freshwaterphi (CA)

 Well, we finally made it out to Giles lake for a 5 day trip with the entire crew. We were waiting for a long time for this one, the trip ended up being a great success. Most days were in the 30 degrees range, pretty much a heat wave for that area, the water remained around 75 Farenheit which triggered the bigger largemouth bass in the lake to feed aggressively. As I was on Daddy duty for the entire trip, I didn't get to fish from our boat nearly as much as I would have like to, but I quickly discovered that the shore fishing was just as good if not better right in front of our cabin, where the lake has thick branch and log cover. The bass started hitting from the first cast, which landed a nice largemouth bass, just under 4 lbs. The fish went straight into the sunken trees as soon as I gave it some drag, I had to go in the lake to get it out of the branches by hand. That's when I realized that I needed to "horse" ; larger fish caught on the shore, as they all tried to head for the same submerged branches when hooked. Over 4 days, 6 adults and 4 kids managed to catch hundreds of bass with 5 over 4 lbs, another 6-8 over 3 lbs, and about 25 over 2 lbs, in addition to hundreds of sunfish and a few perch and a couple smaller Northern Pikes. I got some great fillet practice, as I must have filleted over 50 bass, I got to try my new serrated saltwater fillet knife, it cuts through thick bass ribs like butter. The younger kids really enjoyed the wildlife on our shoreline, including non venomous snakes, lots of turtles, and other interesting birds and insects, and got some great hook setting practice. Before we knew it, the week had passed, time to head back to reality. Luckily, we have another trip planned to Giles lake in the end of July, we look forward to some more rod bending, drag peeling action. Pictures from the trip should be in the picture gallery shortly, click: http://www.freshwa terphil.com/pics.h tm