Don't be fooled by surface temps

[singingdog]

We got on a good speck/laker lake yesterday. I had caught a 21" speck there last week and wanted to get back and try again before the water got too warm. My finder was reading 67-68 degrees. I was worried that the specks would have gone deep, but they were still up against shore, in shallow water adjacent to deep drop offs. They were doing that "swipe" thing that specks and splake sometimes do: a spoon would get tapped 3 or 4 times, but no hook-up. I watched one speck take 3 passes on a spoon as I reeled it in, hitting it with it's head but not biting it. It was going to be one of those speck days: looking for the pattern that would finally get them hitting.

 

We decided to try the other shoreline, so I tossed a small countdown rapala behind the yak and started paddling across, flatlining the rapala with no real hope of hooking up. As soon as I was over 40' of water, BAM! Rod bent all the way over and I'm fighting a 21" laker. It's just inside the slot, so I release it, thinking "that's odd, I thought they would be much deeper at these water temps." No more than 5 minutes later, BAM! Another nice laker, right in the slot limit. The lure is no more than 7' deep, over 40-50' of featureless water: no humps, no structure.

 

The rest of the day went that way. I had 8 lakers, all right in the slot, most over 40-60' of water (the exception was one that hit in about 8' of water), hitting a plug that was running about 7' deep. These fish were super-aggressive, hitting hard and fighting all the way to the boat and then some. My guess is that the surface water is warm, but only about 2-3' down the water is back down to 60 degrees. We watched another boat trolling deep through the same water with no hook-ups at all.

 

We never did figure out the speck bite. I threw the tackle box at them with no hook-ups. Ah well, that's speck fishing.

Edited May 24, 2010 by singingdog

[Roy]

Great report! Just when we think we have them figured, they change the rules. I guess if they were that predictable it might become boring. Glad you had a good day.