Brown Bass Burner

Woke up at 4....hit the road shortly afterwards...arrived at the lake ramp @ 8:00 am and was greeted by a lake that had its water level dropped by more than four feet &three foot waves rolling into the back of the boat while launching my rig. Layered the clothes big time with long johns, insulated pants, 3 shirts, jacket, beanie, neckwarmer and ready to go fishing!
Forgot to "mic up" for video/camera and had to strip down again while trying to keep my balance in 3 foot rollers and stay on the trolling motor...actually pretty funny stuff if you we`re watching from shore.

Finally got set up and headed to a rocky point with a weed flat nearby and main lake basin within site.
Started tossing crankbaits and hit 2 small fish right away, and got bumped 4 times & lost a bruiser right under the boat.
Decided to pick up the jerkbait and use a longer pause cadence to see if these fish wanted the "long pause" before they decided to eat my baits...worked on 2 smaller fish again, but stung one big fish which might have been snagged, came off before I got a chance to view it.

Switched up between the 5XD and jerkbait for 45 mins to 1 hour with mixed reviews...fished the dropping edges from 8-14 feet and saw mega "hooks" on the front sonar...p/u the drop shot and starting catching peanut sized bass...not for me...I wanted action and excitement on this day so I decided to head to some sharp dropping rock points with scattered cabbage weed patches and hit 2 good fish back to back...the first one hit like a ton of bricks....the 2nd fish, bumped my bait, then locked it up bigtime...made for good tv!

Fished that point for maybe another 20 mins or so before heading to a similar point with a shallow back bay near by with mega pads and eel grass and hit another good smallie after about 25-30 casts on the inside edge of one of the eel grass patches.

Feeling pretty good about myself, now that I got 3 good fish in about 1+ hours of casting...BUT, the weather turned nasty, higher waves, rain , sleet and dropping temps put a slight lock jaw on the smallies until the sun came back out and went back to similar points and edges and caught 5 more decent, hard striking bass that made my day despite the cold hands and bone chilling winds.

Was fishing with Strike King 1/2 ounce burner spinnerbaits in white/chart tones with dual willowleaf blades, St.Croix legend xtreme rod-6'6" medium heavy with an Ardent C400 Fishouflage reel loaded with 15 pound fluorocarbon line.
Key to making the day a success was simply a case of sticking it out and keep casting, over and over again to the same locations until I either came across a fresh fish who entered the locations or provoked one of the fish in the area to finally smack the bait instead of watching it go by time and time again.
The scraps we`re very entertaining, but with the dropping water temps, these bass we`re in no mood to jump, but gave some awesome surface rolls when they we`re hooked and bull-dogged hard right to the boat....gotta love the hard fighting smallmouth.
Was back on the highway just before dark and getting ready for the next road trip to a place a bit farther southwest this time and an opportunity to put my shorts and T`s back on when I`m pitchin` & flippin` for buckets.