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Welp, 2020 can't be gone quick enough for me. Got a bad telephone call Friday night that now my sister is in ICU fighting for her life, on a ventilator, etc., and I am like
yup, need a day at the lake to escape reality. Well I was looking at a bunch of picks from Friday and saw docks inundated, including High Point Marina docks and I was
worried I would be able to launch so I called my buddy Bob Toller and he was like, oh yea, come on down, the water level is going down. When I arrived around 7:45am
Saturday, besides a bit of fog and heavy dew on the things, the ramp looked almost normal. The gas pump on the dock at High Point was beeping from an electrical
malfunction as it apparently got something wet and needed to either dry out or be serviced, but that was it. Water temps at High Point were 66 degrees when I launched.
as I idled out I could tell the water clarity was diminished from a week ago as it was about 18inches at the ramp. Based on this and the fact there was quite a bit of runoff debris
in the High Point cut, I was leery of running uptake for fear of floaters and junk that could get in the motor cooling system (pine needles, LOTS of those), I decided to start
on the point between Mitchells Creek and Contrary Creek. The channel swings by it and its gives me a good read on the bait and how fish are relating to the vertical drops.
There is a flat with some docks on the Contrary side and same on the Mitchells side so you can hit a variety of "structures" in just an hour or so and try to get a read.
Apparently, there was some TX's out and about because 3 other Bass boats had the same idea as I did. One followed me in and another cut in front of my path about 100 yards.
I am not a famous LKA angler, so I guess the strategy was obvious. Started out throwing the jig as usual, 1/2 model to fish a bit deeper and went all the way around into the first couple hundred yards of
Mitchells and the water started to decidedly get that muddy cream look to it that suggests the little creek that feeds it got a lot of water (5 inches of rain will do that). So I decided
I want to run the motor for a long run, so yep, back to Valentines Cove with a thought of hitting the dam and the area and the rip/rap. On the run in I got it up to 68.7 as I am
still working on running thru and managing the Triton chine that hits about 63-65 on most of them. I wound up hitting a couple areas of boat wakes so that slowed me down
a bit, but overall, I am very happy with the Fury 4 24p that I bought recently. I have a reserve on one of the new Sharrow props that will become available next Spring, that
that will be very cool to experiment with.
Well, hit the community dock and that area, but NOTHING was home. The bait was gone (found it later), and so were the Stripers. An interesting effect of the major flooding
and the amount of water and the water that comes out of Dike 3. The water temps in Valentines was almost 70 degrees! So the outflow of Dike 3 was in effect trapped
and the normal intake at the plant must have been pulling most of its water from uptake for a change. Normally you get a reverse hydrology where the current in LKA flows
from Dike 3 to the plant. With this water temp, I pulled out a salt water mini spook and started casting. Cast two, bang, a nice 10 incher blows it up and jumps like crazy
and pulls hard and I am like, top water fishing? Game on. So for a couple hours of slowly fishing into the main cut in Valentines and throwing a spook and catching quite a few
8-10 inch bass, and since I was not in a Tx, I just indulged myself. The bites were explosive and it was fun. Back in the cut, there was no wind, so it was very comfortable.
I wound up working my way all the way into the back and then slowing idling and eating lunch all the while marking every stump and brush pile (lots) in there and at the mouth. I
Then idled over towards the dam, but that was being worked over on the north side, so I idled toward the south side and found all the bait and striper arches I was missing. Much
of it was on the bottom interestingly enough as I guess the strong current from the large outflow was driving them down. So I spent the next hour or so just idling around and
marking up my maps with any rocks, humps, stumps or cuts that I thought looked "fishy" for future reference. After that, I decided to run back to the North side of the narrows before
the 208 bridge and hit the northern docks and cuts I could not get on last week. Jig, topwater and square bill were all tossed, all the major brush piles hit (with fish on them but to
no avail). Interesting thing happened. I was in the back of a cut hitting a bunch of brush piles that are out in the middle and the boat was deep in the cut facing out. A couple Tx
anglers came in and I am sure saw me, but idled up, maybe 50 yards away and just sat there staring at me, I guess for like 2 minutes before they slowly backed out and left.
Maybe they were friends debating on talking to me or just were frustrated trying to figure out plan "next". So, at 3:20 I called it a day and that was it. Lots of small bass on a
spook (fun stuff), and many of my areas covered by other boats obviously in a Tx.
Safe boating guys.
yup, need a day at the lake to escape reality. Well I was looking at a bunch of picks from Friday and saw docks inundated, including High Point Marina docks and I was
worried I would be able to launch so I called my buddy Bob Toller and he was like, oh yea, come on down, the water level is going down. When I arrived around 7:45am
Saturday, besides a bit of fog and heavy dew on the things, the ramp looked almost normal. The gas pump on the dock at High Point was beeping from an electrical
malfunction as it apparently got something wet and needed to either dry out or be serviced, but that was it. Water temps at High Point were 66 degrees when I launched.
as I idled out I could tell the water clarity was diminished from a week ago as it was about 18inches at the ramp. Based on this and the fact there was quite a bit of runoff debris
in the High Point cut, I was leery of running uptake for fear of floaters and junk that could get in the motor cooling system (pine needles, LOTS of those), I decided to start
on the point between Mitchells Creek and Contrary Creek. The channel swings by it and its gives me a good read on the bait and how fish are relating to the vertical drops.
There is a flat with some docks on the Contrary side and same on the Mitchells side so you can hit a variety of "structures" in just an hour or so and try to get a read.
Apparently, there was some TX's out and about because 3 other Bass boats had the same idea as I did. One followed me in and another cut in front of my path about 100 yards.
I am not a famous LKA angler, so I guess the strategy was obvious. Started out throwing the jig as usual, 1/2 model to fish a bit deeper and went all the way around into the first couple hundred yards of
Mitchells and the water started to decidedly get that muddy cream look to it that suggests the little creek that feeds it got a lot of water (5 inches of rain will do that). So I decided
I want to run the motor for a long run, so yep, back to Valentines Cove with a thought of hitting the dam and the area and the rip/rap. On the run in I got it up to 68.7 as I am
still working on running thru and managing the Triton chine that hits about 63-65 on most of them. I wound up hitting a couple areas of boat wakes so that slowed me down
a bit, but overall, I am very happy with the Fury 4 24p that I bought recently. I have a reserve on one of the new Sharrow props that will become available next Spring, that
that will be very cool to experiment with.
Well, hit the community dock and that area, but NOTHING was home. The bait was gone (found it later), and so were the Stripers. An interesting effect of the major flooding
and the amount of water and the water that comes out of Dike 3. The water temps in Valentines was almost 70 degrees! So the outflow of Dike 3 was in effect trapped
and the normal intake at the plant must have been pulling most of its water from uptake for a change. Normally you get a reverse hydrology where the current in LKA flows
from Dike 3 to the plant. With this water temp, I pulled out a salt water mini spook and started casting. Cast two, bang, a nice 10 incher blows it up and jumps like crazy
and pulls hard and I am like, top water fishing? Game on. So for a couple hours of slowly fishing into the main cut in Valentines and throwing a spook and catching quite a few
8-10 inch bass, and since I was not in a Tx, I just indulged myself. The bites were explosive and it was fun. Back in the cut, there was no wind, so it was very comfortable.
I wound up working my way all the way into the back and then slowing idling and eating lunch all the while marking every stump and brush pile (lots) in there and at the mouth. I
Then idled over towards the dam, but that was being worked over on the north side, so I idled toward the south side and found all the bait and striper arches I was missing. Much
of it was on the bottom interestingly enough as I guess the strong current from the large outflow was driving them down. So I spent the next hour or so just idling around and
marking up my maps with any rocks, humps, stumps or cuts that I thought looked "fishy" for future reference. After that, I decided to run back to the North side of the narrows before
the 208 bridge and hit the northern docks and cuts I could not get on last week. Jig, topwater and square bill were all tossed, all the major brush piles hit (with fish on them but to
no avail). Interesting thing happened. I was in the back of a cut hitting a bunch of brush piles that are out in the middle and the boat was deep in the cut facing out. A couple Tx
anglers came in and I am sure saw me, but idled up, maybe 50 yards away and just sat there staring at me, I guess for like 2 minutes before they slowly backed out and left.
Maybe they were friends debating on talking to me or just were frustrated trying to figure out plan "next". So, at 3:20 I called it a day and that was it. Lots of small bass on a
spook (fun stuff), and many of my areas covered by other boats obviously in a Tx.
Safe boating guys.
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