Had the all day pass to go fishing, and ended up pushing a crappie trip back a day, so where to go? Hadn't been back to Waveland in a bit, so decided to head over there. Was hoping to get there and get launched before the tourney guys came off the water at 3:00, but that plan failed. A late lunch and some tackle rigging, then a long line at the park gate, didn't get me in until 2:50. By that time the guys were already back and started to load back up, so I just hung out in the back of the parking lot along with one other boat, making a few last minute tackle changes and getting ready to launch.
After about 20+ minutes, I finally started to make my way toward the ramp as the last of the guys ramped out. Not sure what it took to win, but ran into Tom Bourque who weighed 3 fish which was enough to get the 1,000 pts. needed to qualify for the Lucas Oil tourney next year. Congrats to that team. Also saw Dennis McGee who had weighed a sack over 12 pounds, which I'm guessing was a limit of bass. Nice job. Horrible with names, but a shout out to the guys who got launched well before me and remarked to not catch "too many big Indiana bass" as they were headed out onto the lake :) Hope you guys caught 'em today.
Tom had mentioned he thought only 5 or 6 teams had weighed limits when I passed, with lots of 3 and 4 fish bags hitting the scales. Word was by lunch, most of the bite had shut down and the fishing had gotten tough. That wasn't a total surprise as I launched to partly cloudy skies and a north/northwest breeze, with air temps just barely breaking 80 degrees. Water temps were reading 82-85 most of the day, and the water had a pretty good stain to it in most areas of the lake.
Word was also that the jig and crankbait bite was off, and that plastics were the deal. At first I thought that might be a little off, as I caught 4 fish on jig on the very first spot I pulled up on, but they were all short fish, which is kind of rare for Waveland. After that things really slowed down. Never could get a crankbait bite going, and just got random small fish on the jig over the next couple hours. I figured the front might slow them down, and I knew the tourney guys had just beat on them for 8 hours, but I didn't think it would be this bad.
I kept moving around and checking areas out. Sooner or later I thought the fish would pick back up with most of the pressure gone. It finally started to around 7:00 when I picked up a couple keepers on a football head off a shallow hard-bottom spot. Then, while idling over to the next area, I found a new spot - a rarity for me out there. Broke one off on a hookset, then put 2 more keepers in the boat on shakyhead. Things were looking up.
Moved again and stuck with the smaller plastics and finesse approach, and then things started happening. Interesting given the heavy stain, but I guess if you put it in front of their face and fish it slow, they'll bite it. Downsized even more and started to hammer them as the sun went behind the treeline. Ended in darkness with 31 bass to the boat, 12 of which were keepers. Best 5 went 16.6, with 3 over 18", the largest of which stretched 19.5"
If all goes as planned, it will be off to another lake and my first crappie trip in quite some time tomorrow.
Posted by: |