Long Morning On the Lake That Almost Wasn't

5:15-6:00AM GOMH NE
6:10AM-1:15PM Slop Slip at the Lake Place
Conditions: 67-78degrees, Cloudiness was all over the map, Windy at the GOMH out of the SW,  Not so windy to calm in our bay

I arrived at the Grumpy Old Man Hole at about 5AM too dark equals too many mosquito's, so I listed to music until 5:15.  I started on the NE side.  The bullheads didn't want topwater this morning.  I got my first fish on the Jerk Shad,

14.25" Jerk Shad

I also got two small toothy's on the NE side.  I switched to the SW side and the wind really came up out of the SW.  I didn't catch anything.  With the way it was blowing I thought about just packing it in for the morning, but I decided to go and see what conditions were like at the Lake Place.  I could hardly tell there was any wind.  After fishing off the dock for 15 minutes and getting nothing I put the Slop Slip in the water.  I started off going West for some reason.  I caught this pike in front of the pontoon a couple of docks down on the River2Sea Rover.

  First ever fish on that lure.  Next I missed a couple of good hits in shallow on the next dock.  First miss was a fish that blasted Mad Maxx in extremely sparse rice and the second fish hit in the rice by the front of the Pontoon.  I did catch this fish from under the front side of the dock.

15.25" Sweet Revenge Mad Maxx

 I got a small pike out from under the last dock on the point on Maxx.  Interesting rice bed on the other side of the point.  I got a little pike out front of it on the way back on the Grass Pig.  I got a 13.5" bass off of the dock in-between the two I had already got fish off of and got a small pike out front of the 1st dock I got a fish off of both on the Grass Pig.

It was now totally calm out.  I started throwing the LiveTarget Bluegill Wake Bait and got this pike.

15.75" LiveTarget Wake Bait

I went back to throwing a frog and got bit off by what I'm pretty sure was a dogfish.  It was a dark colored fish of some size, it came out of the water as it hit, and broke my line when I set the hook.

I put on a "Bluegrass" color Mad Maxx.  I worked my way to where I got into some fish last night.  I was just about to switch off Bluegrass when a pike stole it.  I put on a Sweet Revenge Mad Max Frog and had a pike bite that off about 5 minutes later.  I tied on a Big Sexy Mad Maxx.  I worked my way out of the rice and got this bass on the LiveTarget Wakebait in the area of my waypoint.

16.5" LiveTarget Bluegill Wakebait

  I went back into the rice and got 15" bass on Big Sexy.  I then worked my way out of the rice and had the Wakebait get bit off.

Fortunately after about 15 seconds it floated back to the surface.  Needless to say, from now on I'm using a wire leader.  I found one in a box and put it on.  I then had 17-18" class bass hit the Bluegill but it got off.  I caught a couple of pike (22.5, 21) as I worked my way around the reed bed.  There were also a couple hits that didn't hook up and a couple of small pike follows.  I got a 13.5 bass on the Big Sexy.  That was my last fish of the day.

Not the most action in the world, but the weather was perfect and enough fish to keep me interested.