Prairie Creek 5/14/22

[MarkG52]

Walked out of the house to hookup the boat about 4:30am Saturday morning and noticed lightning to the south. Pulled up the radar and it showed a storm around West Fork. Called an audible and decided to head to PC instead of Indian, which was my original plan. Also sense I was gonna launch at PC I was gonna commit to top water, much like I sometimes will commit to only dry flies at Roaring River sometimes during winter C&R. Launched around 5:15 and noticed quite a few bass rigs prepping to launch. Didn't see a weigh-in trailer set up. Hummm... Anyway, I dilly-dallied around at a few spots near the ramp and figured I better head to my intended location. Made a run to the back of a holler and started throwing an X-Rap Pop. Got 11 L's and K's and countless swipes at it. If I threw near any sort of wood in the water something would swipe at it. I was fishing real skinny water here. Had a bunch of carp getting frisky way back there too. Saw one active bed off of a deeper pocket off this holler. Decent size fish guarding the tiny fry swimming around. Of these first 11, 4 were dinks and the others ranged from 13 to about 16". Moved to the back of another holler and picked up a keeper size off a lay down in about 9' of water right after I dropped the TM. It was around 11:00 by this time and the wind came up just a little but it seemed to kill my top water bite. I decided to move out to a main lake point that has a nice long stretch of pea gravel. It was a washing machine on the point from the boat traffic. I was done with the TW so picked up MB110+1 and got one first cast, had one come unpinned 2nd cast, and clean missed one 3rd cast. I was bouncing around so much it was tough to get a rhythm with the jerker. Picked up a Rage Tail swimmer on 1/4oz head and picked up 3 more bass and 1 short wally. My bite to hookup ratio was still pretty poor. had a couple come unpinned and just flat swung and missed on a bunch. I was keeping the boat about a long cast from the edge of the buck brush and using a retrieve Quillback style, let it drop, reel a little, let it drop, etc. Most of the hits were on the fall. Speaking of the boat traffic there, I hear a breaking wave coming towards me, look out towards open water and here it comes. Point the TM towards it and got in a good defensive position(Butt seat was on back deck), up/down/up/down, then stuffed the bow! Water temps ranged from 74.x to 78.x when I quit about 2:30. Color ranged from a dark olive to a coffee with cream. When I got back to PC ramp it was bonkers. Pleasure boats all over the place and yep, there was a tourney. I had beached since the courtesy docks were full of pleasure boaters and talking to the other bass boats beached by me, their weigh in was at 3:00. I pushed off the bank and putzed around to give the tourney guys a chance to get in, get out, and get weighed.  I attached a few pics, the short wally and average size I was getting minus the 4 dinks. Had good day, it got really hot. Remember to stay hydrated!    

[Quillback]

Thanks for the report Mark, you're making me want to get down and fish the mid-lake area.