Hi Folks, Doubled up on the boat yesterday and chased smallmouth bass in the morning and largemouth bass in the afternoon. Feels like fall outside. The water temperature on both lakes I fished ranged from 71 degrees to 74 degrees. Water temperatures actually dropped by a couple of degrees with the arrival of the cooler weather. Pretty steady northwest wind for most of the day and with partly sunny conditions. The water clarity was slightly off from all of the rain from the previous two days. My morning trip was a combination of fly fishing and spin fishing. We cast poppers with both spin and fly rods. Nothing large coming to the surface. Steady action, but mostly 2 and 3 year old smallmouth. The spin angler who was casting rubber worms produced the larger fish. The larger bass were holding in deeper water and certainly needed to be finessed. We located them in 15' to 18' of water off sharp drops offs with large rocks on the bottom. Baby bass was the color for the morning for the rubber worms. I think the cold front made the fish a bit neutral to non-aggressive and we had to slow down our approach. In the afternoon I guided on a lake that is fairly shallow as has slow tapering shore lines with lots of weeds. No smallmouth to speak of, but we did manage to catch a few largemouth bass including a solid 3lb fish. We located all of the largemouth in skinny water of less than 4'. The bass were tucked under lilly pads and we had to cast right to their edges. Keeping the bail open while the rubber worm dropped was critical in order to hold the presentation right on the pads and prompt a response. We got broken off by one pike and had another one follow a worm back to the bait and slash at it. Certainly a day on the water that required patience. Off to do it again today with river fishing for smallmouth this morning and cane fishing this afternoon. Remember to clean your gear and keep the non-native species at home. Have Fun, Willy
