Wednesday on St. Mary�s Lake

Type: Nontidal
Region: Southern
Location: St. Mary's Lake

I hadn�t fished St. Mary�s Lake in a while so I loaded up the Jeep and headed over to the lake. I arrived a little after 9:00 a.m. I had rigged up three rods, one with a beetle spin, another with a Ned Rig, and the last with a top water frog.

I started the paddle across the lake but not without first dropping a line in to troll across. I hooked a fish immediately but the small fish came unbuttoned. I continued across the lake to a point that had wind blowing across from the east. I casted a Ned Rig and worked the bait across the bottom towards deeper water. My line became heavy immediately and I set. The first of 49 largemouth bass came up and out of the water before I gently landed it into my kayak.

I continued casting and landing an additional four fish. Most of them 12�s or slightly smaller. I then worked my way to a small cove casting a top water frog without any luck. I tried a few other baits too. I then worked my way back to the point and I caught another bass.

I then switched one of my rod�s baits to a jig dressed with a 1/4oz paddle. I worked my way along the shoreline to my next location. I switched back to the Ned Rig, casting around a few buoy markers. My line became heavy, setting the hook I landed another bass. I continued working the buoys for a few moments catching another four bass. The fish were slightly smaller then the previous six fish. So I decided to work a group of stickups in a nearby cove, catching 16 bass between 12 and 16�s. This pattern continued, my line would get heavy and I�d set the hook with the fish breaking the water as I worked them back to the boat.

I fished two additional groups of stickup, finding a pattern. The fish I caught in all clusters of stickups were gathering around the outer edges near deeper water. The fish I caught were in six foot to nine foot of water. My last cast before leaving and my attempt to round up to 50 bass was dock side. I cast the Ned Rig into the shallows to the left of the retaining wall and retrieved the bait before it hit the grass bottom. A hard strike however, it wasn�t a bass but a small pickerel.

I spoke to a couple who were loading up their boat to leave. As I was. They said they had caught 44 bass on wacky worm and two pickerel. Seems the bass were on today.

A great day on the water.