My weekly Tuesday evening fishing trip took me across the river again for the first time in several weeks. Conditions were looking ideal for the buzzbait feast I’d been looking for but Mother Nature intervened just as me and the bass were getting dialed in.

Stats
Date: July 18, 2017
Location: Lost Grove Lake, IA
Time: 6:00pm-7:00pm
Weather: Sunny to stormy/breezy to very windy
Air Temp: 91F-74F (not a typo folks, that’s for real)
Water Temp: no reading
Totals: 3 bass
Lures:
Booyah Buzz Buzzbait (white chartreuse shad) – 2 bass
Strike King KVD Rattling Squarebill 1.5 Crankbait (pumpkinseed) – 1 bass
Top Bass: 1-11 Buzzbait (only fish at 12” or better)

6:19pm First bass, found a stretch where I could actually fish a crankbait without constant fouling in the vegetation, gotta like that.

And here’s the crankbait, my favorite squarebill model and color.

Notes & Nonsense

Forecast – I launched to sunny skies and a bit of a ripple on the surface with a storm forecast for between 7:30 and 8:00pm. Looked about right as some darker skies were looming to the south and west but the whole system just seemed stalled and had me looking at possibly being able to fish until sunset as originally planned. Didn’t quite work out that way, tell you about that shortly.

Frontal Bite – Intermittent clouds passing between me and the sun had me pretty fired up for a buzzbait bite with a larger cloud bank slowly headed my way. It was exactly what I’d been looking for to get the buzz on and with a pair of bass just past 6:30pm on the buzzer it looked like it was gonna be my day. The front was still stalled and I had two of my best topwater sections laid out before me ready for the home stretch. Did I mention it didn’t quite work out that way?

Change in the Weather – About 7:00pm, the stalled storm got unstalled in a real hurry just as I neared my much anticipated topwater spots.  In a matter of seconds the dark clouds hustled in overhead, the lake surface was churning with whitecaps and the temp plummeted (91F to 74F).  I was now in a hurry to get off the water and fortunately the gale force wind was pushing me in the general direction of the ramp, all I had to do was steer.  Had the wind been in the opposite direction I truly don’t think I could have made any headway rowing and the waves would have definitely been spraying over the front of my little johnboat.  Game over, and a little scary…then the rain started in.

6:43pm Top Bass 15.5″ 1-11 Buzzbait This one really exploded on the bait and I sure thought I had a new lake record from the strike but fell several ounces shy of the 2-4 needed though still a good fish.  Looks like a nice day behind me, huh?  Well, at that point it was, a mere twenty minutes later, not so much.  No pics of the storm as I was real content to stay in the truck.

Aftermath – Luckily there was no lightning to push my concern beyond simply getting wet. I did wind up a bit soaked by the time I had everything back in the truck but that could have been worse as well. I sat in the lot for several minutes as a heavy, sideways rain drenched the area. I was happy to be back in the truck as the storm raged away but also pretty bummed out that the conditions I’d been looking for during the last several outings lasted about twenty five minutes before the rainout sent me packing.  On a positive note, the gravel roads sure weren’t dusty on the way home.

The Catch – So headed home an hour and a half early I decided to stop by the grocery store for a 12-pack of Miller Lite, a replacement buzz of sorts. Julie and the girls had been out for dinner with a friend, Deb, and the storm chased them home early too as our daughter, Carly, is not a fan of the inclement weather. Deb asked how many I’d caught and seemed impressed when I replied, “Twelve.” Of course, I was referring to my grocery store purchase, not the bass.

Still have one more fishing report to catch up on as I went back after them the following evening. But first, got one more outdoorsman celebrating a birthday tomorrow, hope you’ll stop back by for a posting that I guess you would say has been a long time in the making. Talk to you later. Troy