Friday I went to an impoundment to fish for LMB. The water is rather shallow, weedy and has about 3 feet visibility. I was fishing in the middle of a clear day with no signs of bass activity on the surface.
I decided to use 2 flies, both large about 5 feet below a corkie strike indicator. Bottom fly was either a olive marabou leech or a black boa leech. Top was a white wooly bugger.
I would make maybe 7 or 8 casts in an area and get nothing and then the indicator would barely twitch and I would set the hook and have on a LMB. That is all I would get is just a small twitch in the line. During the session on 4 occassions after I hooked the first fish, I ended up with 2 fish on at the same time. I tried slow retrieve, fast retrieve, without and with the indicator and the only way I could get a take was with a slow retrieve.
I concluded that the reservoir must have a lot of fish in it, that they were not very hungry and to get a hit I had to have the fly pass real close to the fish and then after that fish was hooked another would get excited and take the 2d fly even though not very hungry.
Fish were not very large, 10 -14 inches, but on a 3 wt it was fun.
Tim,
It doesn’t sound like the LMB’s were feeding. By fishing slow you just provoked them into striking. Might have hit some of them in the nose!
Thanks for the report!
Doug
Many times I’vd observed LMB of all sizes slide up behind my fly and inhale it, hold it for a second or two and spit it out. If I had not see the fish, I would have never known that I had a hit. LMB along with large bream can be every bit as subtle in their take as trout at times.
Sometimes LMB will hit like a freight train, but most of the bass I’ve caught have hit very subtly. In clear summer water, I’ve watched them sneak up behind a lure and gently mouth it and then spit it out. They’re aggressive fish and usually ambush feeders, but they can be as finiky as any trout and sometimes harder to catch.
I had a brown trout hit a hopper this weekend and he had so much momentum when he hit that the fish came completely out of the water when he hit the hopper fly. This trout measured just shy of 16". It’s rare around here in Kentucky to see a bass hit something with that much force.
Thaks for your comments. As mentioned by Jim & Jeff I too have watched LMB and gills mouth a bait and spit it out without hardly moving the line, but for some reason this slipped my mind.
I hope to get back up there in a couple of days and give them another whirl.
Tim,
When you go back, Don’t let your guard down and also don’t expect a repeat of what you experienced that day…Bass especially the Large mouth’s, Rarely stay in the same feeding pattern for very long…I’ve experienced some pretty weird stuff or atleast at the time it sure seamed weird to me…While fishing a local lake with water as you discribed…
I’ve been sorely disappointed with LMB fishing thus far this year. Caught a few early and that has been it. Glad to hear that someone is doing alright!
We had a minor front come through over the weekend so I did honey-dos instead of going fishing. Went back to the reservoir this morning and beat the water to a froth for three hours. Got two little hits and caught 2 little fish. Maybe the front had something to do with it. Didn’t really matter as I had the whole lake to myself and really enjoyed the nice day. Here is a picture of the reservoir. That is Mount Shasta in the background.
Tim,
I’m glad you had a good day! Do you know what stage that reservoir is in? 50% full?
Also the weather came through last night and all day. I don’t ever remember a August being this cool!
Doug
Doug: I would guess about half full. This place had a lot of bass & yellow perch in it a few years back and then the dry years equaled a dry reservoir. I think that the local bass boys replanted it last year with bass from Gerber but didn’t put in any other species. Also it appears that somebody has secured the water rights with the idea of not allowing the reservoir to be drained as the drain apparatus has been disconnected. I believe this will be one good spot next year.
Tim
I don’t know what the common wisdom on LMB is but here is what I’ve found out from the last 3 yrs experience. For small LMB the take is often explosive with the fight likewise. With the larger LMB in the 16-20" range ( very few for me) the take is more like a snag that I just set the hook on and no serious jumping like the younger siblings? Can anyone with tournament experience chime in their experience??? BTW, I did initiate my newest 8wt rod with a nice 15" who’s take was subtle and uninspired.
Racine
