Weathering the Storm 05/03/12

I hadn't planned on going out.  The forecast was abysmal with high winds and scattered showers and thunderstorms.  Well, I awoke to find the forecast downplayed and partly cloudy, calm weather outside.

I headed out to my favorite largemouth pond hoping for some more big slobs on jerkbaits.  Pretty much as soon as I got my tube blown up, a wall of clouds blew in.  It was breezy, but not too bad.  I started deeper, fishing a Lucky Craft Slim Shad 9 in a matte largemouth color in 10-13 feet of water.  That did the trick as I quickly caught this little guy.

I worked the same spot, and got his slightly older sibling.

It seemed that each fish was just a little bit more of an upgrade.

That one looked ready to pop.  There was a slight lull, but 15 minutes later I caught another.

After that, things died down with the fish, but the wind picked up.  I was determined to catch them on jerkbaits, but I couldn't get them to touch them.  I tried both shallow and deep divers, with a wide range of patterns and pauses, but nothing.  The wind was making it tough anyway.  I had been blown several hundred yards down the bank before I went back to the crank.  I should have stuck with it.

Looks like she's done, her thermometer popped.

The weather continued to deteriorate, as did the fishing.  I didn't get anything for a while. I finally gave in and nipped the little LC Pointer XD off of my light spinning rod and rigged up a dropshot.  I tried pitching it around the deep side of some brush, and I pulled a little foot long out of it.  I missed another, and then the wind whisked me away.  I tossed a Texas rigged tube as well, but found no interest.  I went back to the crank and hooked a decent one, but she pulled off tube side.  I headed across the channel to a point that has been good to me this spring.  The wind was really howling now, and I couldn't hold my position at all.  I fished the crank across the end of the point in about 13 feet and picked up this portly customer.

I couldn't get any more action on the crank, so I lowered Slick Willy down to meet his maker.  This was my first time using this bait, and I'm pretty happy with it.  I will definitely be shooting some more of these.  I picked up a few more, and missed a bunch because of wind induced slack.

That was the best fish, the rest were around 12".  Things were getting nastier, and my wife was home from work at this point, so I called it a day.

Total for trip: 11 largemouth

Total for year: 289 fish