Plum Orchard Lake Report (WV)

[RHuff]

Went Friday and brought my boat home from my father in law's garage. Loaded her up and left around 8am on Saturday morning to fish. Arrived and was launched on the water at around 9am. There were already 3 or 4 boats out (Plum is only about 200 acres). I have been keeping up with the COE website monitoring the water temps for all of the lakes listed on there for the last few weeks. Most of the lakes on there are in the 44-46 degree range. When I launched at Plum the water was at 49.6 at the ramp. I decided to head up to the Northern most end of the lake to see if the water on that end was warmer. It was nearly 51 degrees. With the sun out directly and no cloud cover I began with a jerkbait in hopes that the sun would bring some bass in shallow. No luck. I then went to a few main lake points to search for staging bass. I threw a red eye shad, crankbait, spinnerbait, and a jig. No fish yet. I then headed up a branch. Water hit 52 in the mouth. Threw the same 4 baits on the points nothing yet. Proceeded on up the branch. Bingo. Water hit 54 degrees and I caught a bass around one pound on a crankbait. As I went towards the end of the branch the water began to get colder back down towards 50 degrees where the creek runs in. I went back to the warmest water and threw that same crankbait along with several other baits with no bites. The one bass I caught felt like a wet noodle. 

In all it was a great day on the water. It's still too early. My best educated guess is that we are about two weeks out for the bite to begin on that lake. When the water hits about 55 on main lake and 60 at the branch it will be game on.

[Baitcaster]

When will the lily pads start to reach the top of the water on that lake?

[RHuff]

They usually hit the top of the water next month. Fishing is great flipping the holes. By May though they fill in almost to a solid canopy. Then it's time to punch or make long casts parallel.