Hi folks, Guided a double yesterday with a family trip in the morning and a boat trip in the afternoon. Big bright sunny day with really pleasant air temperatures. Water temperatures in our lakes are now holding in the mid 70's. Perfect for bass fishing. Pretty good steady northwest wind yesterday. I think one of the bigger determining factors in bass fishing is finding low light. The sun seems to be the biggest deterrent in getting fish to eat. In the morning we did some bank fishing and caught all sorts of fish with spin gear from pumpkin seeds to suckers to perch to bass to even a rainbow trout. Pretty simple fishing with lots of action for the kids. Little kids do not care what they catch as long as they have a bend in their rod. In the afternoon was a combination of a fly angler and two spin anglers on the boat. The water where we fished was off color. We moved around and finally fished a shoreline out of the sun with big weed beds that dropped from 9' of water to 20' of water. The fish were holding on the edges. No love fishing in the sun. We made lots of cast and worked our poppers really aggressively. A little chop on the surface with dirty water dictates that the popper is worked more aggressively. We landed one of the larger smallmouth I have seen this season with the fish really pressing the 5lb category. Absolute pig that fought like crazy. It crushed the fly. On its first jump I thought it was a largemouth bass because it was so deep. Pretty good fun on a fly rod. The fish ate a #4 chartreuse popper with rubber legs and large saddle hackle tail. We had several other smaller bass eat but nothing in comparison to the big boy. The big fish made up for the lack of numbers in the afternoon and the fly guy out fished the spin anglers. We did see a few #6 Hexs' coming off at dusk and an almost full moon makes me think that the fish are really feeding heavily at night. Makes sense with the big sun all day and then a bright night sky. Off to chase bass and small stream trout over the next few days. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
