Dogfish

6-10-08 Monday
I hit the water a little after 6PM. It looked like it was going to rain, but it didn't. There was a pretty stiff breeze out of the West when I first put in, but by the time I was done on the docks it had lightened considerably and the sun came out. Towards dark it got calm.

The plan was to catch some quality bass off the Big West Bay South shore docks primarily with a jigNpig with a possible Fluke thrown in here and there. I put in at the Platte Lake access and put the trolling motor down right away headed west. I missed a bass on the very first dock. I didn't have my reel dialed in and my pitching form was quite rusty from a lack of practice and I was undoing a backlash when the fish picked up the jig. I didn't get a good hookset, but I did see the fish as I pulled up and it was a solid 15" or so. I continued to move West without a whole lot going on except having the claws bit off the jigs craw probably by a pike. I eventually got down to my milk run and missed a pike on a bubblegum Super Fluke. On the very last dock I got 2 dink bass on a Blue/Black Monsoor Swim Jig with purple/wht grub. I worked into the weed flat with the swim jig and then drifted back with the wind throwing the purple Berkley Frenzy Popper in the sparce reeds and rice. I had what were probably a couple of small pike show at the Popper but they did not hook up. After a while of working the flat with nothing to show I decided to hit the North side of the Big West Bay where there is rice and pads.

I started by throwing a white Horny Toad, but had one of the legs get bit off. I got nothing in the emerging rice and pads and eventually drifted over to some fine looking green bullrushes. At the back end of the bullrushes I had a solid take on the swim jig by what felt like a good fish but it got off. I worked the North shore a little bit more without any action. The sun was getting low now and I headed to the docks on the point of the Big West Bay South shore. I didn't get anything from the docks but pulled a 16" from between the first and 2nd dock. There are now 3 docks off the tip of this point. I continued to work my way around the point into Channel in bay. I was throwing the wht. Horny Toad when I had a solid blow up that cut off the last leg. I fished the Toad with stumps and got a 15.5" at the NW cut.

I threw the purple Frenzy Popper at the cut and had something wake behind it. I slowly worked the popper and sure enough it bit and it was what I thought, a dogfish. I let him fight it out then I netted it. It went 24" and I released it back to get bigger. Soon after that I caught a 15.5" bass on a pumpkinseed Horny Toad. I was having trouble with the bait keeper on the Horny Toads so I switched to a Black/Chart Nose River2Sea BullWa Frog. I got a 13" bass on that and had a couple of other hits from small fish or pike. It was getting dark and the mosquito's where awful so I called it a night without heading to the PRO.

6 Bass, 1 Dogfish, 0 Pike