70 degree water temps

Only got out a couple hours today – but was surprised water temp hit 71. Tough bite – I tried everything, junk fishing at its finest to grind out a few bites. Even caught first one of the year on a Buzzbait!

I was smallmouth fishing yesterday on Mille Lacs and observed 62.5 on the big lake. Saw some beds, but no fish on them. All the fish I caught were definitely still prespawn too.

69 degrees around Aitkin area…very tough bite.

I’ve often wondered where bass really go in that annual funk between opener and spawn. Last week was great, this week WTH did they go? I have Livescope and 360… they are not out deep. They were not on the beds. Best I can figure is they hunker way down in the emerging weeds and hide until they are ready to bed. I threw swim jigs, Grassmasters, Texas Rigs, etc into those weed beds and caught one.Too much of the fine, green moss to deal with… After awhile, I almost looked up in the sky and trees at one point to see if they were hiding up there ?!?

I actually had a decent morning throwing frogs in the reeds in about 2 ft.exciting strikes, and then drag threw the slop. Better hook up ratio than usual. I usually have a Miguel Sano-like average. Perfect day for it—calm and overcast. Docks haven’t been very good for me yet.

ssaamm wrote:

Perfect day for it—calm and overcast.

Where? It was sunny and windy in the NW metro!

Pequot Lakes. 70 degree water.

gimruis wrote:

I was smallmouth fishing yesterday on Mille Lacs and observed 62.5 on the big lake. Saw some beds, but no fish on them. All the fish I caught were definitely still prespawn too.

It was 68 today west side.

Here are some of the smallmouth I caught on Friday. They were all prespawn females between 18.5 – 19.5 inches.

I too have either struggled or done OK 1 lake was all small bass under the docks wacky worming but very slow. Another lake I could see a bed or to but nothing not even on the weed edge. I think many are pre spawn yet even with the warm temps. I’m glad it’s just not me struggling either.

68 I found in Emily. Bite was awesome in my area.

Bite was very good on chisago last night fished 5pm to dark. 8 to 12 ft of water. Neko rig was key. A drop shot would have been good I bet but I was to lazy to rig one up.

68 degree water last night. Fished weed lines

The bite has been mediocre for me since Opener. The water level is low and we have about 3 times the lake’s normal visibility. Definitely been off on Platte/Sullivan. Pike have been on fire.

Spent a little time on a Wright County lake yesterday afternoon during the cold front. Surface temp ranged from 68-71deg. Found a ton of bass on beds along shorelines. I did target them for a short time, catching a few mid-size fish on a wacky senko. Looked to be males guarding the beds. Couldn’t get anything to go out on the weed edge. And speaking of weeds, they were in full effect out to about 12fow standing 6-8′ tall already, which kinda surprised me.

We headed out to clearwater early on Sat. looking to have a fun day chasing bass. I think I cursed us on the way there. I said at lease we have 1 more week before we have to worry about running into a Bass Tourney out there – WRONG. Got to the landing and it was full of Bass boat trailers. They must have been doing some type of paper tourney. We decided to not fight all those fishermen for spots and just headed to a different lake. Fished two different lakes and had water temps between 69-72 Deg. Fishing was just so so. The shallow bite seemed to be off on both lakes we tried. Not sure why. Just did not see many fish shallow. We did end up catching a few fish out in slightly deeper water ( 8-12 Ft. ) on Jigworms. This is much earlier than I normally start the jigworm fishing, but I guess you never know unless you try. Hopefully we can get past this spawn and post spawn period sooner than normal this season.

fishthumper wrote:

We headed out to clearwater early on Sat. looking to have a fun day chasing bass. I think I cursed us on the way there. I said at lease we have 1 more week before we have to worry about running into a Bass Tourney out there – WRONG. Got to the landing and it was full of Bass boat trailers. They must have been doing some type of paper tourney. We decided to not fight all those fishermen for spots and just headed to a different lake. Fished two different lakes and had water temps between 69-72 Deg. Fishing was just so so. The shallow bite seemed to be off on both lakes we tried. Not sure why. Just did not see many fish shallow. We did end up catching a few fish out in slightly deeper water ( 8-12 Ft. ) on Jigworms. This is much earlier than I normally start the jigworm fishing, but I guess you never know unless you try. Hopefully we can get past this spawn and post spawn period sooner than normal this season.

Chisago I was thinking must of had something going as well, but I’m not sure. Every boat on the water was a fancy fancy bass boat. Unless the game is just changing that much. Its normal to see 4 or 5 on a Sunday evening. But there were at least 25 rigs out there.

Cottonwood stuff is starting to fly around- is that supposed to signal something?

tim hurley wrote:

Cottonwood stuff is starting to fly around- is that supposed to signal something?

Allergies – time for me to get some Claritin again ~

Nice fish Gimruis!

FryDog62 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tim hurley wrote:</div>
Cottonwood stuff is starting to fly around- is that supposed to signal something?

Allergies – time for me to get some Claritin again ~

Mine have been awful for about a month

My wife and I were out of town all last week, so yesterday was my opener. My opening routine for 20 years has been a lake 1/2 mile from our house. Instead, yesterday I went to probably my favorite lake in the west metro. Started out with a Choppo but the emergent weeds kept fouling the hooks. Put on my favorite chatterbait and never looked back. Caught almost 40 bass from 1 1/2 to 4 lbs. in 5 hours. Water temps hit 73 degrees with minimal sun. They were all in 2-4 feet of water and medium to heavy weed cover. Some were up against the bank, most were out on the flats. Caught 5 on a 100 foot stretch of the bank, went back 2 hours later and caught 5 more. Now I don’t feel bad about missing the first week of the season!!!