Big Indiana Bass

I haven't fished Waveland yet this year, so I made it a point to get my ass over there at some point during the 3 day weekend. I decided to go Saturday and try and beat some of the traffic. I didn't get to the lake until just after 2 o'clock, so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect.There were a ton of campers set up, many spilling out in the grassy area before you even enter the park. Almost looked like a little shanty town in places there were so many. Still, as I drove over the little spillway leading to the ramp area I was optimistic when I looked out over that section of the lake and didn't see just a ton of boats.

Next hopefull sign was when I got to the tennis courts and didn't see any rigs parked out that far. Made it to the 'T' to turn to the ramp and looked left and saw nobody parked along the grass above the ramp parking area. I'm feeling pretty good about the decision now. As I finally drove through the lot I was pleasantly surprised to see several open parking spots and many vehicles without trailers scattered throughout the lot. There wasn't even a line to launch the boat. This would be pretty doable.

I got the little tin machine launched and started idling out as the graph fired up and the little Merc warmed. I stopped on a little flat to cast some shallow cranks and quickly realized there was a lot of floating 'snot' in the water. Globs of loose moss were floating just under the surface, and making any lengthy cast with a crankbait ended up in a fouled lure better than half the time. This could make for a long day if it didn't clear up out in the more open water areas of the lake.

Back on the Merc and out to the main lake, headed toward a new spot I had found late last year that was in the GPS. This was out in more open, deeper water and I hoped the moss clumps wouldn't be as bad. As I cruised over the spot that the GPS had pinpointed, I graphed the stump with several nice arches sitting right over and around the little break that this sits on. I picked up a jig a pitched it out behind the boat to see if I could get bit - perhaps they weren't bass but crappie instead. Only took one pitch to get whacked by a chunky 2 pound bass - game on.

Out goes the marker buoy while I'm fighting the fish. I quickly get the chunky bass subdued, then make my way to the front of the boat and drop the trolling motor. I get repositioned and make another pitch and repeat the outcome. Nothing like the good thunk of a bass on a jig, and even better when you have a group of them schooled up like this. In the next 45 minutes I ended up catching a dozen bass without hardly moving the boat, every one of them exceeding the 14" size limit on the lake. Best off the spot was a pair of 18" fish that would go about 3 pounds each, give or take.

Looked like it was going to be a good day, until I realized that I hadn't brought any packages of jig trailers and the only one I had was the one attached to the jig I was fishing. How stupid can you be? After a dozen bass there was only a single claw left on the trailer I had, and the body was getting torn up to the point of not staying up on the hook very well. This could really suck.

As I started moving around the lake, I started throwing more crankbaits to see if I could get that bite going since I was handicapped with the jig situation. I found some open water areas that had a lot less moss and that worked pretty well. The bite wasn't as good as on the jig, but the quality was pretty decent. I'd run the deep diver down fast, banging the crank along the clay bottom, occasionally interrupted by a stump here and there. A quick stop, a pause and a snap, then resume the retrieve. Some times the resumption never came. A fish sucked in the deep crankbait on the pause and doubled the rod over. It felt like a good fish but they all do when you first lay into them. Here it comes up for a jump - OMG! Look at the size of that fish! Sweet!

I take my time and play the fish. I get her halfway near the boat and get another glimpse of her, and I can't even see my crankbait. She's engulfed it. Let her run where she wants to and wear her out a bit and then bring her to hand. Nice. This one has to go on the certified Chatillon - she's that big. I get her unhooked, grabbed the scale and the little keeper bag I use to weigh big fish so I don't have to add any extra holes to her head or risk her shaking off and falling to the boat floor, hurting herself. She doean't even completely fit in the bag, actually dwarfing it to a certain degree; somewhat comical. On to the scale she goes and she settles between 6-04 and 6-06. Proper guidelines are when it doesn't reach the next highest mark, official weight is the lowest mark exceeded, so 6-04 becomes her official weight.

She's a big female with a roughed up and bleeding patch on her lower tail, probably from whatever spawning process leads to such occurences. It's the males that fan the beds, so why do the females have bloody tails? She has obviously been feeding up because she has a really nice belly on her, not one of those thin and scrawny recovering fish shortly after the rigors involved. A couple quick pictures and then she is gently released and swims quickly away to go back to her daily routine.

That fish makes the whole trip, but I keep fishing; I like the thump of a good jig bite too much. In total I get to spend just over 3 hours out on the lake. I'm rewarded with 21 bass to the boat, every one of them over the 14" minimum today. A nice accomplishment but one that doesn't bode well for the lake. I'm pretty certain Waveland is going to go the way of West Boggs, becoming more and more of fewer but much larger bass and very little recruitment to keep the population stable. Perhaps nature or the DNR will intervene. Regardless, I'll keep enjoying the fishing while it lasts. I'm close enough that the drive over isn't a big obstacle, and I've got the lake dialed in well enough that I should be able to catch a few regardless most times - and I look forward to some of those being 'Big Indiana Bass'.