Spring and Early Summer Bassin'

This Ute Lake Smallie hit a topwater as it landed right next to the bank.

It has been a busy and fruitful spring and a lot of fun bass fishing.  A variety of lures have been used to land numbers of fish so far this year.

     I fish the Rocky Mountain Team Series and a quick run-down of the events tells the story.  At Pueblo Lake the end of April and first of May, all three species of bass were caught by Team Jones and Herb Turner.  We started fishing shallow near point drop-offs.  To experiment, I cast out a Hollow-Belly Swimbait and in two casts got hammered by a fish, but not hooked-up.  I pointed out the spot to my partner who cast a Lucky Craft Pointer to the keeper smallmouth, who hit it instantly.  That spot provided a few keepers and many smaller bass.  The next day, the same spot produced back-to-back keeper spotted bass early, but the keeper sized fish were few, so we left and hit other places.  The most productive spots were just inside a cove mouth, with the pointer, and each place usually produced several fish.  We ended up 3^rd in the 40 boat field. 

     The second tournament was at Wilson Lake, KS, May 21.  This large reservoir was a little tough to get many large fish, but the smaller ones were plentiful.  We caught topwater bass all day long, both days, in overcast skies and sunny.  Over 60 fish caught but only nine keepers over two days kept us down in the pack.  The most productive pattern at Wilson was flipping to reeds that were shallow.

     Next was Ute Lake, NM on June 11^th.  Again, topwater was a key pattern, but mostly early.  A few could be coaxed into hitting during the day, but not many.  After the sun got up, a Texas-rigged Chigger Craw cast into bushes was our best pattern.  The fish were shallow, and the days were mid-90’s to over 100 degrees.  Team Jones/Turner ended up 12^th.  The top finishers all counted on flipping after the sun came out.

     The Rocky Mountain Team Series is a team tournament format with 4 qualifying events and a championship.  The qualifying season finishes at Navajo Lake in August and the TroKar Championship will return to Pueblo, with a guaranteed $2000 payout for 1^st Place.  There are already many new sponsors lined up for next year, so check out the website for information and watch for news there and on the facebook page for RMTS.



Herb with a Santa Rosa 3.75 lb. Smallmouth bass.



     After the Ute Lake event, several teams decided to have some fun and go to nearby Santa Rosa, NM to fish Santa Rosa Lake.  This is a smaller lake that each year, because of water demands of agriculture, draws down to extremely low levels.  In the spring and early summer, before drawdown gets too drastic, the boating and fishing is as extreme; monster crappie, very good bass and walleye.  We only went for a few hours Monday morning, but had many bass over 3 lbs. and a lot of crappie for that short time.



A Santa Rosa crappie, and a small one, too.  This lake has some Monster Crappie in it and we usually catch them with bass lures during a tournament.



     This was my first chance to use a new line called NanoFil, a hybrid between mono- and braid, this line is great for using on spinning reels. Info can be found at the link to the right of this page. It spools and casts like braid, has little visibility, and the 12 lb. test has only 4 lb. diameter. This gives spinning reels the ability to use low diameter line and light lures without giving up line strength. The new line worked great and even though I was fishing rocks and timber, getting snagged often, the line held up, did not fray, and when snagged I bent the hooks and never broke the line.



DBM member Chet with an
Antelope Lake largemouth bass.



     This past weekend, June 25^th, the Denver Bassmasters had an event at Sebelius Reservoir outside Norton, KS.  Leaving early on Friday my draw partner and I, along with another boat from the club, stopped at Antelope Lake in KS.  We had a good time flipping up many largemouth from the shade of logs using soft plastics, Texas-rigged; mine were all Chigger Craws in green pumpkin color.  This small fishery has a slot limit and all fish between 13-18 inches had to be released.  This provided many catches in the 16-17 inch range.

At Sebelius (we all call it Norton) the lake is recovering from an extended drought of several years.  The lake is back up now and the previous years of low water has promoted a lot more grass and weed growth in the lake than was seen before the drought.  At this two day event the winner had over 26 lbs. of largemouth bass, frogging and flipping bushes and timber.  The top four anglers had over 20 lbs.  I ended up 6^th with just less than 19 lbs.  The bass would hit a topwater all day and when the sun was up flipping bushes and near weeds were also catching fish.  But the star for me was an all-day frog bite.  We would catch a lot of bass on buzzbaits early, casting over and near weeds, but the frog was better.  The bass would sip the buzzbait, with hardly a blow-up at all and I usually hooked them with the trailer hook.  But when the bass hit the frog they KILLED IT!  Usually when frog fishing the hook-up percentage suffers somewhat but not this time.  Almost every bass that hit the frog got to the boat.  It was great fun fishing with the club guys and having a good time catching lots of fish.

Fish On!
Jeff