I was headed to Big Lake but opted for Clear instead. All the action I had tonight took place in the span of one hour except for one strike right before I left.

As usual I started fishing the pilings out from the launch. A couple was fishing off the boat ramp so I launched off the gravel side and fished around the wind blown shallows for a bit before heading out piling row. I fished these into the wind all the way to the end and into about twenty feet of water with jigs, spinnerbaits and worms with nothing to show for any of it. I let the wind push me back down the other side repeating the process and same result. I decided to head a little ways over to the north shore and fished shallow and around the few pilings here and again no dice.

I put the trolling motor on high and blitzed from spot to spot as I know where I want to fish on this lake this time of year. I reached spot number three, slowed the trolling motor down and picked up my trusty swim jig. My first cast was along side a log in about 8 feet of water and nothing. My second cast was along a log in 5 feet of water and I crawled the thing. About three feet off the front of the boat I felt the best feeling in the world.....THUNK! A split second later and the second best feeling WEIGHT! She ran under the log and I shoved my rod in the water to protect my line, then kicked the trolling motor on to get distance from the cover she ran under. When she cleared I knew she was over 6lbs! A couple jumps and a lot of pulling later and she was on the scale and rubbing right up against 8lbs! Finally a toad! I got some pics and away she went. This was the beginning of 60 minutes of chaos....

I cast the area a bit to see if a male was with her before moving on to my next spot. Once there bang, 5lber. A couple casts later 4.5lber. Motor to the next spot 2lber....sensing he may have been with a female I repeated the cast and thunk, 6lber! (kissing the camera) It was on at this point and I hated to even stop and take pics! Then I made a cast really shallow next to a dock ramp and THUNK! This thing ran me under the dock before I knew what was what. Seconds into the fight and SNAG!! I motored over, keeping pressure on the fish but when I got to the spot all I could see was a white belly and the wake of a tail, I dropped the rod under the dock to try and free it but the line had been pulled into the wood of the dock. I went shoulders deep laying on my belly and even thought about stripping down and getting in to get her unstuck.....finally I resigned myself to snapping the line, I hated to do it but a couple thrashes and a swirling wake and away she went...

That was the grand finale to the bite for me tonight. I fished several other sections of the lake to no avail. Made a pass back through each spot before leaving and only had one smack that I missed. No complaints but I had visions of Terrell last year and thought it was about to get truly epic. A good outing for a 4 hour blast from hole to hole, I'll take it! Nice to see the big girls starting to show finally, I can't wait til Saturday!

Water temps were mid to upper 50's and the wind was about 8-10mph out of the south.

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