Hunting Bass in the Heat of July 2022 with Flukes

 

Yesterday morning was a really solid session of bass fishing.  It is the Lil' Shaka's birthday weekend.  We had a great time fishing with flukes.  I tried a couple other baits but the bass seemed to only want the flukes on this day.

We normally use Zoom Flukes and rig them up weedless on 1 or 2 aught hooks.  We tried a number of different colors that work really well.  I think the main color in the Zoom Super Flukes that the bass really wanted was the Arkansas Shiner color.  We also tried a new Googan Fluke called the Dart.  These were the five inch models and the specific color was a Green Gizzard Shad.

I also went to Academy and purchased a rod and reel that I thought would be a great birthday present for Lil' Shaka.  I picked out a Ugly Stik GX2 casting rod.  It is not an expensive rod, and you don't need a very expensive rod (by the way).  All you need is a rod that has medium power.  You need it to flex much like a rod you would use with spinnerbaits.  I paired that rod up with a Diawa CR80 baitcasting reel.  He was happy!  And, now he has a nice rod/reel combo that is medium power that he can use for fluke fishing.  It might even be great for some other finesse applications.  It worked out very well as he was catching fish immediately.

I hope you all are having a great summer, stay committed, stay driven!

When fishing, Mother Nature is undefeated

Mother Nature opened up from the skies over the weekend!  I have to say, in 2022 I think this fishing excursion will be one of most memoriable for Lil' Shaka and me.  AND, it was really fun!  If you are anything like us, you've fished in many types of conditions.  Rain, Sleet, Snow, Ice, Sun, Extreme Heat...all of these conditions come into play at different times of the year and this day was no exception.  

The picture above is me right after we pulled the Pelican Bass Raider to the boat ramp.  The rain was coming down in sheets!  The Accuweather.com weather report showed this rain coming in, but I did not check my phone while we were fishing.  The rain came in about an hour earlier than what it said previously that morning.  We were having a great morning catching bass (we were around 20 bass for the session, which is exceptional this time of year).  Sure enough, I look up and the skies look like they are about to unleash hell LOL!

I told my son, "No, not one more cast...we gotta go now!" Ha Ha.  And, that is what we did.  I put the trolling motor in full blast mode and Lil' Shaka also paddled.  We were almost to the dock, and then it completely unleashed on us.  We dove into the truck to hide from the rain.  Maybe we could wait it out?  Not so much, it just kept coming down even harder. Ha Ha.  To give you an understanding of how much rain was coming down, before we even left the lake, we had to dump the boat on its side (twice) in less than 20 minutes because the boat was full of water.  The awesome thing about this monsoon rain is it felt very refreshing against the July heat here in the heartland.  You dry off quick.

As for the fishing, like I said it was a 20 bass type of day!  Lil' Shaka hit a great learning milestone...he was able to get the hang of throwing weightless, weedless flukes.  Flukes in my opinion are one of the deadiest lures or bait that you can thow.  If you know how to utilize them and present them in the right way, they can produce for you throughout the year.  A lot of your success throwing flukes is with the type of rod you use...I have a cheap Shakespeare Synergy rod that works great for fluke presentation.  I just swapped out the spincast real for a nice baitcaster a couple years ago.  It is literally the cheapest rod I have and it has produced the most and biggest fish for me.  I let him use this pole and bang, he learned it quick and started to catch them!

This specific lake we go to a lot with the Bass Raider is weeded up quite a bit.  There isn't much you can throw without getting hung up.  So your options during this time of year is anything weedless.  I have not perfected the use of the Shakey head worm, but WOW it produced well on this day.  I was just flipping it, shaking it, and slow retrieving it through and just above the grass and they were hammering it.  

All in all, it was a great morning of fishing, and an even better memory of getting caught in the downpour!  Stay Committed, Stay Driven.

 

June 2022 Montauk State Park Family Trip

 

Our annual trip out to Montauk State Park in Salem, Missouri was a nice little getaway.  We fished on Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning.  All three excursions into the Current River were successful with catching trout.  We like to stay with some close friends that have a camper.  We took the grandparents with us this time and they stayed at Reed's Cabins which is just a little bit further away from the action.  Most folks will stay at the lodge on premise or in the actual campsites (loops 1-4).

As you can see in this picture we were very successful catching trout during the entire weekend.  We caught fish every day.  We caught our trout mainly on hair jigs this time.  They were keyed in on white, black, and orange colors for the most part.  We did not catch as many on the rooster tails this time, but one of our family friends absolutely destroyed the trout on a white rooster tail.  Watching him work his magic was quite fun because there is absolutely a method to where you should throw the rooster tail, and also how to let it float and retrieve based on the flow of the river and where you are positioned in the river.

What was really fun for me was the last day's fishing session (Sunday morning).  Saturday had been super hot during the day.  Coming out of the camper on Sunday morning it was cool but muggy.  You could feel the cool air blowing over the water.  In the pic above, the jerkbait you see there in a crawdad color was absolutely killing the trout.  I caught around 7 total rainbows on that jerkbait in almost the same area of the river.  They were keyed in on it for whatever reason.  That was one of the first times I have ever caught that many rainbows on a jerkbait.  Normally we catch alot of browns on jerkbaits, but that day the rainbows were reacting to it.

We were able to prepare a nice feast on Saturday night.  Here are just a few photos of one way we like to grill our trout.  We do bacon wrapped trout with lemon and pepper.  We grilled them straight from the firewood embers.  The other way we like to eat trout is fried.  We use Andy's Fish Breading Red, which is so tasty for fried fish.

So, another family trip to Montauk is in the books.  Great memories.  Stay Committed, Stay Driven.

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!