My partner & I braved the cold & rainy weather today so we would not be completely unprepared for our club tournament next weekend.  We arrived at Deer Lake at about 7:45am and were on the lake by 8am.  Unfortunately I did not put any map study time into this trip and never had been on Deer before.  So the first bit of agenda was to take a cruise around the lake and get the lay of the land.   Main lake water temps were about 51-52F, which dropped from the reported 55-57 last weekend.

So I cruised around the lake, map in hand, slowed down in a few places and circled a few areas that good looking depth changes and contours.  I did notice that there is not a lot of early weed growth on this lake.  So we started in area outside of a shallow spawning area that some good weed growth.  I caught a quick fish on a Rapala Glass Shad Rap (Perch) and then hat a few hits on my Husky Jerk .  My partner had several hits on a Rattlin Rogue but nothing hooked up.  We tried some chatterbaits, lipless cranks, shakey heads, mojo rigs, and Gambler Swim Blades in this area as well, no more fish.

I went up into the shallow area to look it over, banking that it will be warmer next weekend and figured the fish would be using it then.  We were surprised to see some nice bass relating to wood in very shallow water.  We then covered the weed flat with Swim Jigs & Chatterbaits, I caught a few small bass & a northern, while my partner lost his $10 Chatterbait to a 3ft Musky

We followed the weed edge out of the cove and I picked up a keeper fish on a XR-10 Rapala X-Rap in a clown color.  Though he only had the very rear hook, which leads me to believe he really did not want it that bad.  We then shifted in to fish some wood where I got a 12″ bass on a texas rigged green pumpkin Baby Brush Hog .  We continued the day fishing in & out in areas that looked to have the most potential for next weekend.  We picked up a fish here and there on soft plastics and X-raps, most of my bites came on a Pumpkin Melon Lake Fork Baby Ring Fry Side Note: the shallow boat canal on the far east end of the lake was loaded with nice crappie & gills.   People were getting nice 10-12″ crappies from there docks.  Tomorrow, my partner for Wapogasset will head over there to practice up for Sunday’s tournament.

Rich
www.richlindgren.com
basstournament.blogspot.com