Report 7/19

[Sam]

My partner and I went out of Buttermilk Springs Thursday at 6 p.m. and fished until 11:30 p.m. We fished mostly toward Joe Bald and had a real good trip.

At first we scoped lots of fish on the bottom deep off points and rocky banks in 60-70 feet of water. We tried to get down that deep, but didn't get bites even when we did.

Then, about 8 p.m., some of the bass moved closer to the banks in 30-35 feet of water, and we started catching some. That bite continued until we quit.

We couldn't do any good on a mud bottom or off the bluffs, all fish were caught off rocky banks and points with a rock bottom. We were using big Texas-rigged plastic worms. We ended up catching and releasing 22 bass, including 7 keepers. We didn't catch any real big ones, the biggest was 18 3/4" - but the short ones weren't too short either. The smallest bass we caught was 14" and a lot of them were 14 3/4".

The fish were scattered and not bunched up. We'd get a bite every 50 yards or so, and location didn't seem to matter as long as it was a rocky bank and bottom. All bass caught were largemouths, no Kentuckies or smallmouths.

This trip was a lot different from the reports I've been reading here, and I think the weather accounts for the good fishing. There was a cold front and thunderstorms moving in from the north, and it wasn't near us but we could see clouds with constant lightning approaching in the far distance.