Another beautiful day to be on the lake.

Type: Nontidal
Region: Central
Location: Gaithersburg, MD location: Little Seneca Lake in Boyds, MD

Another beautiful spring day to be out on the lake. Just enough of a breeze today to push the kayak down the shoreline at the right speed to pitch a crankbait or a plastic worm to promising looking spots.

The water temperature has jumped up to 66 to 69 degrees. Saw two largemouth bass in the four pound range in very shallow water. Left them alone as I suspect those two would be female bass zeroing in on a place to spawn. Caught 10 largemouth bass, mostly the 12 to 14 inch variety with the two largest measuring right around the 17 inch mark. I used a 10 inch Culprit Plastic Worm (texas rigged in crawdad color) to probe locations with submerged timber. On the shoreline areas with no visible cover I used the Koppers Livetarget Pumpkinseed. Twitched the Livetarget lure just a foot beneath the surface, doing my best to make it look like a sunfish in trouble. Was rewarded as the bass would boil up to vaporize the lure in clear sight (just a fun way to fish!). Also spent a couple of hours fishing locations and lures that have produced Tiger Musky in the past but had no hits and no followers.

Was trying to remember how long I have been doing this but for at least the past ten years I have pinched down the barbs on all my hooks. I may have lost a couple of fish at boat side (we professionals refer to that as a "long range release") but I honestly do not see that by going "barbless" that it has caused me to lose fish. Since I'm virtually 100% catch and release I sure like that those hooks slide out easily with much less damage to the fish.