Simply Fishing

I visited a favorite local lake this morning for some simple bass fishing in my small tin boat, Arracuda.
This was her maiden voyage for the season, and my first simple trip since starting the open-water season with some suckers.  Despite getting up at 0-Dark Thirty, skipping breakfast and travelling smoothly to the lake, I still managed to be about 20 minutes later than I'd have liked.  So while I was fishing before dawn, I missed out on a chunk of the easiest fishing.  And the accommodating fish did make it easy today, especially early on.  If a fish showed itself in pursuit of prey or my lure, it typically fell to a subsequent cast.  Most of the strikes came on a Rapala Skitter-Pop, but those I missed fell to a pitched Senko.  The bass of the day (but still less than 3 pounds) came on a Johnson Silver Minnow (gold, with white trailer.)  This fish provided a water-pushing bulging strike as the spoon wobbled just beneath the surface among some pads, and was a joy to pull out of the cover with my new Inshore Revo.

Sunrise

The first nice bass of the morning fell to an old favorite, the Johnson Silver Minnow.

This guy got pulled through some heavy cover, and was not going to get off.

Perhaps the fish of the day was a 5 pound (or so) dogfish.  Not only did it provide a nice battle, it was one of about 4 dogfish encountered today.  One other was briefly hooked, and two followed surface baits all the way to the boat.  They were active today!

I've long a thing for dogfish, and this one outfought any bass today!

No tournament excitement, muskies, stripers or glory fish today; but it was the best way to spend my time this morning.  Back home by Ten or so I enjoyed a pancake breakfast, and I still have some time to prepare for tonight's shift!  The dogfish stories will provide another notch in my belt, and it seems at least as likely that a customer will be interested in dogfish as an upcoming trip to Nunavut.  But I could be wrong.