5 mph breeze can be tolerated.
After nearly a week of some of the nasty winds of this season so far, Dad saw one little clear spot in the weather forecast so with almost no planning we jumped at the chance to go fishing again. I will admit, I jump at ANY chance to go fishing whether the wind is blowing, it is raining, we are under a severe winter weather advisory, or even high nuclear radiation alerts but then I also make no claims on sanity either. Dad is pretty fussy about those things so going fishing with him always turns out decent and actually catching fish at that point is just icing on the cake.
Creek opening at Lake Henry
It had gotten down to about 29 degrees on Monday night so we did not fly out of town at five in the morning as we normally might. We meandered along out of here about eight o’clock and headed back for Lake Henry. At this point, most of you are thinking that after us getting skunked twice down there, we would either wise up and go somewhere else or I would at least quit telling everyone that we even went fishing at all.
Catching some rays
We are truly gluttons for punishment if the truth be known. The breeze was about 5 mph when we arrived and there was a chill in the air but I was still in shorts. I did leave the hoodie on most of the day though. Once we had gotten out of the breeze, it was a really nice treat just being out there. We started off right where we had left off last time (catching nothing) and after a few hundred yards of shoreline, we were beginning to question if any fish even survived the winter here.
#1 for the day.
We eventually wandered up the creek, a new spot for us at Lake Henry, with no paddle to be found. What a great looking creek this is! I cannot believe we had never ventured into there before as often as we have fished this lake. Fifty feet into the creek, Dad caught the first bass of the day and then proceeded to catch five more until we were so far up there we thought we may not get turned back around to get out. Dad was just not sure he wanted to try backing all the way out. We had probably gone over 200 yards into the creek before we dared not go further.
Nearly to the limit of our creek travels.
The water on the main lake was 53 degrees but once we got to the creek, it warmed nicely and we found a little bit of 60 degree water. The same black and blue jig Dad had caught fish on at Mitchell last week proved to do the best again this week. After we did get turned around, he proceeded to catch 4-5 more fish on the way back out, being the main reason I do not make fishing bets with the human seine net (Dad). Most everything we saw on Tuesday was 12-15 inches give or take a quarter inch.
Finally got that skunk smell out of the back of the boat.
That skunk smell in the back of the boat (where I sit) was really getting ripe by this time. It was after we actually left the creek and worked a small stretch that really didn’t look all that good for bass fishing that I finally caught my first bass of the season. Proving once again that even a blind horse will find the occasional apple. We fished another hour or so but my fish turned out to be the last of the day and we left convinced, that we will be fishing that creek again. I have no doubt, the creek will lure us back with some regularity.
Dad's trained fish. He could whistle her to jump right onto his thumb.
The only thing that creek lacked was bass of the larger size. We have been stuck on fishing Lake Henry after a fantastic trip two years ago when we put two fish in the boat in one day that weighed over 8 pounds. We have tried without success to recreate the conditions we had that day but there are just so many variables, it might never happen again. It won’t keep us from trying though. We discussed a few other places for trying next week. If the winds can give us a little break, we will wander out again.
