[carbonbass]

Hey guys,

I've still been fishing in the heat, just not posting as much. I realized I hadn't fished lake GT in quite a while and haven't actually taken the new pedal yak out there yet. Hard to resist the 8 mile drive to a quiet non-crowded local reservoir. I actually wanted to target both LMB and hybrids, and launched closer to the lower end of the lake. I metered some bait balls and dropped slab spoons and micro swimbaits on jig heads into the clouds for no luck, although I did have a missed strike fairly early on. As the sun started to set I decided to bust out the larger swimbaits and tied on a deps 175 glide bait in rainbow trout. I've been fine tuning my glide bait craft and putting more time into them. Not too many casts in, I tossed it up along some vertical structure and I get the "I must've hung up" feeling. It started pulling the other way, and so did I. Sadly the fight was somewhat anticlimactic, the usual open mouth headshakes skating across the surface but she gave up fairly easily. A long and skinny PB - 25" and 6 and a half pounds (the scale teetered between just under 6 1/2 to 6 3/4). She appeared to have ulcers inside her mouth on her upper jaw, I later researched that could be leeches and would explain the malnourished fish. I got a dink shortly after and figured I wouldn't out-do the giant so I packed it in. Fun to get a good one, but I'm right back on the quest for a DD!

 

[carbonbass]

Not sure, there weren't any on her at the time but if you look in the mouth open picture you can see the sores I mentioned, they were too big to be hook injuries. Also the tape pic with the fish laying down you can see a sore on its head behind its eye, the fish was beat up for sure. Looking at length to weight conversion charts this fish should be 8-10lbs if healthy and plump. I had to revive it several times to get it to swim away strong.

 

[carbonbass]

I used to fish GT alot. That is a fine specimen of bass right there. They are in there, but very elusive. I think in 4 years I may have landed a half dozen that pushed 4 to 5, and got my own monster there, 26+ inches, and in the 9+ range...scale was broken and didnt want to risk the fish's health to run to Academy. Usually have better luck on the big fish up in the timber in the river channel.

The pics make her look prettier than she was, I don't know why but thats 2 big fish for me in a couple months that were big but sickly.

 

[carbonbass]

Do they stock GT with trout? You should check out Oliver Ngy fishing big swimbaits on ladybird lake, one of the videos he’s using a trout pattern swimbait and points out there are no trout in the lake. I think a couple things are at play there - the color isn’t the most important aspect (action first) but if we were to talk about color being a factor, maybe it’s instinctual? Last but not least, I think with the bass being opportunistic feeders they will try to eat anything that resembles a fish that they can get their mouth around.