It’s been a while since my last post but not much has changed as far as the pattern is concerned. The water has warmed into the mid to high eighties as I write this. The topwater bite has came and went but I’m still able to get a bass or two on the surface. The most action has been the surfacing stripers. I’ve channeled my efforts to the main lake humps recently and I’ve been doing well targeting bass in these areas. My best strategy has been to find humps that come up to 15-20 feet near the river channel. I’ll move around with the trolling motor and cast around topwater plugs while watching the graph. If I mark a group of fish on a flat or a few fish around a brush pile I’ll throw out a marker and start dropshotting the area. Some of the humps have been producing stripers very early in the morning. The stripers are usually in small groups and pushing bait into the shallow areas and feeding on the surface. Usually it’s smaller bluebacks that are skittering across the surface in an attempt to out run the feeding fish. Sometimes a big spotted bass will mix in with the stripers and if you’re lucky you can pull in a very sizable spotted bass on a topwater lure or a soft swimbait body on a leadhead jig. Lisa caught her biggest bass of the summer while we were catching stripers on topwater. We thought it was another striper that hit Lisa’s topwater lure but when we got it to the side of the boat we realized it was a big spot mixing it up with the stripers. Another pattern that has been working for me is throwing crankbaits on rocky points and rocky outcroppings. There are a few nice bass hanging out around the rocks early in the morning. I’ve been using a natural shad medium and deep diving crankbait for the rocks and that’s been working the best.

Lisa and I also made a road trip to my hometown in Ks and then headed south to Lake Texoma for a visit to a friend and fishing guide, James Carter with “Rippin Lips Guide Service”. James took us out on the lake for a day and we had a blast catching stripers on Texoma. I made a little video from our fishing trip on Texoma and it’s posted below.

Our next stop was southern Louisiana and a visit with an old friend from the Navy, Frank Puydak. Frank and I go way back to the late eighties with both of us being stationed at Miramar, Ca. in a F-14 Tomcat fighter squadron and then again at a small air base south of New Orleans. We hadn’t seen each other in 20 years and we did some catching up with a few beers and a fishing trip. Lisa had never caught a redfish so our goal was to get Lisa a redfish or two. I posted a couple videos below from our trip to Louisiana.

One other noteworthy milestone was that we sold the Carolina Skiff and bought a Ranger bass boat. I included a few pictures of our new ride.
Here are a few pics and videos since my last post.