Helppppp!

[John Alan]

What am I doing wrong. I went out to Tonka today and struck out. Senkos, Shaky head, Spinners with no luck. What am I doing wrong. I focused on docks, reeds and slop. I could see the bass but nothing. Is it the boat traffic, last nights storm. Help!

[garage_logician]

I too was out on Tonka today with my two sons and it was just nuts. In some of the bays I felt like a circus act trying to not fall out of the boat! The fishing was not as good as our last few outings but we did manage to boat several bass. Unfortunately most were small. We also had a couple of bite-offs from the toothy critters.

We caught most of our fish on Senkos and the rest on x-raps. We started out by fishing docks with Senkos that we skipped up and under. The fish we caught were way up under the docks. While working the docks I noticed the heavy waves rolling in and crashing on the rocks near shore. We decided that we should try casting into the agitated water and see if there were any bass taking advantage of the disoriented baitfish. There were a few.

Following that we moved out to fish the outside weedlines but it too was spotty. When we got tired of being tossed about by the waves we moved and started fishing areas based primarily on boat traffic. We found some rock piles and some calmer water and spent the rest of the day there.

It was hard to come up with any kind of a pattern. Most of my time was spent trying to position the boat as we were being tossed about compliments of the waves from the armada of larger boats running to and fro.

The thing that I find curious though are the skiers and wake boarders. In one of the bays we were in there were at least seven boats pulling skiers/boarders and tubers all at the same time. Not ski boats either but big cruisers. The waves were brutal. I understand that the rough water is great for tubing but I don't get the skiers and boarders. It has to be just as miserable for them as it was for us trying to fish in the chaos!

[John Alan]

Do you think it is because of the boat traffic or the storm from the night before? You would think that the fish would be use to boat traffic.

[senkoskipper]

i dont think you were doing anything wrong. sometimes fish are very finiky. you may have been doing the right thing but sometimes color, size, speed of the lure has a lot to do with it.

[Deitz Dittrich]

If you could see the bass.. Most likely they also could see you.. They tend to get lock jaw at times when you get to close to them. Try longer casts. Fish should start to move out to the deep weed lines too.