I hadn’t been to the strip mines for over a month, so a cloudy Saturday forecast seemed like a good time to take another shot. I chose an area for this solo outing that I had last fished on May 25 during a trip with Brent. I focused most of my time on one lake but did dabble a bit in another along the way.
Stats
Date: July 12
Location: Knox County public strip pits (2 lakes)
Time: 10:30am-2:30pm
Totals: 9 bass, 2 bluegill
Weather: Overcast to partly cloudy/breezy
Lures: Spro Flappin Frog 65 (redear or leopard) – 6 bass, Booyah Buzz Buzzbait (snow white shad) – 3 bass, TJO Dice Bait (bloodshot) – 2 bluegill
Top Bass: 3-1 Frog
Top 5 Weight: 9-11 (3-1,2-2,1-11-1-10,1-3)
Starting lineup and winning lures
Tune of the Trip
”You got to roll me and call me the tumbling dice.”
Tumbling Dice – Rolling Stones (1972)
I tried something new on this outing, a homemade “dice bait.” More on that below.
10:31am – A new lake record at 2-2 (17.5″), on a buzzbait and should have weighed more as it was very lean
Notes and Nonsense
Main Lake – On my way to portage into the target lake, I made a few casts in another lake that features a major point with an expansive, shallow flat and subsurface weed beds. It is a perfect summer setup for working a buzzbait or a frog and the former lure came through. The quick hit on the lake of only fifteen minutes produced a lone bite but it happened to be the largest bass that I had ever caught on the body of water. It tipped the scales at 2-2, topping a 1-10 from last July. I do not fish this lake much and the quality catch has me considering investing more time in the future while shooting for a ten-pound Top 5. My current Top 5 weight on the water sits at 7-4 (2-2,1-10,1-4,1-2,1-2), so there is work to do.
11:43am – Top Bass of day at 3-1 (17.5″) on a frog in less than a foot of water
Discovery Lake – The bass bite was gangbusters to start with six bass in the first hour of casting and several other topwater blowups that failed to hook up. After that, the bite shut down with only two fish in the next seventy-five minutes. Not surprisingly, it was a midday fade as I stuck primarily with a topwater approach in the lake dominated by shallow, weedy water. In addition, the sun had made more frequent appearances after an overcast start to the day. When the sun went off, the bite turned on.
11:47am – Another quality catch from the shallows weighing 1-11 (15.5″) and caught on a frog
Top Bass – The Top Bass for the day weighed 3-1 and came from a shallow pocket that featured less than a foot of water. The area has produced decent catches in the past, but the water was down considerably on this trip causing me to waver on whether to bother making a few casts in the spot. Fortunately, forty plus years of bass fishing has taught me a thing or two. Don’t let the conditions talk you out of making a few casts. Invest the time as even coming up empty outweighs having to wonder “What if.” Several minutes later, I landed another quality fish at 1-11 from the same spot. Moral of the story, “When in doubt, make the casts.”
First catch on a new lure, the dice bait (details below)
Dice Bait – A current craze in the fishing lure market is a fuzzy creation called the “Dice Bait.” However, with the expensive price tag on the models I have seen locally, I have no interest in adding them to my arsenal. Enter my friend, John Kirkemo, who has taken to making his own out of discarded baits and stock spinnerbait/jig skirt material. Following his lead, I made a few of my own and tried one out as I ended this fishing trip. Lo and behold, a couple of decent sized bluegills took the bait. Not my intended quarry but for a trial run it was fun to fool something on the homemade lure. When time permits, I not only hope to make and test some more, but also to put together a post dedicated to this latest fad.
Strip mine fishing can take some work but the potential for some big bites and decades of memories keep us coming back for more. And I say “us”, as I have a bonus report in the works from Brent’s recent visit as well as another firsthand report from last weekend. Talk to you later. Troy