Bohemian Waxwing.

A month?

Wow, has it really been that long since my last post?

Looking back over last years posts, I'm seeing a pattern develop. As gung-ho as I am to get out there, the reality is that my body is gets to beat up when I string together to many days.

I have been out. However, I'd be lying if I said it was for anything more than stocking up the freezer with perch. I can live on a steady diet of perch, but I'm not so excited about inflicting that upon you folks. A couple of outing reports of that nature per year is probably more than enough.

I honestly can't say I'm to upset about not getting in the water much lately. Other matters have taken over top priorities as of late. My house on the lake is FINISHED! The builder had originally hoped to be finished late spring. As things go, that did not happen. I had hoped to be up there to take advantage of the spring Laker' action. Instead, its ready for the opening of hunting season. All good.

The end result very much matches what I was envisioning from the outset. I'll have some pictures here eventually. Just have to get the deck installed. I had to hold off on that till the final bill arrived as things were looking tight. All is good so the deck goes in now.  A little slower to come to fruition than one would hope, but its always a good thing when a plan comes together.

Now onto the fun part. It will be nice to get the veggies in next spring. I have a lot of brush to be cleared. You can well imagine how much I am enjoying that. A very painful enterprise. Good news is it comes down a lot faster than I would have suspected. Machetes are exceedingly efficient. In a couple of hours I have cleared a noticeable swath along the shoreline.

May not be another fishing post this season I am afraid. Maybe something on hunting, maybe on the houses progress. I have a crap load of footage from the season I should probably string together at some point.

Dropped

So, a couple of days ago, the air temp was 29. Currently...........a balmy 12. Didn't even think of going out. Would have been hard work that would unlikely get rewarded. Done that dance enough in the past.

A couple of days.

I probably shouldn't have said anything. The next day the temperature was lower by 5 or 6 degrees. Guess what the fish did? Or didn't do as the case maybe. That was the 7th. I took the 8th off to check out the property as the builder is just finishing up. On the 9th, the temps shot up. And guess what the fish did? Simple formula really. One of those cases where had I landed all the fish I had shots at it would have been stellar. I missed a bunch of big topwater strikes that really would have been nice to net. Still landed a half dozen or so bass ( and a few perch ), though only one was noteworthy. Still, better than nothing. At least the fish were active.

Stable.

When the weather wants to be nice and stable and seasonable norms, things are so much better. Today was the fourth day ( or so ) of a nice stable weather pattern. Yesterday I noted an improvement due to the stable weather, and today was even better.

Fish were just as happy to pound a surface offering as the were something drowned. At one point in a rather short period of time, I had two large bass smash my popper repeatedly, but the hook ups were for not. I was perplexed. After the initial strikes, I worked over the water and managed to get both fish to react. Still missed the hookset.  Sometime later I notice it wasn't popping right. When checking the fly, I found the leader was wrapped around the bend of the hook.............and my hooksets were just never going to work like that. Once I rectified that little bit of stupidity things worked much better.

Not Just Me.

Its not just me.

The bass have been less than playful as of late. The weather has been yoyo'ing up and down, and the fish have noticed.

Now, I had been second guessing myself a bit on recent outings. I was doing all the things that I thought should equate to success, but they weren't panning out. Why? Me? The fish? The weather? The planetary alignment? A butterfly flapping its wings in China???

I had to meet with my builder at the house recently. He is also a fly guy. I hate to say it, but I was a little happy when he started telling me that he was having to work for his fish lately. Hey! So, it's not me. He, like I, are both suspecting the weather. Makes the most sense.

We have had three days of high temps, with fairly stable weather, so I was hopeful for this evening. I wasn't disappointed. Things were definitely more active tonight. I hooked into a good number of bass, and some sizable ones. Had I landed them all, it would have been a stellar outing. As luck would have it, few fish actually made it to hand. Still, much better than things were.

Most of the fish were caught deep, on a muddler variant. Some fish were hooked up top, but the numbers were nowhere as good as subsurface.

Esten

So, I finally made it out.

Recently, its either been the weather, or my banged up body, but I have only rarely made it out. When I did, the results weren't up to par. Things weren't a whole lot better tonight, but better it was.

It was pretty windy, much more than I prefer. Usually I would have passed on such a night. However, it had been a while and I was itching to play. I caught enough fish so that it was fairly steady action. None were great, and only one landed would qualify as 'good'. Most of the fish were caught on a popper, though the larger fish were all hooked subsurface.