June Bassin on a Little CO Res.

[Paul Roberts]

June 9th, 2010

I think June is my favorite month for bass fishing. There is SO much going on, to look for and potentially capitalize on: spawn is over, bass are hungry and aggressive (water temps are rising into metabolic peak), plant and insect life explodes with life of all types around my ponds. Should I hunt for bluegill colonies and the bass that key on them? Hit the developing slop areas for bass on bluegills on the damselfly emergence? Target developing weed beds away from shore as bass stack up on them? It's all good. Today I opted for the latter developing milfoil in a favorite res for this scenario. But, you can't plan your fishing a year in advance, as the calendar is a pretty rough tracker of things in nature, and I found the milfoil much more expansive than I'd hoped.

It's a small res (~25acres) and I planned to hit it on a front day (by weather watching), but the front actually blew in last night and by morning it was clearing, until afternoon thundershowers rolled in. Lightning even chased me off for about 20 minutes. The torrential downpours didn't phase me.

It's been a cool dark spring, but this week finally felt summery with air temps in the 80s over the last few days. With the front, today's temps were in the 70s. Water temps looked like this:

77F ST

76F @ 8ft

68F @ 12ft

You can see summer heat has penetrated, and the entire water column of this shallow res. was fair game.

Milfoil is the predominant plant and it was already pretty developed. Gone already were the isolated clumps and strands that attract concentrations of bass. Today I found large gardens to ply bass would be almost everywhere. Normally this date would have less weed development, but conditions over the winter allowed good milfoil survival in this particular res (the small res a stone's throw away is still almost milfoil-less).

The larger bass would most likely to be in around the larger beds, so I kicked around while it was sunny, looking for them. With the dark conditions I fished near surface baits, asking the fish to come up. I used a tandem SB (bulged), a super-shallow crank, a waker, a 1/4oz swim jig, and a 3/8oz "vege" jig-n-pork for deeper probing.

I took maybe 25 or so with the majority being small -11 to 14, with a few bigger. Three broke 17inches two of those on the SB and one on a jig.

Bass fry. The only other species these could be at this time would be yellow perch, but they should be bigger now. These fry were in pond center well away from the shoreline where they were hatched. Ralph Manns mentioned that bass fry commonly leave the shallows in many waters to graze the burgeoning zooplankton crops away from shore. He wonders if this behavior is one of the behaviors that sets up the away-from-shore movements many, if not most, bass make throughout their lives, even in non-shad based fisheries.

SwimJig.

Bulged SB

Super shallow crank. This took fish well, but mostly smaller fish.

One bass spit up this bluegill as it leapt at boatside. All bass jumped today it's a water temperature thing pure exuberance.

I modified a #11 jointed Rap for my waker. Heat the lip with a lighter and bend it down, re-tune, and it wakes with a snaky wiggle. Bend it up and you get a super shallow runner about a foot or so.

This was the largest fish of the day a porker.

I shot a video clip of landing a bass in a tube, via the knee clamp. But I found I need two hands on heavier bass to get them in proper position. The resulting vid didn't make it look quite so easy lol.

[DRhodes]

Great write up and great pics. Looks like you had a blast.

[hookset on 3]

Great write up and great pics. Looks like you had a blast.

Paul, I bet you day dreamed that bass bonanza many times over those long CO winters.

Cool stuff1

[Big-O]

Very nice Paul...Very nice

Big O

www.ragetail.com

[tritz18]

Great post as always 

[Dwight Hottle]

Terrific post & pictures as always, Paul.

[bassman31783]

Awesome post & pics.  Great day.

[big1ford]

WISH I COULD GET INTO SOME NICE BASS LIKE . JUST GOT MY WIFE INTO FISHING SHE LOVES IT. WONTS TO GO ALL THE TIME EVEN IF I HAVE WORK AROUNG THE HOUSE THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. WE SOLD OUR BOWE RIDER AND PICKED UP A 1988 ASTROGLASS 17.8 WITH 150 BLACK MAX XR4 ON IT. HAVE A GOOD DAY.

[J Francho]

Yep, gotta love summertime patterns.  Nice work, Paul!

[brushhoggin]

beautiful fish. good to see u catchin em with a variety of lures too.

[Mrs. Matstone]

Great report and pics as usual. Thanks for sharing.

[JLBomber]

Good work. Many different lures got wet... and bit. Unless you pulled that sly pro trick

[Paul Roberts]

Thanks All.

Good work. Many different lures got wet... and bit. Unless you pulled that sly pro trick

I carry a lot of lures, picked for the particular water I'm fishing, and I use them as conditions call. As it clouded I used the swimjig and shallow crank. When the sky darkened and surface churned I burned the SB. When the surface calmed again, still under deep clouds, I pulled out the waker. Could've used other things, but that's what I chose. I fished the same water yesterday with a bud under a variety of conditions, from brilliant sun with calm surface to dark sky and churning surface. We did damage with a finesse worm, jig-n-pork, a SB burned or yo-yo'd, and a spook. My buddy Josh used a slow buzzer during the tempests and a small SB when surface mellowed. Under the bright sky and calm surface though, we were both relegated to the finesse stuff. We didn't tally, but certainly caught 50 or more between us.

My best guess is that lures look stupid much of the time -under high vis conditions. Darken the sky, ripple the surface, and you can get away with lots of things. Now factor in season, depth, forage, clarity, cover types, current, etc... and tackle boxes and rod racks can grow to ridiculous proportions. Josh and I joked about that too: When it gets dark and stormy start switching lures so you can tell your wife you really do use all those lures, and catch fish on em too.