Against All Odds

Friday's are always the hardest day of the week for me.  I am the most sleep deprived and beat from five days of a third shift work week.  Charles wanted to check out Long Beach Bay, however I knew I just didn't have it in me to battle through the LA traffic.  Instead, I asked him to come over to fish my local bass lakes in my pram.  I knocked back a red bull and loaded the boat with my 6wt and the boat bag, and we were off. 

We headed over to Puddingstone Reservoir not knowing what the expect.  It is a large lake for the pram and we wanted to find a launch point closest to one of the prime bass spots.  It was a nightmare getting my boat on the water to say the least.  A younger version of Lieutenant Ramathorn from Super Troopers

Let me see your boat registration sir. 

  Nearly a hour later we finally got on the water.  But I could sense Ramathorn glassing me from the other side of the lake since I launched my boat from the non-motorized lagoon.  My casting was compromised for at least a few hours due to the stress and tension. 

I fished my size 4 olive mutated olive bugger most of the afternoon.  Several hard takes were on this fly as I was either fixing a knot in my fly line or re-poisoning the boat due to wind gusts. Since the bass were taking this particular fly, I felt no need to change it until sun down. 

The little pram steadily fought clear across the opposite side of the lake, despite the wind chop and wakes caused by speed boaters.  This lagoon was clearly more shallow with much more bass structure.  I lost another bass strike in this lagoon and decided to switch out my spool for floating line.  From the corner of my eye I saw a big splash from either a bass or carp.  It was a big fish and it is common for carp to jump for no apparent reason.  However, a part of me wants to believe it was a large bass inhaling one of the young coots fleeing toward the brushy bank. 

Against all odds, I decided to tie on a frog gurgler popper.  We drifted along the side of a submerged tree.  I cast my popper and let it sit for a moment... gave it a few pops and let it sit... a swell of water formed around the frog and like a giant straw.  I set the hook and the bass wrestled my 6wt and I all the way to the boat. She was a beauty, possibly the best looking bass I've caught.  

My first bass on topwater!

We made multiple drifts around this lagoon but it seemed the bass got tight lipped.  Charles lost a few bass on his topwater baitfish pattern and had to face the skunk...  We initially swore we were never retuning to this lake, however we may just give it another chance.