|
Subject: East Fork Lake, Illinois
Submitted by Fisher X (ip 209.107.239.72)
Date Fished: 4/29/2007
Water Temperature: 65
Water Clarity: 2-3 feet East Fork Lake near Olney IL. Prefish 28 Apr 07, Tournament 29 April 07
East Fork is a clear water, grass filled 650 Acre lake. It’s protected and has quite a few cuts and coves-it fishes “big” for its size. I had not fished it in the past and studied the satellite pics. I looked for an area that had all the possible combinations related to spawning…a spawning flat, and points for staging. I found such an area that was perfect with five points and four coves and a big flat in one.
Prefishing: The weather was almost perfect-a weak front had passed through the day before so the wind was out of the west and strengthened as the day progressed. Water temp was 60 F and air temps started at 60 and warmed to the mid 70’s. the sky was bluebird water was clear-you could see a white spinner bait 2-3 feet. I went the second area that I chose by map study. My son caught a 3 lb fish on a watermelon senko-a male with no marks. I caught a short on chatter bait. The appearance of the fish told me that they had not spawned. We fished some nearby deep water probing for females-no bites but they were visible on sonar. We found this to be the case every where. The females staging would not bite. We worked back to the primary area I selected. No bites on the points but an occasional fish on the weed edges-all males no marks. I caught a keeper on a jig and jumped a nice fish on a floating rogue (gold). We finally made it back to the big flat. The water was clear and between 2-5 ft deep and full of grass. Bass were everywhere on the beds. All appeared to be males. I’m talking dozens upon dozens of bass-but no big ones. We couldn’t get them to bite anything. They would simply inspect the bait up close and refuse to pick it up. We finally caught another male blind fishing the area-no marks on it. This told me that they hadn’t been up too long and were still spooky. No one in the club prefishing had anything going-no one else had seen bedding fish. I was certain that our flat were probably the first ones to hit the beds.
Club Tournament day: The day was warmer and calmer than the day before. The morning started at 66 and warmed to the mid 80's the wind was flat to maybe 5 out of the SW. We decided that the best approach was to go to the spawning flat because there was fish and lots of them. Surely we could get a couple to bite. We tied on topwater baits –me a rogue, my son a buzz bait. The plan was to slip in during low light and try to elicit a couple reaction strikes from “cruisers” on topwaters. When we arrived the water temp was 64F. The early morning light was wrong so we couldn’t see the fish-and they couldn’t see us. The buzz bait got an immediate half hearted slap. The rogue got a big bust that missed on my 4th cast. I stayed with the rogue and was rewarded with 2 keepers and a half dozen shorts before the light got “wrong”. My son caught a 3 and a half on a senko. A couple of other boats came in-not knowing that there were spawners and spooked everything real bad so we left for a couple of hours. We didn’t have a bite anywhere else. We saw some of our guys and they were having trouble getting bites. We returned to the flat at 12:30 and worked our way back . The water had warmed to nearly 70. The rogue got 2 quick 14 inchers and at least 4 good busts that missed. Then I jumped a nice 3 lber. The bite was on-but all males. I eventually got two more keeper males. We left the fish biting to return to weigh-in our fish. In the end I had 4 keepers that went 8-9 and won the tournament. Locals told us that the bite was WAY OFF and they didn’t know why. Most of the other guys had 1 or 2 fish. Big fish was only 4 lbs. and it looked like a male too. I don’t think a single female was weighed in.
Click here to enter a remark.
|
