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| Another Pig Redear on a Five Weight. Weighed just a hair under 2lbs. |
Even with wacky weather this past week, Chul and I hit MVL once more before he sets off to the Tahoe area to fish some "real" trout waters. With rain, overcast and cold weather we were hoping the bass would not be lock jawed. Theoretically the bass should be still in the three stages of the spawn but given the early warm weather this spring I was not sure if they spawned early and are now finished. Speaking with the boys at the marina, the bass we still spawning and the bluegill were just beginning.
I gave Chul the Sage DS2 590-2 I built him and he fished that first with a gurgler. Armed with my RPLX 10 wt, I started with a monster rattle popper Webb gave me. The Charleton Reel, I was using was loaded with an ancient shooting head. So ancient that the running line wasnt even integrated into the head. This set up sucks. Do they even still make set ups like this? I certainly hope not. I bored rather quickly with the 10 wt, as I usually do when I fish big rods. So I switched to my recently repaired T&T 5wt. Ive said it before and I will say it again, I absolutely love this rod. Going from the 10 to 5 wt was like night and day. I felt like I was casting air. After seeing some bass in the shallows Chul switched to his 6 wt and sinking line.
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| The Days Arsenal. |
Chul continued to get short struck until he finally landed a trout sized juvenile bass on an olive clouser. I had snagged my Gourmet Silverside Minnow fly on some submerged structure thereby losing that fly, so I switched to a lightly dumbell eyed purple wooley bugger. Within a few cast I got hit hard. I yanked him to the surface and it was another monster Redear. Unlike the last time I caught one here, this one had a prominent red mark behind this gill spot. This one measured just barely under 2lbs. Although I come to MVL for the bass, I will never turn down monster panfish. Both of us would missed a few more hits here in this location until we decided we should move. The boat was crapping out on us so we had to go back to the marina and get a new one. Very disappointing.
From then on, the rest of the day it shut down. Literally. Hundreds of casts and various flies produced not even a single strike. The sun was starting to poke out of the clouds by then. For whatever reason the fish became lock jawed and would follow the fly for a bit but refused to honor us with a take. We did find two other locations that held monster bass. I would guess at least 10 lbs maybe bigger. Its always hard to judge fish size when they are in the water, they always look smaller than they actually are. Towards the end of the day we did find a bluegill nest with at least 10 huge bluegills in the immediate area. They were fighting, mating, spawning, or protecting but none wanted to open their damn mouth. I have no ideal what happened to the water and why it just shut down. Although the fishing sucked after having to come back to the marina, we at least managed not to get skunked. We found 2 new locations where some of the monster bass are located. Chul got to fish his new rod and I managed to fish two of my favorite rods that are now finally back in my arsenal (Sage RPLXi 890-3 and my T&T Helix 5wt S).
Green water, high winds and cold weather coming this weekend made fishing today rather difficult. Encouraged by seeing a nest of huge panfish on our last outing, we went back to the same location to entice some of those fish to take our flies. That was not going to happen this time. Although it was tough to see through the water, it appeared that fish had gone. We fished several hours and for me I didnt even get some much as a bump all day despite throwing just about every fly I had and using every type of retrieve. Chul on the other hand at least caught, although small, a largemouth and a respectable bluegill. when he caught the bluegill he had a huge LMB follow. We hoped the it would charge and take the panfish. Chul even dangled the fish just above it to see if the bass would take. But it did not, it just stood underneath it staring. Hard day for the both of us but at least Chul got to feel fish. Rough.
Fridays venture to MVL with Calhouns 850 grain head and Sage Xi3 10 weight was a bust. With this strange weather pattern, it actually felt like summer on Friday. Rain is expected on Tuesday with cold weather to follow. Perhaps it was this that caused the fish to be tight lipped. At any rate it sucked. Casting that heavy rig was not easy but I didnt expect it to be, I need some more practice with it. Timing is critical. Bill mentioned that you needed to really be fast on the backcast to generate enough power to throw that line.