got a chance to do 4 days of fishing at my cottage, didn't get as many hours on the water as I would of liked, and I didn't experiment with all the techniques I wanted to because as I'm sure you all know, it's easy to get stuck in your same habits/patterns. I did however start learning to use tubes, both by vertically jigging them and by dragging them with the boat, both methods were productive.
I fished the same shoal/hump all 4 days (probably a huge mistake) in sweltering heat, it was over 30 degrees all 4 days once the sun was up, Most days I fished from 6-10 or 7-11 am, then again from 7-9pm, first few days I was drop shotting minnows/worms and found that most fish were concentrated to the side of the hump where the wind was blowing, first few days got to be somewhat frustrating because before your minnow or worm would even reach the bottom a rock bass would have it, and if not a rock bass a 4-6 inch smallmouth, the novelty quickly wore off, on the first day though in the evening I got my first and only decent bass of the trip, it was around 16 inches so I'm guessing around 1 or 1.5 lbs, maybe one of you bass pros can help me out here.
Spinning wasn't working at all, tried inline spinners tipped with a plastic grub, spinnerbaits, and minnows/crankbaits
The second or third day I started experimenting with 3.5" KVD coffee tubes, first by vertically jigging, I was happy because it at least kept most of the rock bass off, although I did feel lots of bites that seemed to be bass that couldn't get it in their mouth's and set the hook a ton of times with no fish to show, the tubes were working for me and I spent most of the rest of the trip dragging them or jigging, caught lots of bass between 8-15 inches, probably 30-40 all together, I kept maybe 5, and the big one for fillets. I forgot how much fun these smaller smallmouth could be, they fight like crazy, even the 8" ones.
the highlight of the trip was a 24", 5lb walleye that my friend caught after we drifted into some flats in around 30 FOW, on a worm and split shot, the pics below are of the bass and walleye.
