Little Creek Res., June 5th, 2010

Yesterday, I planned on waking up around 7am to head out for largemouth fishing on Lake Smith. Well, somehow I woke up on my own at 4:45am and said, "why would I not?," and hit the lake at 5:45 am. I actually ended up on Little Creek Reservoir (across the street!) instead because the lazy park officials didn't wake up as early as I did and Little Creek doesn't have a locked gate. I have caught nice fish in both but I have more confidence in catching larger fish in Smith. As soon as I hit the water, the waterfall from Smith into Little Creek was flowing hard with TONS of baitfish and larger fish feeding on the surface, so of course I try topwater for 30 minutes but nothing to show for my efforts. How could I not get bit!! I stopped immediately after I noticed a carp jump out of the water...great...I think it's breeding time for them in early summer.

Here we go...I started working the SW shoreline with a buzzbait for an early morning bite as the sun was just starting to break on the horizon. After 30 minutes, I threw to a pretty small, sandy beach and halfway to the yak, a largemouth boiled, but missed my buzzbait! Dang! As seen on TV, I casted right back to the same spot with a topwater popper (Rico) and twitched it a few times and WHAM! After a few really nice jumps, I landed a nice 2 pound largemouth. I can't help but think I could have caught more bass on topwater if I didn't waste my time with those baitfish and carp! I went 3 hours without a nibble using small crankbaits and topwater. I started getting discouraged so I slowed my presentation and went to the Zoom Trick Worm. I was working the brush lined shore in the canal in the NW corner when Clair calls and I take a break from fishing with the yak resting against the shoreline. After I got off the phone, my first cast was to a good looking laydown log which was 10 feet away and my plastic worm begins swimming into deep water! I took up the slack and set the hook! What a great fight...this guy did not want anything to do with my yak and I had to cradle him with my hand instead of lipping him...he was angry and fat! Nice chunky 3 pounder!

I worked the rest of the canal with the plastic worm and came across a huge laydown, a full sized tree in the sun...the other bass came from the hot sun too, which surprised me. I flipped the worm into the heavy cover (Fireline is crucial in this stuff) and I felt snagged on some branches underwater for an abnormally long time so I set the hook hard and a pretty bass leaped out of the water with my worm in his mouth! I fought him through some more cover and horsed him out of there. He looked huge coming out of the water in the middle of that fallen tree, but he wasn't as fat as the last one...2 1/2 pounder. I'll take it! These two fish came on large diameter wood, not the small, thick brush that they were relating to in Lake Smith recently. All of these fish seemed to be males that were left behind post-spawn to look after their fry. No evidence of the large females anywhere...I assume they are in the deep water suspending and recuperating from the spawn. By this time, it was about 11:30am. I am pretty tired and hot. It's 92 degrees and feels like 100. I fish a little more but packed it in and headed 1/2 mile back to the ramp, splashing water over me so I didn't die of heat stroke! Not a bad day on the water.

Ended the day with 3 healthy largemouth totaling 8 pounds. I'll take that any day. All bass were released so they can protect their fry so I can catch more next year!