I’ve been out of town for the last 8 days and could not get this up til now, but wanted to make a short report on my trip up to Paynesville last week.
Main lake temps were 61-63 degrees, found a few willing fish in 3 to 5 feet of water. What worked the best was throwing stick worms in 4″ inch size. The first fish measured 21 inches with 16 1/2 girth. Just an awesome fish. I fished this fish for 20 minutes, it hooked up once but came off and would just ignored the bait after that. I left and went down the shoreline and caught some 15 to 17 inch Smallmouth.
Came back to this fish when I had to leave and go home. Threw to it for another 15 minutes, I said, two more casts then have to go, them BAMM. Just a terrific fish and a very tough battle but got it boated for a few pictures.
The second picture is a fish that measured 20 1/2 inches and was caught the evening before. Very difficult to see the target areas I wanted to throw to with the cloud cover and late sunset, but saw this bed and was able to put this fish in the boat quite easily.
The outfit I use for this presentation is a med action open face with 8 pound mono, 2/0 EWG with the worm.
Good Luck,
Jack 
