The last of the nice weather greeted us today. I'd been chasing crappie quite a bit, so I decided that I'd stay close and make a run for green fish, perhaps for the last time this year. After hanging a few Christmas lights on the house waiting for the temperature to warm just a bit, I finally made my way to the lake around 1:00P. There were only 2 other boats in the parking lot, and I could see them both on the lake fishing deep water, probably jigging for white bass. No signs of any bass boats so I'd have the largemouth all to myself today.
I started throwing jerkbaits due to the really clear water. Visibility was something in the range of 3' to 6' today, about as clear as this lake gets. I focused on points and cover on steep drops. After about 15 minutes on my first spot I had a nice largemouth chase the jerkbait back to the boat, but not hookup. That was an encouraging sign though. After another 10 minutes I hooked up on my first bass. He wasn't huge (16") but was a welcome site. I fondly remember my trip to this lake last year under nearly identical conditions when I never got that first bite all day. At least this trip wouldn't be for naught. It turns out that I needn't worry as I moved to the next spot and caught another. This went on for about the first two+ hours, slowly moving along through different areas, all traditional cold water holding spots based on past experience. I was able to jerk up about a dozen bass doing this and was quite pleased with the outcome overall.
Little did I know what was about to happen. The only other rod I had brought was a jig outfit. After moving off a steep rock bank and coming to a stretch of docks, I picked up the jig and tossed it along the pier posts. It didn't take long before a little bass grabbed the jig and promptly got brought to the boat. I released the little guy and threw back to the same spot. I worked the jig out to about 8' or 9' of water and promptly got bit again. This time the fish was a solid little chunk approaching 2 pounds. So I keep fishing along this steep bank and it was almost like crappie fishing. The bass were stacked into this little area of deep water, a stretch maybe 30 yds. long. As good fortune would have it, there was a nearly identical bank on the opposite side of the cove mouth that couldn't be more than 20 yds. long, but the bass were stacked on this bank, too. Bass after bass all sizes ranging from 9" to 18" bit the jig as I worked these two steep banks over.
And about the title of this post... With ice formed on the shallow, upper end of the lake where the creek feeds in, the surface temp today never got higher than 41 degrees. Much of it was right at 40 degrees or just below. The high temperature (air) for today reached a balmy 47 degrees. This coupled with just a slight breeze made for a rather enjoyable day. And the final tally of largemouth after a bit more than 4 hours on the lake - 42 bass. So everything today was turning up in the 40's, and I'm not going to complain about that.
Indiana Weather Sucks
I can't believe this is happening again this year. The graph above tells the story. I don't remember the exact year this happened last, and I've been too lazy to look it up, but I remember the overall story line well. We get one good warm week of weather at the start of November and then the temperatures tank. Outside of a little bubble of warm air that hit us on the 13th and 14th, our highs have rarely exceeded 45 degrees and our lows have been at freezing or below, especially this past week. Needless to say, our waters went from surface temps in the low to mid-50's to the point where lakes are now starting to freeze up, all in a 2 week period. Most every small body of water (<20 acres) is now froze solid with a layer of ice. On the bigger waters, Cataract remains open, but Geist anglers had to break about 200-300 yds. of skim ice to get out to open water yesterday. Morse is freezing over in the back ends of coves, but the larger main lake water remains open. Waters to the south are probably still fine.
So we've reached the precipice of open water fishing for 2008 and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Did I mention how much Indiana weather sucks! Long range forecast isn't showing any signs of relief yet, so I'm not overly optimistic about a warming trend moving in in time. I plan to hit the water Friday with partly sunny skies and a high of 44 on the agenda. Might get a trip in Saturday also as clouds and a chance of showers move in, but the low 40's holds. By Sunday they say back around freezing for the highs, so all bets are off the table from that point on. We'll see what happens.
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