Platte Lake: Quality and Runts

Originally I wasn't going to fish today, but it was so nice out I decided to hit the lake after it cooled down a little bit. It got to 86 and was partly cloudy, so the sun was out all day and I thought I might get into some good dock fishing. I wanted to hit the lake at 6PM but I was held up re-organizing my tackle from the tournament bag to the boat. While I was doing that the UPS man showed up with my order from Action Plastics. I finally got my gear together around 6:30PM and I headed for the lake place.

I got the gear in the boat and decided to put one of my new Action Plastics on a parrot Outkast Swim Jig and throw a few casts. The grub I put on was a 5" "cool ice" Mag Grub. "Cool Ice" is a clear blueish grub with multi colored tinsel strips embedded in the plastic. On the very first cast this 16 incher blew up on the jig.


I threw a few more casts off the dock, loaded up the rest of my gear and headed across the bay to the docks I fished 8 days ago. I actually started a little farther to the West so I would hit more docks. There was a little bit of wind blowing on this shoreline but I still had reasonable control when skipping a Zoom Super Fluke. On about the 4th dock I pulled 2 bass that went 10.75" on a bubblegum Super Fluke. As I worked my way onto last weeks productive docks, pads, and weeds I noticed a distinct lack of fish activity. 8 days ago I was seeing plenty of sunfish and even a bass or two in addition to catching fish. I didn't get any bites on the pads or weeds. I finally got down to a dock that has been very good to me and I made a good cast and was rewarded with a 16" bass. My bubblegum Fluke disappeared in the fight, so I changed to "electric chicken" which I have mistakenly called "funky chicken." I went back and reworked the previous dock with the Fluke and was rewarded with a 12.75" largie. I then went back and reworked the 16 inchers dock with a black and blue Terminator jig with sapphire Denny Brauer Chunk. I tossed in under the pontoon boat lift and a quality fish picked it up. I was not able to get the fish up and over part of the lift before it got off. This success convinced me to keep hitting docks as I kept going beyond where I stopped 8 days ago. I got 1 more 15.25" bass off a boat lift with the jig.

Around 8PM I was basically out of docks. I threw the Outkast swim jig on the weed flat and caught a little pike. After a few more casts with the jig I tried a Frenzy Popper but couldn't raise anything. Next on my tour was reeds, pads, and rice so I started throwing a Zoom Horny Toad and then a white Spro Bronzeye Frog and not much was happening. I worked my way into the big reed bed in our bay and a fish hit something in the distance so I zeroed in on that spot. Sure enough I was rewarded with a nice bass attacking the frog, but I lost it on the way in. A few casts later I caught a little pike and that was it for the night.

I fished for a little over two and a half hours and caught 6 bass and 2 pike, so it was kind of slow but I am not gonna complain after yesterdays tournament.

Story: Almost forgot. I came across a guy who was fishing off a dock and we started talking. He heard from one of the guys on the Platte Lake Association board that the DNR did some electrofishing this year and the bass numbers were really high. He didn't know anything about size make up, but he goes on to tell me that Platte Lake fish are long and skinny, but I've caught plenty of bass to know the bass are usually either about normal with a few that qualify as super chunks that are heavy for their size.