Here is our first bass fishing report of the season. We had the opportunity to go fish West Branch for the first time this year on Wednesday (May 10th). We launched from the campground ramp, as we were wanting to fish toward and around the dam. We had a beautiful, mile high blue sky day in the upper 60’s – low 70’s with light breezes. The water temperature was 65 – 67 degrees, with lightly stained clear water. We noticed some weeds growing in 5 – 8 feet.
We caught plenty of small large and smallmouth bass – like 8 – 10 inchers. Many were at the outside edge of a log or laydown. They seemed more attracted to chartreuse and bright colored baits. We caught them on crankbaits, wacky worms and walking baits. All of them had chartreuse on them. The crankbait was silent, but the walking bait rattled. Caught a nice 1.5 lb. small mouth off the rip rap on the dam on the walking bait. Sorry, we were “off the grid” accidentally leaving both phones at home, se we have no pictures to prove it. If I were making it up, I’d have made it bigger than 1.5 lbs., though.
The bluegill were nipping at a slow rolled spinnerbait and musky swirled on top water more than once. That made both of our hearts pound! All in all, we had one of our best days of catching ever at West Branch. Our trend for catching small mouth this year continues, too! They are FUN to catch. Maybe a trip to Lake Erie is in store for us this year to catch some big beautiful bronzebacks.