Jim & I hit the water at 7:30. Water temp 80+. Very slight algae tint to the water.
Worked relatively hard for 17 bass and a double barreled squatload of big pickerel between us.
Jim caught this one on a 1 oz jig & pig.
I caught this one on a deep diving crankbait. You might want to save this picture. Me even using a crankbait’s a real rarity.
Other than one Jim got on an Ozmo, all the rest of our fish came on the drop shot, including Jim’s best of the day.
While 17 bass for the day might not sound too bad, the truth is, we got 7 of them in a couple little 5 or 10 minute flurries, and picked off the rest one here-one there over the course of 9 hours on the water. Most satisfying part of the day was 3 quick bass on a deep ridge that tops out in about 20 feet, well separated from any of the milfoil or cabbage beds.
Since I’m new here, I don’t know your lakes. What’s the forage in Lakeville?
Why the bloodied tail on the last fish? On-going discussion amongst friends. The most likely answer has been infections following the spawn. This is often seen on big fish -presumably females that don’t dig beds. What’s up?
Primarily alewives, with a side menu of craws and other assorted goodies. But the predators key heavily on the alewives. It’s a deep (100+ foot), clear, natural lake, with way more humps, extended rock.gravel points, and other such lovely structure than typical. Plenty of places you can sit in 30 to 70 feet of water and flip into heavy milfoil growing up out of 10 to 18 feet. Grows huge brown trout (as any alewife lake will do) and huge pickerel. The big pics reside in deep water — 18 to 35 feet, most of the time. Hammer handle pics shallower than that. Lake has heavy milfoil growth that reaches to 16~18 feet, and gets mowed regularly.
We see that carbuncle type growth at the base of the caudal fin (either on top or bottom of the fish), sometimes accompanied by red streaks in the tail, on quite a few LMB, often with little or no other damage or deterioration of the caudal, and quite often, the lump or growth is present without the accompanying red streaks or split in the tail, too. Now that you mention it, I do seem to notice it more often at Lakeville, than many other places.