Loch Lomond opener report

Got to the lake a tad late at 6:30  Threaded through the crowd at the launch ramp and got on the water at 7am.

Water is pretty decently stained, which is different from the usuall gin clear that I have seen the lake at.

Started trolling a brocken back minnow on the surface and a castmaster behind flashers down about 20-30 feet deep.

Water temp varied from 51 to 54 during the day, and no wind untill noon.  Perfect conditions except no love from the trout.  After a couple of hours I switched out the minnow lure with a nightcrawler in a harness behind flashers on the surface, still no love.

Decided that trout were for the birds and started throwing huge swimbaits for bass, and then senkos and dropshot for bass.  The lake is spilling, and I have never seen it as high as it is right now, lots of trees and cover and stuff.  Problem was that I waited untill the wind came up to start bassing and we all know how difficult it is to fish structure on a kayak in the wind.....

Ended the day at around 3pm.  Tallied no fish    I talked to some PBers that did well (they said) on bass, but the trout were conspicuously absent.  All the bass that I heard caught were "over 4 pounds" which means they were probably all over 3, but again this lake kicks out some big bass.

Weather permitting I will be back this weekend and I will do the right thing and fish for bass first.

Lake was epicly beautiful as usual.

Forgot my radio at home.  Sorry if I missed you but I was the only kayak fishing that I saw

MolBasser

Great report, mol.  Good luck on the weekend.

I'm wondering about this trolling for trout with lures. No shortage of people that claim
it works, but drifting or soaking powerbait seems to be more productive.  It is possible
that all this rain and mud is the culprit.

J

Hopefully a stretch of stable weather will help the trout bite.

I've caught lots of trout trolling lures, and plenty of them drifting powerbait/power worms and also night crawlers.

I can cover more territory actively trolling lures as apposed to drifting bait so that is why I choose to do that when I am not sure where the fish are.

I suspect that a lot of the trout became diner for the big bass in the lake.....

MolBasser

Thanks for the report Chris!

I personally haven't used powerbait and worms for a while now. I now lean more towards catching fish with lures (some of which, I modify myself) - It just seems more challenging. Drifting is fine when on a river but when I'm on a lake = trolling is my game

...just my two cents