Today Summer came with me to the lake. We fished the main pond at Shadow Cliffs from the boat from 9 to 3. The goal was to relax, enjoy the nice weather, play with the fish finder and maybe catch a couple. I threw trouts in the morning, 12" Slammer and 7.5" Generic Swimbait. The first follow was a 3lber that came up and nipped at the big Slammer. You could see the look of confusion on it's face when it nipped at it and felt wood. The next follow was on the Generic swimbait. Fish was about 5lbs and came righ up to the bait a few feet from the boat. I killed it and the fish nipped at it and grabbed hold of it very gently. I knew it didn't have the hook but after it swam off about 2 feet with the bait, I set the hook and missed it. The last follow was an 8 or 9lber that followed from way back on the Generic. That was it for trouts. There is an algae bloom on the lake and visibility was only a few feet, unusual for Shadow Cliffs.

So we moved out of the bank because I wanted to look around on the fish finder. I found this ledge out a good 100 yards off the bank where it dropped from 17 to 30. There was short grass growing on top of the ledge so we dropped down with drop shot. I was watching the meter and saw an arch. As my bait dropped down I could see the fish move up towards it and sure enough it bit. I hooked the fish for a second but it came unbuttoned. A while later, Summer drew first blood by catching another fish that I had seen on the meter. Pretty cool stuff. Shortly after that I caught one about 2lbs again by working the little fish arches. We worked this spot for a while, then went back to the bank where I caught a barely keeper type fish.

After that things were slow. I caught one minnow on a tree and graphed a few more likely spots with arches on them but couldn't make them bite. I spent a lot of time just zig zagging around in open water looking for anything interesting. Around 2pm I drop shotted another fat 2lber by some sticks.

I did see two big fish, 10+ up basking, but right as I reached down for my plug rod, this guy that I didn't notice comes and runs dead into the fish. They both swirled on the surface about 5 feet from his bow and disappeared and never came back. Figures huh.

We had a fun day, I'm enjoying playing with the fish finder and I figure catching anything at the main pond is a good thing. All the drop shot fish were on brown/purple 8" Whitmer No Name worms.

Somone doesn't like holding feesh.
http://www.calfishing.com/images/daily_reports/10_20_02_summer_shadow_cliffs.jpg

Drop shot fish #1
http://www.calfishing.com/images/daily_reports/10_20_02_rob_shadow_cliffs_2lber.jpg

Drop shot fish #2
http://www.calfishing.com/images/daily_reports/10_20_02_rob_shadow_cliffs_2-3-2.jpg