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.