This weekend was much like most of my spring days on Lake Arthur usually go. It was full of highs and lows. With the water temperature and air temperature both dropping I new that the conditions would make fishing difficult. None the less, I would be fishing and there is nothing I would rather do.
Dad and I arrived at the lake around 8:00 am. The air temperature was at 24 degrees with sunny skies. We fished Shannon’s Cove right away figuring to fish high percentage areas until the water warmed up a little. When we arrived in the cove I notice the water temperature was down to 45 degrees! It had dropped a good 10 degrees since the last time I was in the cove. Needless to say our day was less than successful. When managed to catch 4 largemouth bass dragging soft plastics very slowly on a rocky bank. At the end of the day I decided to hit a spot that over the years has produced hybrid striped bass for me. I pulled out a rapala x-shad and made my first cast. When I got the lure down to about 6 feet I paused for about 5 second and bam. The next thing I knew my drag was being run, since I was only using 8lb test. It was a great end to the tough day.
Sunday morning I was only going to be able to fish from about 8:00am to 1:00pm. I did not have high expections because of the day before, but I planned on trying some different areas with some different lures. I started by dragging some soft plastics. It didn’t take long for me to start catching some small bass. During the morning I had caught 4 dink largemouth and lost 3 more dragging a texas rig around. This alone was better than I expected, but I wasn’t done. I headed into Porters cove throwing a lipless crankbait searching for the right water. Between 11:00 and 11:10 I caught 3 bass in a small area, but they were all around the 13 inch mark. At 11:10 it started to rain at the lake and my bite quite completely. It didn’t matter what I though or where I was throwing it. If I had it to do over again I would have tried to fish 8-10 feet of water once the rain started.
I am really looking forward to fishing this weekend. With water temps rising the bite should improve. The KBBC tournament at Lake Arthur should be one of the best weigh-ins ever.