Fishing Reports Central
>
Lake Reports
|
Menu
Next
Author:
PECo
Date:
Oct 19, 2011
Subject:
Bantam Lake 10/18
Message:
When I saw the lousy weather forecast for the next couple of days, I had to get out on the water even though I had only a few hours to fish, so I headed to Bantam Lake. I launched The Other Woman from the residents-only Morris Town Boat Launch Ramp at 9:10 am:
[img:584dc12ee9]http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/8629/img1335corrected.jpg[/img:584dc12ee9]
[img:584dc12ee9]http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/5861/img1336cropped.jpg[/img:584dc12ee9]
[img:584dc12ee9]http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/3624/img1337cropped.jpg[/img:584dc12ee9]
As you can see, it was packed with non-resident riff-raff like myself. :roll: No hassles, though. :) The air was cool, the sky was totally overcast and there was a slight west wind that built up to a steady five miles per hour during the three hours that I was there. The water was murky, with visibility down to only 1-1/2 feet, and the water temperature ranged between 57 and 58 degrees. I headed clockwise around the south cove from the ramp. I still had a Bluegill patterned one ounce Strike King Bottom Dweller spinnerbait tied on, but it kept getting snagged up with dead weeds off of the bottom, so I soon swapped it out for a Gold Shiner patterned 3/4 ounce War Eagle Screamin Eagle spinnerbait with a trailer hook. I didn't get anything but dead weeds as I passed the Morris Town Beach in the southeast corner of the cove, so threw a wacky rigged five inch senko at the rocks lining the shallow shoreline and boated a short largemouth bass. It looked like the largemouth had narrowly escaped getting eaten by a chain pickerel or northern pike. Both sides of its body had fairly fresh wounds on it:
[img:584dc12ee9]http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/3918/img1338cropped.jpg[/img:584dc12ee9]
[img:584dc12ee9]http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/6239/img1339croppedjpg.jpg[/img:584dc12ee9]
I continued around the south end of the cove and up the west shore. I mostly threw the spinnerbait, but also dragged a small black buzzbait over the beds of lily pads. It wasn't until I retrieved the spinnerbait past the end of a dock that I saw a 20 inch chain pickerel flash up and hit the trailer hook on the spinnerbait about three feet away from The Other Woman:
[img:584dc12ee9]http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/6941/img1342cropped.jpg[/img:584dc12ee9]
I continued around the west and north shores of the cove, before cutting across the cove past the buoy-marked shallow rocks and back to the ramp. I didn't get any more hits. The only fish that my finder marked was 13 feet deep in 14 feet of water. I got off of the water by 12:25 pm. If I had had more time, I would have tried fishing deeper, probably with a Texas rigged soft plastic creature bait in 12 to 15 feet of water.
Author:
slim2043
Date:
Oct 19, 2011
Message:
That bass looks in rough shape. He was trying to get his last meal and ended up on your line instead ;)
Author:
jbrown815
Date:
Oct 19, 2011
Message:
I want a pickerel before the end of the year. I've never caught one.
Next
Home
|
Topics
|
Menu