Even guys who write fishing blogs get skunked

We finished eating our Ernie’s pepperoni pizza around 6:30pm and after sorting my tackle for a few hours today I really had the fishing bug. The weather was warm, a little humid with an overcast sky. The air just felt right for catching bass…or so I thought.

Upon arriving at the area I usually fish I noticed the limited amount fishing spots were almost all occupied by groups of folks fishing. It kind of looked like opening day. However as luck would have it the spot that served so well last week was once again available. As I was preparing to descend the rocky bank to my spot I noticed a silver pickup heading down the trail towards us. Toby immediately recognized the truck as it belongs to Doug Toby’s favorite State of CT conservation officer. We like Doug. Toby and Doug appear to have a mutual affection, it’s sweet. Doug and Toby have an arrangement where cookies are exchanged for dog kisses. I use the distraction of Deb, Doug and Toby chatting to tie on my brand new Rapala F05 Bleeding Gold Flash Original Floating Minnow and start fishing.

I fired off several casts covering 3:00 to 9:00 to gauge the activity…nothing not a hit, nibble or follow. That was pretty odd. Now by this time Doug,Deb,  Toby and another conservation officer who rolled up are all watching me fish. The pressure was on big time. I was throwing everything I had…..nothing. Passerby’s and other fisherman were all reporting not catching anything either.  I stayed at it, I tried topwater lures, sinking minnows, floating minnows, spinner baits, jigs, beetle spins. Still nothing, and I mean nothing. I still had fun none the less.

I feel a bit of analysis of the evening is in order.

  1. The lake had been heavily fished this day and judging by the trash on the shore the fish ate well
  2. The lake was dead calm, glass smooth. Bass are much more active when there’s waves. The bass tend to hang tight in these conditions and need to have the lure dropped in front of them and fished slow.
  3. What I should have done. Because I had not transferred all my usual tackle to my Cabela’s XPG Pro Series Angler Pack and because I was expecting the conditions to be identical to the previous week I came ill prepared for the fishing conditions I was presented with. I do believe that with a Carolina Rigged Rubber Worm, probably of a Berkly Powerbait variety I would have done well. Perhaps a crank bait fished to slightly graze the weed beds would have worked too. But my light spinning tackle with 6 pound test line is not the best setup for that technique.

Side note:

I brought out the Cabela’s XPG Pro Series Angler Pack for the first time and I was very pleased with how comfortable it is and how much tackle it can hold. An unadvertised feature I really like is the ability to have the the bag hold my rod while I tie on a lure 🙂

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.