I made trips to Lake Athens on both Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I caught 25 bass Tuesday and 22 bass Wednesday. The best fish weighed 5.16 pounds. There were bedding bass everywhere on the lower lake. But there are also bass fry in big numbers in all the spawning areas. That tells me the spawn is just about over. I’m thinking I’ll try Lake Athens again next week, but I’ll have rods rigged with other baits besides bed fishing baits. I’m hoping there will still be fish on the beds, but I have my doubts. You would expect the spawn to last longer than early April, but it’s been a really warm spring.

Most fish were caught on TRD’s rigged as a tiny child rig. I also caught a few on a ShadZ on a jig. I was surprised at catching this many bass, considering the incredible fishing pressure Lake Athens receives in the spring. But just like at Fork, many anglers don’t sight fish for bass much, and the ones who do seem to fail to see lots of bass. The late spawn seems to suit me better on this lake, rather than the earlier bedding bass that are more easy to see on the beds in shallow coves, and cast to by so many anglers.

Wednesday’s 5.16 pounder.

It was another very windy week this week, but I got out fishing a couple of times anyway. I went to Lake Fork on Monday. The water is still pretty murky, as I mentioned before, and between the wind and mostly cloudy day, I really had a tough time spotting bedding bass. I managed to catch 10 bass in a long day of fishing, but once again, they were all under four pounds. I decided on the way home that making that one hour and twenty minute drive to Fork just wasn’t worth it this year, with these water conditions, when I could catch bass that were just as big at Cedar Creek or Lake Athens, both much shorter drives. I decided to give sight fishing a shot at Athens, and that’s where I went Wednesday.

Wednesday was an even darker and windier day than Monday, probably the windiest day I’ve been out fishing this year. But Lake Athens is a small enough lake that it can be safely run on a really windy day, and so any protected water on the lake can be reached. I’d only fished for bedding bass on the lake once, so had to spend some scouting time, looking for bedding bass. I knew that it’s late enough in the spawn that the lower half of the lake would likely be best, and that’s where I concentrated my scouting. I ended up catching 15 bass. Like my Fork trips lately, everything was under four pounds. But with Wednesday’s wind and clouds, I may have just not been able to see larger fish on beds. They do tend to spawn a bit deeper than smaller fish. I’m looking forward to being on Athens on a less windy day. I’m thinking that’s where I’ll be doing the rest of my bed fishing this year. Lake Athens is only thirty minutes from home, with much clearer water than Fork, and I had a blast with yesterdays fish, which included several over three pounds. We’ll see if I can find anything bigger next time.

One of Wednesday’s better size pretty fish.

The drought has made March fishing quite a bit different for me than past years. And I’ve made fewer trips this year, with what seems like one health issue after another. The last half of this month has been terrible bronchitis, brought on some kind of bug. It was just about the time I was going to get back to a full exercise schedule. Instead, I’m still on my fat-adding, muscle-losing no exercise routine instead. Hopefully, I’ll be back exercising soon.

Cedar Creek has remained four feet low. Even in drought years, we usually get some decent spring rains, and the lake doesn’t get this low until summer, but here we are, end of March, four feet low. My best jig and bobber crappie spawning spots require a full lake, so those are off the table. I’ve explored several new spots that I thought might work on low water, and found a few with crappie. It hasn’t been a spectacular year for shallow spawning crappie, but I’ve caught between 10 and 18 very shallow crappie every time I’ve gone, a bunch of them really nice crappie, so I can’t complain too much.

The other pattern that’s usually so good for me this time of year is the shallow bridge piling pattern. There are a lot of bridge pilings with between 6 to 12 feet of water that seem to hold a lot of crappie this time of year, likely pre-spawn and post spawn crappie, but I suspect many do spawn in these areas too. Too many people seem to try and sit right on top of the crappie and lower jigs to them, but crappie at that depth tend to be too spooky from someone that close. I’ve found that casting and slowly swimming a double jig rig usually works much better. That’s become my standard go-to for these crappie.

But with the lake four feet low, that hasn’t worked well this year. With all the jagged concrete at the bottom of pilings, and all the rocks everywhere around it, with the water that low, you can’t retrieve the jigs slow enough to keep from getting snagged almost every cast. If you speed up the retrieve enough to stay off all the snags, it’s too fast a retrieve for the crappie; they just don’t bite. So I decided to try something I don’t otherwise do: I rigged a jig and bobber at 3 1/2 to 4 feet deep. That lets you stay back far enough to keep from spooking the crappie, but retrieve very slowly without getting snagged. It’s worked pretty well. I caught quite a few crappie on shallow bridge pilings this year.

But a bobber clamped 4 feet above a jig is just too awkward to cast well. A better setup is a bobber rig I hadn’t used in quite a few years: a slip bobber setup. A slip bobber rig lets the bobber stay close to the jig while casting, then allows the jig to drop to its preset depth after the cast. I ended up experimenting with different bobbers and bobber stop setups to find what I liked best. And I ended up surprisingly deciding that I’m going to start using this type of crappie setup more often. As soon as I saw how it performed, I started thinking of situations where I would want to fish a jig from 8 to 12 feet below a bobber, and became enthused enough about the prospect that I built myself a jig and bobber rod just for that. So far, I’ve only used it for the 4 feet deep setup and the 12 to 14 inch shallow bed setup I always used the jig and bobber for. But there will be summer and fall situations where I want to use a deeper jig and bobber, and I’m looking forward to trying it out.

All that said, my March fishing isn’t usually dominated by crappie fishing at all; it’s usually almost all sight fishing for bedding bass at Lake Fork. But the drought has severely impacted that too. Lake Fork is three feet low. That ends up having more implications for the bedding bass there than I would have suspected. First of all, like Cedar Creek water clarity, Lake Fork water is becoming muddier every year. It usually has so much vegetation in the shallow water, that that helps clear the shallow water some, even as the rest of the lake is muddier. Not this year. With the lake three feet low, all of usual vegetation is on the bank, or at least too shallow for bedding bass. So it’s just a sand bottom everywhere. There are spawning bass to be found on some of it, but the big bass are nowhere to be seen. I suspect they are spawning just deep enough to not be visible in this year’s muddier water.

Another problem with spotting bedding fish at Fork is the fact that the majority of bass anglers who fish for them don’t have enough sense to set their trolling motors more shallow than usual to keep from muddying the spawning areas. This is always a problem at Fork in the spring. But with the usual amount of vegetation, even after an idiot has severely muddied a spawning area with his trolling motor, it will clear fairly quickly. With no vegetation in the area this year, it isn’t happening. The area just stays muddy for hours. Much to the aggravation of those of us trying to sight fish who have enough sense to not muddy the water.

In three trips to Fork, I’ve caught 10, 10, and 13 bass with my sight fishing. But out of all of them, only one was over 4 pounds, a 4.20 pounder I caught Monday. There were a few 3 pounders yesterday, but not one was close enough to 4 pounds for me to bother weighing. I still love sight fishing, and will make the longer drive to Fork and play with the smaller bedding bass when I can’t find anything else. But I don’t think I’ll be making as many trips to Lake Fork under these conditions. I’m likely to shift my late spring fishing back to Cedar Creek sooner this year. I guess it could be worse. I could be stressing over work issues rather than fishing issues. I do enjoy being retired.

Monday’s 4.20 pound bass.

Winter has arrived, and as usual, the tougher bass fishing with it. I usually spend a lot more time crappie fishing than bass fishing in the winter, but with the Cedar Creek water level over 3 1/2 feet low, fishing has been tough at my winter crappie spots too. Some of them I can’t reach at all with the lake this low. Between the holidays and doctor appointments, I’d only gotten out once a week the past few weeks, and while I’d caught enough crappie to keep the freezer stocked, and a few bass as well, the fishing had been what I would call tough. I did manage a 4.16 pound bass last week.

But the weather had been milder lately, with water surface temps back up to 53 and 54 degrees, fishing was better this week. I fished mid lake Monday and caught 11 bass. Tuesday I was on the lower lake and caught 8 more bass. 19 bass in one week in mid January is not bad fishing, in my books. I didn’t catch any really big bass either day, but a bunch of solid, chunky fish. The weather has turned colder now, so the bass fishing is bound to get tougher again. I need to scout those crappie some more.

Last week’s 4.16 pound bass.

One of Tuesday’s pretty fish.

I managed to get out fishing on Tuesday and Thursday this week. It was pretty chilly both days, but Thursday sunshine warmed it up a bit in the afternoon. Fishing was tough. Tuesday’s wind kept me from being able to fish some of my lower lake spots. I managed to catch nine bass, the best of which weighed 3.62 pounds. Some of the morning water surface temperature was just 51 degrees. That’s getting close to winter water.

Two days and one cold front later, on mid lake, there was again lots of 51 degree water, and for most of the day, the bite was even tougher. Early afternoon, I had only managed to catch two bass, and no other fish at all. With the sun warming things up a bit later, I managed another seven bass the last couple of hours of fishing. Best bass of the day was a 4.46 pounder. As I type this Sunday night, the forecast is for a hard freeze tonight with lows in the 20’s, so I’m thinking winter fishing has arrived. I’m still going to fish for bass some, but crappie fishing may be my mainstay for the next couple of months.

Thursday’s 4.46 pound bass.

It was another good week of Cedar Creek bass fishing last week. I went on Wednesday and Friday, the lower lake Wednesday and mid lake Friday. With all the cooler weather we’ve had lately, the surface temperature had fallen to 54 degrees by Friday. I caught 16 bass Wednesday and 14 bass on Friday. My best fish were 4 pounders on both days, a 4.62 on Wednesday and a 4.42 on Friday. I caught a bunch of other chunky fish on Friday, including 3.72, 3.52, and 3.26 pounders. Cedar Creek just has a lot of healthy, chunky black bass this year. They do put up a great fight, especially on the finesse tackle I’m using.

Just like last year, with the water surface temperature now in the mid 50’s, I’m catching a lot more bass on rocks, and a lot fewer on boat docks. It’s a really noticeable movement of the fish. I watch that lake surface temperature pretty closely this time of year. As long as it stays above 50 degrees, bass fishing will remain decent, but once it gets below 50 degrees, bass fishing can be very tough. The Ned rigs I’m using are very good cold water baits though, and I’m going to keep fishing them some this winter when the water gets that cold, to see if I can improve my winter technique. You have to fish the baits so slowly when the water’s that cold though, that you can’t cover much water, so you need to be very good about picking your spots, if you are to catch much. I’m sure I’ll chase the crappie quite a bit this winter too, though. With the lake this low, crappie fishing will be tougher too, but the winter crappie bite is usually a lot better than the winter bass bite. Just when the water will get that cold remains to be seen, and depends on the weather during a particular winter, but I would expect it to fall into the 40’s by late this month, or early January. We’ll see.

Wednesday’s best bass, a 4.62 pounder.

And Fridays best, weighing 4.42 pounds.

The bass bite on Cedar Creek has been pretty consistent the last couple of weeks, with great fishing on the lower lake, and tough fishing at mid lake. On Monday, November 17th, I caught 16 bass on the lower lake, and 4 big crappie. One thing about bass fishing docks with finesse baits, you can also catch some big crappie. Small bass baits are also big crappie baits. Best bass of the day weighed 4.52 pounds. I kept the 3 best crappie for dinner.

On Wednesday, the 19th, I only managed 9 bass mid lake, but once again, caught some really nice size crappie. I kept 3 more, so did a good job of restocking my freezer that week.

This Tuesday, I visited the lower lake again, and caught 32 bass. As usual, I caught some fish in a Finesse TRD, but the best bait of the day was a 4″ Jerk Shadz. Shaking my rod as I retrieved it did the trick. Yesterday, I fished at mid lake, and found a very tough bite. The wind blew much harder than forecast, and I just couldn’t get many bites in the areas that I was able to fish. There were lots of people on docks, to be expected on Black Friday, and that kept me from fishing some of my more productive docks. I only caught 3 bass, 2 crappie, 1 drum, 1 hybrid, and a handful of white bass. But yesterday’s 3 bass were nice ones. Two went over 3 pounds, and the other was a 5.46 pounder. I won’t complain too much about any day where I catch a 5 pounder.

A 4.52 pound bass from November 17th.

Yesterday’s 5.46 pound beauty.

Back from vacation in Florida, I was eager to get back to some Cedar Creek fishing this week. A big cold front last week had cooled things off a lot. Surface temperatures on the lake went from ~75 degrees two weeks ago to 61 degrees Wednesday morning. Fall fishing is here. And my best fishing last fall was at mid lake, so that’s where I went Wednesday. But the bass fishing was still tough for me. I bass fished most of the day and only caught five bass. I stopped by a couple of crappie spots and caught 6 nice crappie in short order, so the crappie bite is still there mid lake, but I don’t have a good explanation for why the bass fishing is so much tougher than last fall.

On yesterday (Friday) I decided to spend the day on the lower lake. Besides the tough day I’d had Wednesday mid lake, the south wind was really blowing yesterday, and with a big south wind, the lower lake is easier for me to fish, and more productive. That proved to be a wise decision. The wind blew even harder than forecast, but in spite of a very slow morning of fishing, the bite really took off just before lunch, and I ended up catching 22 bass before heading home. Best fish of the day was a beautiful bass that weighed 4.20 pounds, unless you want to count the ~8 pound hybrid that bit my Ned rig. Most fish were caught on a finesse TRD on a Ned rig, but shaking the rod fishing a jig and Jerk Shadz version of the Ned rig caught a few, as did a new experimental finesse version of a Carolina rig I’m calling a bridge rig. More on the bridge rig in another post, once I get more dialed in with it, but it really is looking like a new bait I’ll be using quite a bit.

A really nice crappie from Wednesday’s trip.

The 4.20 pound bass I caught from a Cedar Creek dock yesterday.