10-03-2002, 01:35 AM
My wife and I hit Sahuaro Lake, at Butcher Jones last Saturday. We fish from tricked out kick boats...complete with sonar and rod racks...up to five rods. Had done quite well all year until our last two trips in mid August. When the water is 85 degrees and you have to keep dodging PWC, it takes some of the fun out of it.
Had figured it would be another hot day, weatherwise. Got fooled by the cool wind with a little rain in it. Air temp was 72 degrees at launching (6:30 AM) and the water temp had dropped to 78 since our last August excursion.
Kicked out beyond the no-boat buoy line and saw some schoolie bass busting shad. Tried some topwater and some small plastics, to no avail. Wind shifted and blew the shad back out into the open lake, and the bass followed.
Started bottom bouncing some of my "bait bugs" and I soon had a couple of 12" yellow bass and my wife got another. Then, she hung a nice channel cat on the light rod and 4#line...our yellow bass rigs. It went 26" and 6#. Within minutes she was hooked up into another cat. After it towed her around for awhile it crawled into her net. It was 29" and 10 1/2#. That turned out to be her last fish for the day...but she didn't care.
I finished up with a 24" channel that weighed 5#, and released a stray 16" largemouth that jumped on a fast retrieved plastic at mid depth. Most of our fish came from 12' to 15' of water, outside the weed line.
There were a series of fronts blowing through and the wind direction kept changing. The stiff breeze made it difficult to work the light lures we use for our style of fishing, so we were off the water by about 11...with nary a hit for the last hour and a half.
With the cool weather we are having this week, that magic 70 to 75 degree range is right around the corner. Then we can plan on some serious topwater bass action in the early morning, and some walleyes off the rock walls and points.
Oh yeah, when they start planting their "hatchery pets" in November, I'm gonna be wrestling with some hog bass with a taste for trout.
[signature]
Had figured it would be another hot day, weatherwise. Got fooled by the cool wind with a little rain in it. Air temp was 72 degrees at launching (6:30 AM) and the water temp had dropped to 78 since our last August excursion.
Kicked out beyond the no-boat buoy line and saw some schoolie bass busting shad. Tried some topwater and some small plastics, to no avail. Wind shifted and blew the shad back out into the open lake, and the bass followed.
Started bottom bouncing some of my "bait bugs" and I soon had a couple of 12" yellow bass and my wife got another. Then, she hung a nice channel cat on the light rod and 4#line...our yellow bass rigs. It went 26" and 6#. Within minutes she was hooked up into another cat. After it towed her around for awhile it crawled into her net. It was 29" and 10 1/2#. That turned out to be her last fish for the day...but she didn't care.
I finished up with a 24" channel that weighed 5#, and released a stray 16" largemouth that jumped on a fast retrieved plastic at mid depth. Most of our fish came from 12' to 15' of water, outside the weed line.
There were a series of fronts blowing through and the wind direction kept changing. The stiff breeze made it difficult to work the light lures we use for our style of fishing, so we were off the water by about 11...with nary a hit for the last hour and a half.
With the cool weather we are having this week, that magic 70 to 75 degree range is right around the corner. Then we can plan on some serious topwater bass action in the early morning, and some walleyes off the rock walls and points.
Oh yeah, when they start planting their "hatchery pets" in November, I'm gonna be wrestling with some hog bass with a taste for trout.
[signature]