Cloudy with a Chance of Senkos- May 19th

On perfect weather day for fishing Brad and I headed to Claytor lake. We caugtht some bass early on main lake pockets with mini buzz baits and topwater zara puppies. At about 11 am our bite died despite it remaining overcast and cool. About 1pm we started catching fish pretty good on senkos. 4 inch smoke worked best. We were catching mostly spotted bass. We ended up with a dozen bass each in out time on claytor. Althoug we landed nothing big we got a lot of bites, lost many fish, caught several and Brad even managed to land a wiley hybrid bass off of some marked offshore fish structure.                                        

Avery's First Solo Catch- May 21st PM

Avery, Brad, and I headed to Lowell,WV for some afternoon pond fishing. Brad and I caught a dozen or so bass on Senkos. I also caught one a mini buzzer and Brad caught a bonus fish on a chugger bait. I then broke out the worms and bobber and let Avery have a go at it. I threw it out, tried setting the hook for her six differnt times each a miss. Finally I handed her pole back to her and went to the truck to get my pole. Before I got back she had thrown it out, hook a blugill and reeled it in. Her very first solo fish. And just to validate her fish she then did it 3 more times all with out any help, except taking the this off the hook. Avery was excited and I was proud.

#^&*%%$@#*% Bluestone Lake - May 21st

I don't know what's going on. I fished for 5 hours today before I got my first bite. That shouldn't happen, or at least not as often as it has been happening on my home lake lately. Things have been tough on Bluestone all spring and really last fall too. I have caught some nice fish but this time of the year is usually good numbers of bass mixed  with some size. It's not like I have never caught fish on this lake before or that my fishing buddies are wearing them out. Could be the effect of reduced shad populations, maybe the crappie fishermen have taken so many crappie that they have cut down on the crappie minnow forage, maybe it's the tournament pressure (there are 43 scheduled on Bluestone this summer), or maybe it's just my poor luck. Greg caught 6 fish, nothing more than a pound all on a micro buzz, and I  caught 1 bass and 1 crappie on a LC CB flat.

Fluke Revival - May 17th

For the longest time now one of my prmary springtime weapons on the war on bass has been ineffective. The fluke bite has been less than non-existent.  Today however the Bluestone fluke bite came back a little. With qickly rising and muddy water bass around boat docks were actually hitting flukes. Of the 11 fish I caught about have came off flukes and the rest cranks. I also lost at least 6 more. Had a caught everythng I hooked I would have had a great day. Dad caught one smallie on a day were rainsuits just weren't enough. It rained at least an inch in the 6 hours we were there. Despite being wet and not catching a huge amount of fish we still had a good time.

Finesse Buzzbaits & Claytor Lake - May 13th

 In a who woulda guessed type of day Greg & I ended up with 24 bass in 10 or so hours of fishing on Claytor lake. We got there at 7am and tried everything before we figured out the only thing those fish would hit at all was a buzzbait and preferable a small one. It didn't matter that this was was out and bright or that the fish were in 20 foot of water or that the water was gin clear. That was what they wanted and nothing else would do. Of the 24 bass 21 were caught on buzzbaits and Greg caught 16 of them. Most of the fish we caught were smallish spots however Greg did catch one really nice LMB and lost 3 other between 2 and 4 pounds.Greg also had a 5 pounder chase a hooked spot all the way to the boat trying to get the buzzbait that the spot had just eaten out for a good 2 minutes, something I've never seen before. The weather was nice and the trip was pretty fun. Our only downfall is that we didn't figure it out until about 1pm and we caught most of fish after that. Had we put the puzzle together sooner we would have or at least could have caught many more fish. Never underestimate the abiltiy to adapt.  Realistically had I not been fishing with Greg I wouldn't have figured it out becase I throw buzzbaits only rarely.

As Tough as it Gets - May 12th

I caught ZERO fish from 6:30 till 12 on Bluestone today. Greg caught 4 including a couple pretty nice ones one a buzz bait, pics below. I tried everything shakey head, cranks, spinners, flukes, chuggers, topwater walk the dog, senkos, wake baits, and nothing. I did get one bite that I missed on a buzzbait. I don't know what's going on but I though fishing in May was supposed to be easy or at the very least easier than this. We really struggled. The water was 70 degrees and the air was nearly the same temp with some cloud cover, an ideal set of conditions for spring fishing.

Adventures on the Brier - May 8th

Brad & I took his boat and headed out to the Talcott launch ramp. It was 70 degrees when we hit the water, but  wind blew and the temps fell all day. We fished from 7 till 11 from Taloctt to just above Bacon's Falls and managed to catch a dozen fish each. Mostly redeyes with some smallies mixed in. I got on a streak below the cliffs early with a Zara Puppy catching two nice bass on back to back cast and missing another. Then once the rain stopped and the sun came out the topwater bite died. With high skies fishing got tougher. I picked a couple of strays up the pearpurple rainbow pointer and Brad continued to catch some fish on his "green bastard" in line spinner. We didn't catch anything about a pound or so but we did catch some fish and have a good time.

TGIF Shanklin's Ferry - May 7th

  With Brad's new Tracker boat in tow we headed off to Shanklin's Ferry for some bass fishing on this sunny Friday. The water was ultra clear, low and fish were a little spooky. One ledge we had been successful on only a month earlier was now only barely covered by water. We did pick up several redeyes and smaller bass.  I caught my fish on  a little bit of everything, spinners, spooks, g-tails, crankbaits, and I even hooked one on a senko. Brad's boat did great it planed out well, ran shallow, and has incredible balance for an aluminum boat. Brad ended up with 14 or so I caught 15 the biggest being 3.7lbs. that I caught off of Dad's borrowed LC Japan Craw crankbait. Borrowed lures always do the best. This fish was a very pretty marked smallie. He was long bodied and put up a great fight in the current. It took me over 5 minutes to get this fish landed in the heavy current.

Another Slow Morning - May 4th

 Dad and I fished from 6:30 till 11am. Fishing was slow. Dad caught 1 spotted bass. I caught 1 redeye, 1 crappie and 5 bass all of the smaller variety and all on LC crankbaits. The sun was bright, hot and drove us home a little earlier than normal.

Prime Spawn and We Didn't Get the Memo - May 3rd

Greg & I fished the "Bluehole" from 10am till 4pm along with Bert and Ernie (Mounts & Ball). Fishing was tough. People were saying the last weekends tounament was won by bed fishing. Mounts saw a fish on the bed. And who know the fish were not hitting good. I caught 6 all on a LC crankbaits. Greg caught 5 or so on Senko's and shakey heads. It does seem that at least half or more of the fish may be spawning and with 70 degree water temps that may be the case. We didn't fish unitl 10 because of some passing storms.