Lake of the pines 4/5/08

I was able to get out on the kayak for about an hour today. Headed to the rockpile where I scratched up a 15"er, probably a male, in shallow water. Had another tap when casting over a point. Decided to stand up and paddle in order to really see what was going on in the shallows. Sure enough, the males are there, and I saw a number of females hanging over weeds, just about ready to get on the beds. Fired off a wacky Senko to a couple of fish I thought would go 4 lbs or so. I guess I need to calibrate my eyeballs, as it was 22" long, minimum, and in the 6 lb range, as it wasn't all that fat.










Gratuitous parental pride picture



Regards,
Scott


P.S. I had a bit of a high coolant temp issue, and while I was driving around the "block" to verify that adding a couple quarts really did the trick, I saw a beautiful new Prowler Trident parked in a driveway. Doubled back and met Richard, a new addition here, that goes by the nickname of "goeasy"   Welcome goeasy !! Hope to see you out on the lake soon.

Nice report, Scott, but your feet are kinda freaky!  I know - I'm way beyond being one to talk...   

Way to get James started on the road to the madness.   

Nice fish, especially that little red one.

nice fish. is the t160 pretty much unrigged?

Nice bass Scott. I wish I had a bass lake in my neighborhood. 

Scott

strong work Thornley!
 Havnt made the sightfishing attempt yet in the T160 but ill let you know if I swim.  I would have to believe that at this point, a standing hookset would be setting myself up for a humbling photo op.
For some reason I had the feeling you werent much of a senko guy  ?
congrats again on the big victim

I did home improvement tasks until about 5:30 this afternoon, then decided to do a little exploration. I hit the rock pile with mask and snorkel There weren't really all that many fish, maybe a dozen or so. But I did see some absolute H-A-W-G-S. Including a few that literally were staring me in the face. They're not quite as curious as smallies, but a couple of them seemed to come up at me out of nowhere, and would circle me, then fade away out of sight. There were a couple cleared beds, including one on top of a rock, where I swear that fish had moved gravel into place.

John,
The T160 has thigh straps that I added, and came with scupper stops on leashes. Everything else is stock. I'm really spending some time with the boat before doing any drilling. I am pretty sure that I'm going to chuck the stock seat for a plain OK back band and use RAM tubes behind the seat. I'm not yet sure what to do for the fishfinder/GPS combo. RAM mount, perhaps?


Hydrospider,
I sighted the fish while standing, but cast and fought the fish while on my knees. I am not ready to fight while standing in this boat. I also like Senkos just fine, but they're so effective here that I try not to use them too much, instead I like to work on other techniques that may serve me well on other waters. I do keep one rod rigged full time for my wife's use, set up with a wacky 6" Senko (big bait for big fish ). Since I thought that she'd like to maybe wet a line, I took it with me yesterday. I did catch the smaller fish on another cool water favorite of mine - a jerkbait. In this case, a Lucky Craft Pointer.

Regards,
Scott

Nice bass Scott maybe she will be a late spawner. You get that in the cold water lakes. Or maybe
not enough forage there yet. I have seen a 22 inch bass between 7 and 9 lbs.