Hot in the Heartland makes for hot fishing June 2022

 

It is June 2022, and it is hot, hot, hot.  Here in the midwest of the USA, the forecast is saying we are in the second week of a heatwave that may go for another two weeks.  It has been 99 degrees twice in the last two weeks, before the heat index!  It is about 114 degrees if you calculate that in.

What I have learned about this time of year is it is critical to know WHEN to fish during this time.  Your excursions should be early, early morning or at night.  If you cannot get up and be on the water by 6am, good chance you will miss the bite from the biggins'.

I caught this one in the morning around 7:00am.  This specific pond is notorious for producing tanks, but they are also very finicke.  You can get skunked at this pond very easily, LOL.  They wanted the Rage Craws in the black and blue color this morning.

I had planned on going to some strip pits that are about 45 minutes away with the Bass Raider, but I slept too late.  I also didn't set the alarm clock, so I guess I wasn't that serious, LOL.  But it was a good trade off catching the tank in the picture.  She was 4lbs on the scale.  I also had another one that I believe could have been even bigger...got it about 4 feet from the bank and my line snapped, LOL.  Definitely not the way I wanted to end that excursion today, but I will take it!

Stay Committed, Stay Driven!

Pelican Bass Raider June 2022 Fishing Exploits

I borrowed my buddy's Pelican Bass Raider pontoon fishing boat a while back and took the Lil' Shaka out with me to Saint Ellen Park which has a few nice strip pit ponds.  According to some of my sources, Saint Ellen Mine officially opened in 1903 and ran until 1960.  I remember in the 1980s there was a popular place that all the Slow Pitch Softball players played at right next to Saint Ellen Mine.  Today, houses stand where that those softball diamonds used to be.

We've been out to Saint Ellen Park twice now.  And, I am happy to say that we purchased our own Pelican Bass Raider Pontoon Boat from Academy Sports.  They only had the floor model left, and they knocked 10% off the price.  I consider that a win.  As I write this post, it will remind me when I go back and read it that we are now in the Post Pandemic World.  Supply chain issues, manufacturing issues from Asia...these are all real issues right now.  These specific boats are not being produced right now...they are literally out of stock, so to pick one up for a good price was a steal.  I could probably turn around and sell this boat on Ebay for double the price.  I see these Pelican Bass Raider Pontoon boats going for $2000.00 on Amazon right now.

Quick pick of the Pelican Bass Raider 10E Pontoon Boat that we now take on our fishing excursions.  We Love It!  I have some other places we will take this boat now.  It opens up a ton of possibilities for us to hit ponds and lakes we could not fish before from the bank.  

Saint Ellen Park Fishing

We have had success on wacky worms and flukes.  You definitely need to go weedless as their is a ton of vegetation types in the ponds.  The main lake is roughly 10 foot deep in spots (from what I can see from my fish finder).  There is definitely plenty of cover for the bass.  We caught some decent size bass that look very healthy in the main lake.

We will continue to fish with our new Pelican Bass Raider Pontoon Boat.  More fishing exploits to come.  Stay Committed, Stay Driven!

May 2022 Fish Have Been On Fire!

 

Hello fish family!  The one above was caught on a Zoom Fluke in the wee hours before work today. I caught two bass in roughly an hour.  This pond is so weeded up with grass right now that it is tough to get these fish to the bank.  No luck on the weighted wacky worm, and I ended up backlashing my reel on that rig so bad that I will have to re-string.  But, my old Synergy rod did the trick with the flukes.

This picture above was from Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri the weekend before.  The water was still cold, but we did locate the fish.  We got on them with wacky worms.  All we had was a paddle boat that we were using to go to different spots in the cove that we were staying in.  The next time I am at the Ozarks, I am going to bring a Pelican Bass Raider to fish the cove.  This will give Lil' Shaka and I a lot more maneuverability.  I learn more and more on every trip!

Then finally, this one was caught at a trip to another lake which is close to where we live.  We were on the Pelican Bass Raider, and this beauty swallowed a wacky worm!  This one weight in around 3 pounds.  Lil' Shaka caught a whole bunch of bass, and this is the only one I caught.  We had a great time out on the water, and it was the first time we took a boat out together.

Stay Committed Stay Driven!

The Week of April 17th 2022 Fishing has picked up

 

The fishing has picked up recently.  This is a fish above from last week (April 17th week).  The bass are starting to bite in the neighborhood pond.  For two days in a row I used the same pattern. I was dragging a Zoom Ultravibe Speed Craw in a Texas rig scenario on the bottom and they were hammering it.

This was a fun little bite on two consecutive days.  And, it was quick...only spent about an hour each time catching these fish.  The weight is a tungsten 1/8 or 3/16 oz H2O Xpress bullet that I am using in this rig.  I did not have a bobber stopper on this one as well.  The weather is now staying consistently over 40 degrees at night too!  And, we've had some nice warm days already.  Looking forward to the spring and summer season!

Mid April 2022 Fishing Update

It has still been very tough in the Pre-Spawn season in 2022 for me. I am catching them, but not many during each outing. I am starting to catch bass on Texas Rig stickbaits though. I caught this one right at the beginning of the fishing outing and then nothing else! I will also say this special place I like to fish is getting a ton of fishing pressure these days. There have been several people fishing this place so I am thinking this is causing some of this fish behavior as well.