I met my Uncle in his 19 foot Ranger at Cedar Creek Lake around noon and began a cold, cloudy day of bass fishing. I spent the last three months waiting to get back out and fish, this was not the best day to go, I promise you. For the last couple of days we had cold rainy weather, and today it had only stopped raining that morning.
We both tied on heavy jigs and began dragging deep structure with cover. Nothing. Normally when I say nothing, I mean, we got a couple of bites and missed a few or caught a couple of small fish or something like that. When I say nothing in this post I really mean nothing. I downsized my presentation to a Texas rigged 'Allen Custom Lure' beaver style bait in Party Pumpkin color. Nothing. We flipped standing trees, nothing. My uncle tried a jerkbait on some drop-off areas, nothing. The sad sad truth is that we couldn't figure them out. Nothing seemed to foot the bill.
I suggested that we find some warmer water. We were fishing water in the 43 to 44 degree range. Cold, cold, water. We started up one of the three creek arms that make up the lake and found some water that crept up to 45 which for a fish is significantly better than 44. Just one degree can make a lot of difference. But still, nothing. My uncle tied on a Sexy Shad spinnerbait and we started behind the island, our old stand bye. He caught a 2.5 pounder almost as soon as we got there. My excitement began to stir, had we started finding a pattern, shallow water around 46 degrees? No, we didn't catch anything but a cold the rest of the day.
On the upside, as I was writing this my good friend Mr. Lister came by my office and dropped off some artwork I had commissioned. Check it out! This will be a walk the dog type lure with a prop at the tail. I can promise you that no fish has seen a lure just like this one. It's one of a kind.
He also made this for me a few months ago.
Hopefully, the weather will warm the lake up a bit and the spring feed can begin! Peace.
