Fishing in a Bait Bowl (8/10)

[Latimeria]

I met Squatch about 5:00pm at Lake Jennings to try and take the lead on the catfish contest.  The minute I dropped the boat in, I noticed a TON of bait swarming everywhere by the docks.

We made our way to a general area and saw bait and fish finder the entire way!  We tried to find shade because it was hot as f@ck out and started to look for some red ear.  Steve thought he snagged up on the 2# line, but it started screaming line out!  It was quite fun watching him battle this beast of a Red Ear Sunfish!  Super fat and pooping out freshwater clams!



We made a quick move and kept getting some red ear.  Steve was getting the big ones off the bottom and I was plucking away at the smaller stuff with the bobber.  I kept casting a creature bait out every now and then, and then got slammed!  This thing launched out of the water like a hooked mako trying to throw the hook, but the hook stayed and Steve got the net under it.  Pretty damn sweet on the curado 50 reel.



Very next cast and my line goes screaming out and I get a smaller model bass about 12".  Steve kept tooling with the big red ear while I was casting around.  Bait was still everywhere!  The entire half of the lake was filled with some type of small fry... shad?  who knows.
I hear a bass jump and cast over to it.  Bam!  Much bigger model!  Half way in and it gets off.  I was using a light wire hook and noticed he bent the hook out enough to shake it.  It felt like a much nicer model, but oh well.  I also lost a few fish or missed on some hooksets, but all from one spot that we were anchored!  Pretty nuts!

We finally started catching cats and they were from typical stocker size to just over 4 pounds.  Not huge, but a decent average for our limits.





I took a decent sized mackerel chunk and fly-lined it out there.  On the drop, my reel starts singing!  Fish on! 

Hey, wait a minute... what the hell is this on the mackerel?

Mr. Long Skinny Bass!  hahahaha, well that was a nice surprise!



As we were catching cats, I tossed out the creature bait and get slammed!  Unfortunately, it shook off, so I cast in another direction and get slammed righteously!  Steve moved pretty slow getting the net so I think he might have thought I was teasing him, but the big boy popped up out of the darkness!  This just made my night!



More cats.



So Steve kept catching cats as he was the cat and Red ear master.  Steve got 7 cats and I got 3, but I did manage the biggest by an ounce. 
Steve's small sunfish was still 4x bigger than my biggest though!  I was watching fish swim up and down on the fish finder all night and never saw so much bait in this lake ever!

So we packed it in about 11:15 and was on the road by 11:40.  It was a great day on the lke and so much fun seeing so much life in the lake.
Well, thanks for reading and it looks like Eric H is still in the lead!

[skrilla]

Whoa action!

[sasquatch]

Super fun night. Can't believe all the bass you got into. Probably missed or dropped 3 for every 2 you caught. I kept looking at my heavy catfish rod I brought instead of the bass rod in the truck. Oops.

Still I came out on top for all species I targeted. By numbers anyway.

The amount of bait was crazy.

[Eric H]

Thats a fun day on the water

[Latimeria]

I forgot... we also saw the space station fly overhead.  Crazy bright!

[vdisney]

I kept looking at my heavy catfish rod I brought instead of the bass rod in the truck. Oops.

We've all done it Steve