Starting to see a pattern and I don't like it! Was able to take a bass fishing rookie out on the water today and go over some techniques and discuss bass fishing in general, that was awesome! Beats doing it via email! Showing up to the start of an algae bloom and only seeing 2 fish cruising the shallows that quickly disappeared stunk! Would have been nice to stick a couple today. Noticed a lot of fish suspended in about 6 feet of water? Couldn't all be trout...

Fished c-rigs, jerks, jigs, jika's, spinnerbaits, cranks, t-rigs at everything and out to 15 feet, nada. Not a loss though as the time was well spent helping a nice young man launch his foray into bass fishing!! Enjoy the books and good luck down south!!

Rough out today, lots of wind which made boat control and line control difficult at times. Made 2 laps around this lake hitting various types of emergent and submergent cover. The fish seem to be staging on transition banks right now as the water is still only 44-45*. I caught one and lost one on a carolina rig in 12' of water where the bottom breaks from shallower to deeper water. Also tried lipless cranks, suspending jerkbaits, Jika rigged plastics and jigs from depths of 6 inches to 10 feet with no takers.

The wind started kicking up even more so I bailed out. I would say this weekend should start producing the greenies!

Used the newspaper trick so the negative nancies can go ahead and stop before they start :)

However that meant I didn't want to take the time to weigh the fish too so I would guess 3.2-3.5lbs.

Tight lines!

Went to Clear Lake with the wife and the hound dog, this lake looks very bassy. Lots of vertical pilings and weed/pad lines. Fished vertical jigs and plastics flipping/pitching pilings out to 16'-nada. Threw spinnergaits along piling lines and pad lines, had quite a few bites. Nailed a nice chunky 3lb along a pad line. The bass hit the spinnerbait right when it hit the water and took off deep, nice fish. Had numbers off perch hit my lure at the boat. It was a sunny day with many water skiers. My wife read and caught sun! Still fun

Short report, Saturday afternoon, chores done and an hour or two to myself so I head for Clear Lake. The drive there turned out to be a bit of a challenge. There was a major accident and highway 9 was closed at the Skagit River Bridge. After a slight detour back through Burlington and Mount Vernon my first cast was made. I was fishing the boat ramp area, actually quite a few other people and I were fishing the boat ramp area. I started out with a slip float, small egg sinker and a worm. I set the depth at around 4 feet hoping for one of the recent triploid plants. Almost immediately it was bobber down, but not the large trout kind of bobber down. A short fight later I released a small bass. This drill continued for a few more fish, a mix of baby bass and perch. In recognizing a trend I decided to change gear and switched to floating dough bait while still looking for a larger trout type fish.

I only got to test my method for another hour because I received a text that said I had to head home and make the guacamole for dinner. While stalling and just before I was actually going to reel in and call it for the day my line goes tight. No real hit, just the belly of the line slowly went away. I pick the rod out of the holder and hold it for a minute but still no fishy feeling weight on the end of my line. I decide that there are avocados to chop up and that I needed to get going so I just start reeling in and wham-o I have something heavy on. The fight was very brief and I ultimately broke the line but at least I had a nice fish on.

Lesson learned, I was fishing about 3’ of 2# leader and the knot didn’t pull correctly when I tied the treble hook on. I should have retied but figured what the heck, it will hold. I guess that I was proven wrong, so it was fish 1 and Rseas 0. I enjoyed my few hours of fishing and had the opportunity to swap fishing stories with a Joe(?) a frequent visitor to WashingtonLakes.

Made a bonzai run up to Clear Lake after getting skunked on Stevens and actually saw the SUN! and it wasn't on the back of a milk carton either! No rain whatsoever in Skagit County, but there was sure wind, 10-15+... Water temp here was 48-49.5* and the water was very high and somewhat stained. I threw my favorites at my favorite spots for about 3 hours until my battery power couldn't handle the wind anymore. Managed one on a jig in 5' of water that weighed 4lbs. That fish came on a dock by the City Park. Got the skunk back out of the boat at least...