We launched the boat at the Clear Lake Oaks at around 6:45. Because of all the storms we've had these past few weeks, the lake has come up several feet. Surprisingly the water in the lower part of the Rattlesnake Arm is still quite clear (3 feet). Up north though I hear it's much dirtier. We started off throwing tubes and shakeyheads on some of the rock piles just outside the keys, and around Rattlesnake Island. We bounced around from one rock pile to the next, and noticed that a few spots were absolutely dead, while other spots we would catch several fish. There was no in between, you would either find a school of fish, or you would find the Dead Sea. Most of the bass were caught in 5-10 feet of water, on the top part of a rocky ledge or the pinnacle of the rock pile. We would mark a lot of fish sitting in 15-20 feet, but they didn't seem to be as active as the shallow bass. It stayed overcast the whole day with a shower every once in a while. In the morning the wind was quite calm, but when a little breeze would pick up we would start throwing ripbaits a little. A Lucky Craft Staysee in chartreuse shad caught a couple nice bass, one just over 4 pounds. At around noon, we worked our way to the narrows and Shag Rock. After spending an hour up in that area without a bite, we headed back to where we started. We caught a couple more bass, but then a cold north wind started blowing. It seemed to have turned off the fish sitting on the rock piles, so we headed into the keys to fish some protected water. I caught a nice one right away on a black spinnerbait. Then Chris caught a few 4 pounders flipping a black and blue jig with a Double Wide Beaver as a trailer. By the end of the day we caught at least 15 bass with the largest going 5.5 pounds. Our best 5 would have gone around 21-22 pounds. Not bad for a cold day in February.
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Rus Snyders Guide Service
