Clear Lake 06-03-2020

Day 2 on Clear lake was a lot of fun. I stayed shallow most of the day and caught a lot of fish. I'll tell you right now if you're looking for a 25+ pound sacks shallow is not where you want to be. Yes there is always that special area that might be up shallow and you smash 5 giants on a frog or something but, if you are looking for a consistent big fish bite that will take you most of the way through summer, I recommend going deep. I started the day up north at sunrise.throwing topwater, like frogs, whopper ploppers, and wake baits. I caught 4 fish right off the bat nothing over 2 1/2 pounds, I decided to make a move to some shallow docks where I have seen them spawn in the past. It was lights out for the 1-3 pound males. I mean I was catching fish almost every cast on either a Senko, frog, or fluke. The bigger fish came near the bluegill beds.every couple of docks or so I would run into a good concentration of bluegill beds with a lot of bass cruising around waiting for one to male the wrong move.

I stayed in this area the rest of the morning going up and down the same docks picking off every fish I could. You know what they say don't leave fish to go find fish, so I stuck with it and just switched things up. I decided to move a little deeper off of the docks to the deeper grass and start punching. I got a bit almost immediately, the bites we're fewer but they seemed to be a little better quality. Then I made a punch on a grass point aiming towards open water and got thumped hard! I set into a good one finally, she made a run for deep water then for the surface, I tried to keep her down but when she jumped she spit my punch rig 😔. It was devastating because she was easily pushing 6-7 pounds. I shook off the loss and stuck with it until noon picking off a few more 2-3 pound bass.

After a short break for lunch, I was about to launch again when my buddy Nathan hits me up and says "let's do the Wednesday night tournament tonight." I had to think about it, I had been up since 4 am at that point and my boat probably needed to be charged, but I was like whatever, let's do it. So I drove down to Redbud Park and paid entry and blasted off for my first ever clear lake Wednesday night tourney. Honestly, I'm normally not a fan of fishing tourneys unless I'm on guaranteed fish. Anyone who has been on those special bites knows what I mean by guaranteed fish, but I decided to do this one anyway because I like the challenge, and it's Clear Lake, anything could happen. We blasted off at 630 PM and ran north to the area me and my buddy Nathan had gotten bit the night before. The wind was strong and we both thought it was going to go down at this spot, but after going 20 mins without a bite we made a move over to an area I haven't fished in over a year that had some deeper docks compared to most up north, and it also had hard bottom for the bass that were spawning. The wind was blowing hard at this point making for a little bit of some rough fishing conditions. Normally I would opt for some kind of moving bait in these conditions like a Spinnerbait or a Crankbait but I picked up a jig. The jig has always been my go-to when I need a bite, I pick up a jig and I usually do alright. After a couple of casts both Nathan and I get bit I set and my fish goes straight for the surface jumping and spitting my jig 😔. Again another devastating loss. Nathan got him in a healthy 3 pounder. We keep fishing down the line and I get smacked twice, bringing in a couple more 2-pound bass. We both culled our 3 fish limit at this spot multiple times. Once the wind died down the bite stopped so we moved on. With the sun going down we switched over to our night time stuff. I tied on the chatter bait and Nathan tied on a darker jig. We started running water, I'm normally the type to slow down at night and break down and area but, I already knew the big ones that we needed were going to be on rocky points so ran around the lake, bouncing point to point looking for that big bite that just never came. We caught multiple 2-3 pound bass culling our fish by a few ounces, but we needed to be culling pounds to win. Then 30 mins before weigh-in at 1130 PM my chatter bait gets smashed hard. I set and my rod bows in almost a U shape. I knew this was a giant, but after the first head shake, I felt the fish spin. Anyone who knows Clear Lake knows what I had on. The notorious whisker fish that act like bass. Yep, a giant catfish smashed my chatter bait and almost bent out my hook. It was easily a 10+ pound blue cat full.of eggs almost ready to pop. I let her go and the next cast I got bit again but this time. It was a bass. Getting it into the boat. We culled one last time before weigh-in. At the weigh-in, we knew we had a slim chance of winning since there were big names out there. Like Jimmy Reese, and John pearl to name a few. but it was still fun to get out there and compete. We ended the night with 10.10 for 3 fish. As we were heading back to release our fish, Nathan's buddy was walking up with a giant bag 😬. We saw them pull out 3 giants and put them on the scales for a total of 19 pounds. Yeah, 19! For 3 fish. I'm not one to ask people.what they did to catch their fish but I know that if there is a bite like that somewhere on the lake, I need to find it. After the weigh-in, I packed up stopped at the gas station for a red bull and made the 2-hour track back home. Probably not the smartest move due to my lack of sleep the past 24 hrs but the red bull got. Me through. To sum this report up, you have 2 choices hitting the lake this time year. You can either go shallow and catch mostly 1-3 pound bass and have 1 or 2 shots at a giant. Or you go deep, focus on your graphs and find that big bite out deep with jigs, cranks, C-rigs, stuff like that. The water temps were between 75-77 the whole time I was up there. And the water clarity was extremely clear up north. The south end was pretty gross but there is still plenty of fish down there willing to eat. Until next time keep living fast and catching bass.