state. We've nick-named it "The Factory" because it keeps kicking out quality sacks of bass year after year despite the tremendous pressure it receives. What many people don't realize is it's unique history. As one of our oldest reservoirs, it has the town of Germantown buried beneath it's waters, and has been the center of some contentious debates and threats of annexation over the years. Who is Shorewood Corporation and how did they come to own all that land around the reservoir? For those answers and many more, take a few minutes to check out the links and photos from the Log Cabin Animal Hospital website.