Post Spawn Blues

Fishing Time:  March 14 to 20, 2016

Weather:  Hot, calm, T-90s

Moon Phase:  38 to 93 % Moon

Water Temp:  Morning - 68 deg, Afternoon - 73 deg

Location:  Colorado River, Arizona

Best Bait:  KieTech noisy flapper (topwater frog)

Who Went:  Dunc

This was a fun but challenging week of fishing.  I think I caught a total of 2 or 3 fish through the entire work week.  All caught on a Texas-rigged green pumpkin senko thrown near boat docks.

To start the weekend off I took a slightly different approach.  Live shiners!  It’s definitely a post spawn bite and the fish are extremely finicky, so why not see if they can resist some live bait.

I got off work a bit early on Friday, so I stopped by the bait shop and picked up 20 live shiners.  You can’t fish with live bait in Utah, so I figured it might be fun to try it.  Unfortunately, the shiners produced two bites that evening, but no fish.  I started to get a bit bored sitting there staring at a bobber and noticed just before dusk the fish started rising near shore.  I put on a Kietech noisy flapper (topwater frog) that I have been itching to try.  Two casts later I had two fish in the boat including a fun surprise with this beast crappie. 

Saturday I got on the water early only to be met by about 50 bass boats sitting in front of the docks waiting to take off.

This place is crazy with bass tournaments and this one must have been a big one.  There is only one little outlet to get on the river from the lake I live on and the tournament boats felt they had the right to block the inlet to the river.  Wow, Just another reason to dislike these “elite fisherman”.  More on that later. 

I weaved my way through the masses getting dirty looks the entire way, and then took off upriver in darkness to get to my spot before the rush of idiots followed.  I went back to the same spot where topwater produced the night before and started throwing it again.  It didn’t take long before I got a few hits and landed a couple bass.  Topwater is a blast and I love working it in and out of grass like in the photo below.

Soon the sun came up and everything went dead.  I decided to try the live shiners again and got one taker, but again couldn’t set the hook.  Apparently I need some learnin on live bait fishing.

Then came the idiotic masses in there sponsor covered shirts and their $80,000 bass boats.  Man they look cool.  I wonder if all that flare puts bass in the boat?  Apparently it doesn't because each one of them that fished passed me (way to close) were whining about the tough bite.  And then it happened.  As I’m sitting there fishing live bait, two morons all jazzed out in bass flare come working down my shoreline.  I’m not moving because I’m fishing live bait, which as we all know, is cheating in their book.  As they motored closer I started wondering, will they ever go around me?  Then I hear a splash right next to my boat.  These "elite fisherman" were casting within 2 feet from my boat, and to make it worse, one had the gall to ask me how the fishing is.  I stared back at him in disgust and shook my head and didn’t say a word.  Seriously people!  I have no problem sharing the lake, but give me a little distance!
 

Now that we know how I feel about tournament fisherman back to the fishing.  I could quickly tell the fishing was not heating up so I tried something a bit different.  Being that Lake Martinez is only 10 feet deep and full of sunken trees, I dropped a live minnow down about 9 feet and let the breeze blow me across the lake while I enjoyed the warm sunny morning.  Not long into my drift my rod doubled over and about went into the lake.  I grabbed it just in time and sure enough I had a fish on.  However, this was no largemouth bass and I could tell while fighting him.  After a worthy battle I found this small striped bass on the end of my line.

I knew they were in here, but hadn't found them yet.  Now I had found a whole school of juveniles.  I wasted some live bait and caught a couple more before the sun started beating down hard then I ran for AC.
 

I continued to fish the early mornings and evenings through the weekend and my topwater frog was pretty consistent putting a couple fish in the boat each trip out.  The daytime was dead and I never did find a pattern.  Only one week left here in paradise…