Tonight's Platte Lake Report: Smallish Fish

Today was cloudy and humid with temps in the high 70's with little wind to no wind. The big question when I went out fishing tonight was how long I could stay out before a thunderstorm chased me off the lake. While I was out a thunderstorm passed to the South around 6PM and then the storms held off until around 9:30PM which is quitting time anyway pretty much. I beat the start of a thunderstorm to the dock by about 5 minutes. If you ask me, I would consider tonights fishing conditions to be about perfect which leaves me a little disappoined in my results.

I was fishing a little before 4:30PM and my first stop was the reed bed off the Southern tip of the big Island. It didn't take long and I had a hit on watermelon red Zoom Horny Toad. I got a good hookset but the plastic on the frog kind of got hung up on the hook and the fish got off. I was not happy. A little while later I broke the ice with this 13" on the Toad.

A few minutes later I was fishing with a black with Chartreuse nose River2Sea Bully Wa and the biggest fish of the night inhaled it.

It's sad to say, but the night's big fish was only 15.25. I worked this reed bed for about an hour and a half and only got 4 or 5 bass and maybe 1 pike.

Next I decided to head West as it looked like the closet thunderstorm was going to pass to the South. I worked around the North side of the small island with various jigs and a the Horny Toad and only caught 1 small pike. After that I headed to some docks and the reeds off the North Point of Channel Inn Bay. I picked a couple of 12inch bass off the docks on a Strike King Z-Too and then it was into the reeds. I had a really good bite from what I believe was a big bass on the Horny Toad but I didn't muscle the fish like I should have and it buried itself in the reeds and got off. I think I caught 1 or 2 small bass from the reeds and had several strikes from small pike. Once it was clear the reeds were not going to be very productive I worked the rice on the NW shore of Channel Inn bay. I don't think I even had a hit in the Rice.

It was now after 7PM and I needed to make a move. I decided on hitting the NW corner of the lake where there is a mix of reeds, rice, and some pads. It wasn't that bad of a choice as I had my best action of the night getting 8 or 9 bass and a couple of pike with several more strikes. I pretty much went with the Horny Toad and Bully Wa to get these fish.

In 5 hours of fishing I got 15 bass and 4 pike, but I had at least 10 more strikes from what I am sure where little pike.
Bass in order caught: 13,15.25,13.5,13,12.5,12,12.75,13.75,13,13.25,15,14,13.75,12,11.5

Story: I almost forgot. I had a little bass take the Bully Wa frog. Before I set the hook sometimes I feel to make sure the fish is there and I was doing that when this 11 inch bass shoots about 3 feet into the air and spits the Bully Wa up another couple of feet. It was quite remarkable.