Halloween fishing

I joined John Fasnacht and Mike Niles, a couple of tournament fishing friends, at a small private lake for this trip.  I was excited to know that there were some lunkers lurking in this place, from the stories  John had told me when we were launching at sunrise.

The lake is only about 7.5 feet deep at its deepest point near the small dam, so I started how I normally do, tossing spinnerbaits and a chatterbait up near the banks.  I didn't have any luck for about the first 45 minutes, when I switched to old reliable, the shakey head.  I was over the deeper water near the dam, and there was a decent dropoff at the edge of some riprap.  I started getting a few bites and was able to land my first fish there near the dam.  I kept working my way counter clockwise around the lake, and went on to catch 7 more bass and a crappie, my first from the yak, that day.  I found that the fish were hitting mostly on the steeper banks on the north and west sides of the lake.  Woody cover or rocky cover didn't seem to matter that much; they just liked a steeper bank.

The big highlight of the day was Mike catching a 6.5 lb TOAD that measured out at 23" on the hawg trough.  Looks like a trophy in my book!

It was getting colder and windy, and Georgia was playing Florida that day.  I thanked John and Mike for the invite as they left around 11:30, and I stayed and fished until about 1pm.  I wanted to be able to match Mike's feat, but 13.75" was the biggest bass I was able to coax into taking my lure.  After seeing how the game turned out, I figured I should've just kept fishing.