4/4 & 4/5 LM reports (plus ninja kayaker sighting!)

Saturday
Mark (yessnoo) drove up from W Seattle to my house in Stanwood. My yak was already in the back of my pickup. After squeezing his yak in next to mine, we headed north towards Bellingham.

After turning onto Lake Terrell Rd. we started catching glimpses of water and little brush covered islands...it looked awesome! We pulled into the Lake Terrell boat ramp at noon (by some miracle, we were actually on time) and met up with Brian ('Yak Monkey). Brian had heard reports of at least a few bass being caught, so although the water temps were still pretty cold (one of the bass boat guys said 49 degrees was the highest temp he'd found) we headed out moderately optimistic about our chances.

At the start, based on Brian's intel of white spinnerbaits and shallow running rapalas, all three of us were fishing fairly aggressively and covering a lot of water.

We were working the shoreline areas heading east from the ramp, and I was looking forward to rounding a nearby point and then heading into the areas that Mark and I had glimpsed from the road. As we rounded the point, however, we were greeted by a row of signs, spaced 50 yds between each sign, and stretching clear across the lake. The message was "no public entry" or something like that... Some folks in a nearby boat stated that it might be a bird sanctuary.

Since we couldn't head into the very bassy looking bird sanctuary, we headed for a brushy looking shoreline across the lake. At that point, the three of us slowed things down. I started anchoring 10 - 15 yards out from promising looking reed beds that also featured woody structure on their outside edges. My spinning rod was rigged for my favorite early season tactic - slowly working large carolina rigged plastic worms through woody cover.

While working one such spot, I started chatting with one of the bass boat dudes. He mentioned that the water temp was 49 degrees. I responded, while sliding my worm over an exposed limb, that it's probably still a few degrees too cold. But, at that moment my brain slowly grasped the fact that, oddly, my line had gone slack. As I carefully reeled in the slack, it became obvious that a bass was happily munching on my worm while heading back to deeper water. By the time I reeled in the slack and set the hook, the big girl was right next to me. Fortunately, the hook set, while deeper than normal, was not in the soft esophagus tissue, and the hooked popped out easily.

She measured out at 20.5 inches (thanks to Mark & Brian for measurement and photo assistance!) and was then released in good shape.

Funny story for the day: I promised my wife that I wouldn't be late for a 6 PM party we planned to attend. At around 2 PM (or so we thought) Brian asked if we wanted to stop for a brew before heading south. Of course that was a tremendous idea so we agreed that we needed to be back at the ramp by 4 PM. Brian and I both have Cuda 240's with GPS and time of day. Well, it turns out that the clock feature on the 240 doesn't automatically adjust when the time changes...OOPS! At 4:15 we were loaded up and about ready to head to wherever Brian was taking us, when my phone rang. It was my wife calling to make sure we were on our way home. A little confused, I said we were just going to stop for a quick beer, but we'd still be home on time. Let's just say that that was not the right answer...and leave it at that. So, with apologies to Brian, we skipped the beer and hightailed it for home... We were about 20 minutes late, but I told Sally that, since I was with Mark, and Mark is typically 30 - 40 minutes late for everything except work, we were actually 20 minutes early  ... Jeez, no sense of humor... she didn't even give a courtesy laugh!

Sunday
So that we could go fishing again the next morning, Mark attended the party with us and spent the night... Good thing, because without Mark being there I wasn't going anywhere!

So, anyway, Mark agreed to try the carolina rig. Within 10 -20 minutes of putting in, he tucked a cast perfectly under a fallen tree and hooked up with a twin of the bass I caught yesterday! We fished for a few more hours, but with no more luck.

Photos from both days are shown below.

- Karl


SATURDAY'S PICS

Prep Time


Brian cruisin to the first spot


Preparing for first cast


Brian and Mark Cruising


Brian parked in the tules


Yes! My 1st 2009 bass!


Released unharmed


Mark, worried about getting too much sun, does his best ninja yakker imitation




Mark took this cool photo. He loses coolness points, however, for thinking the beaver was an otter... 



SUNDAY'S PICS

Mark yells "FISH ON!!"  Note: Check out the custom covered parking area for the quad in the background


CRAP, my AOTY lead over this young punk was very shortlived!

   that was a totally awesome report........Amazing pics!  Looks like a great time............

I'm away for only a week and all this action?? Very nice bucketmouth's fellas. And of course insane pics NY!!

Z

Nice fishies!

Keep an eye out for FFTW and bsteves next weekend.  I'm sure they'll be out there throwing Carolina rigged 8" worms into the bushes.   (Just kidding you guys )
Thanks for the report!

Keep an eye out for FFTW and bsteves next weekend.  I'm sure they'll be out there throwing Carolina rigged 8" worms into the bushes.   (Just kidding you guys  )

Yep, I have it written down right here on my to do list.  It's right below 'toss silver blade bait for walleye'.

Keep an eye out for FFTW and bsteves next weekend.  I'm sure they'll be out there throwing Carolina rigged 8" worms into the bushes.   (Just kidding you guys  )

Yep, I have it written down right here on my to do list.  It's right below 'toss silver blade bait for walleye'.

I'd just jig the silver blade bait it's easier

great report, you guys killed it!!

You'll have to knock some coolness points off here for calling that riding lawn mower a quad. 

Great pics. I'm ohferone out of my kayak so far.

You'll have to knock some coolness points off here for calling that riding lawn mower a quad. 

What are you talking about? Sure looks like a quad to me... 

Actually, I laughed out loud as I read your reply. After jabbing Mark, I get jabbed right back for a similar gaffe! Karma at work again...

Speaking of Karma; catching that cold water LM on Saturday caused me to recall the Lone Lake rainbow I caught in January. At 17.875", it was an eighth inch short of being legal and thus didn't qualify for AOTY points. Allen's reply back then was prophetic:

Good on you NY.

And nice release on the heartbreak shorty.  There will be others.  It's a karma thing ...

-Allen

So, I experienced two variations of Karma over the weekend 

- Karl

Great pics. I'm ohferone out of my kayak so far.

Don't feel bad, bl. So far this year I've gone yak fishing at least eight times, and I have only one AOTY entry to show for my efforts. In spite of that, every trip was awesome (ok, maybe Ebey Slough wasn't all that awesome... ). I've gained valuable experience (especially that day on Ebey slough... ), and met and become friends with others who have this same crazy passion to paddle out in any weather (as long as it's we think it's safe).

- Karl

BTW, I'm remiss in not thanking Brian ('Yak Monkey) for planning and getting the word out about Saturday at Lake Terrell.

Sooo... THANKS, Brian! With no shoreline development, and natural habitat all the way around, that lake is awesome to fish.

Looking forward to fishing with you again soon, and am also looking forward to seeing you sailing your Hobie on a nice breezy day. That's got to be a blast!

- Karl

Thanx Karl, I'm gonna be bringing the sailing gear up to Sucia if there is room for it.  I'm sure I'd like to fish all day, but with a few afternoon breaks I may break out the ama's and the sail.  That thing is a BLAST in a decent wind.

great snaps!! 

Awesome fish, would love getting one on the fly rod!  Heck, fish that size would be fun on any rig!  Maybe I should give Northwest bass fishing a little more thought.

Good talking to you the other evening, I'm sure I'll see you out there again.

Roy