I have stated many times that my annual fishing goal is to start with a March bass and end with a November bass. The first half of the goal was accomplished on March 20, and I set out on November 17 in search of the bookend bass. Details below on how it turned out.

Stats

Date: November 17, 2021
Location: Little John Conservation Club (3 lakes)
Time: 10:20am-4:00pm (3.5 hours fishing)
Weather: Overcast/windy/light rain
Air Temp: 47-48F (felt like 41F per weather app)
Water Temp: no reading
Totals: 3 bass
Lures: Strike King Red Eye Shad (sexy shad) – 1 bass, War Eagle spinnerbait (chartreuse/white) – 1 bass, Rapala Shad Rap (shad) – 1 bass
Top Bass: 2-7 (Spinnerbait)
Top 5 Weight (only 2 bass at 12” or better): 3-6 (2-7,0-15)

Winning Lures

Notes and Nonsense

Plan – Having a few vacation days remaining for the year, I opted to invest one on a day with forecast high temps in the mid-50s. The only problem was that the high occurred somewhere around 3:00am and then proceeded to drop from there. In addition, the wind was substantial and the mid-morning end to rain showers continued to be pushed further out past noon. Let’s just say it was less than ideal conditions but at this time of the year, you get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.

10:29am – Mission accomplished on a lipless crankbait

Bass #1 – Catching only three bass, I figure that I might as well provide details on all of them as they are likely my final three bass of 2021. Nine minutes into my morning, armed with a Red Eye Shad, I had my November bass in hand. While I was confident that I could fool at least one bass in the cold front conditions, it sure felt good to get an early catch and achieve my goal.

1:42pm – Top Bass at 2-7 on a spinnerbait

Bass #2 – After an hour and half and one bass on my first stop, I sat in my truck with froze toes and pondered my next move. Stop number two was a shallower spot with a fair amount of wood cover and expanses of submerged vegetation in three to seven foot of water. A reliable collection isolated laydowns in a shallow bay was once again a winner as it produced my best bass of the trip, a healthy 2-7 on a spinnerbait.

3:39pm – mystery solved, barely

Bass #3 – With about an hour of daylight and maybe 30 minutes of energy and cold tolerance remaining in this fifty-something angler, I decided to do a little exploring. First, I took a walk around a small lake to investigate access due to some landscaping over the last several years. All looked well but I moved on without making a cast, opting instead to check out one more lake. My final stop has intrigued me for decades as I have driven past hundreds of times wondering, “does that spot support any bass”, “how deep is the water” and “is there any significant structure”? The answers as follow: Yes, roughly eight feet and not really.

Another good year of fishing, time to ride off into the sunset for 2021

All’s well that ends well. And I suspect that this is indeed the end of casting for 2021. It’s been a great year with ample opportunities to get on the water and good results in terms of both quantity and quality. Stay tuned for a follow-up post with some peripheral stuff from this latest outing. In addition, there’s plenty more outdoor and fishing related content to come here on the blog as we near the end of the year. Talk to you later. Troy