Prefish Wasted

I have a tournametn in a couple weeks up at Lake Havsu. I have'nt fished
Havasu in over 20 years so I decided to kill two stones with one bird. I
needed some service done on ym ouboard and Lakeland Marine up in Lake Havasu
has a good reputation. I made an appointment witht hem for friday morning.
I dropped off the boat and went looking for some bank fishing access on the
lake. I found a great area called Mosquito Bay. Lots of accessible banks
with grass beds and tulies not to far off shore. I caught a buynch of small
bass casting a drop shot. I even walked out on a fishing oier further out
in the bay and saw tons of artificial fish habitat with lots of little bass
swimming around. Cool. Too good to be true. I found one of those regular
fishing spots before I even got my boat out on the water.

After I picked up my boat I headed to some other areas on the lake hoping to
figure out some patterns. As the sun started to fall low in the sky I
headed back up to Mosquito Bay. I caught several fish on topwater including
a heavy 2+ and a huge sunfish. Cool. Nothing that will win a tournament,
but I found a few fish if nothing else pans out. As the sun was going down
and I headed back out of the bay a guy on the fishing pier yelled over to
me, "Hey, I thought there weren't any boats allowed back here."

Huh? As I head back out past the no wake buoys I noticed they all said, "NO
WATERCRAFT BEYOND THIS POINT." Oops. Well I did find some fish, but it
won't do me a bit of good. Atleast it was another angler and not an
enforcement officer that pointed out my mistake.

I tried something different this morning. I tried to find some coves with
similar cover and depth contours as Mosquito Bay at first. No success. I
found some ares that are a little bit similar, but much shallower over all.
Looks like tons of old spawning beds. Might do me some good next spring
anyway.

Then I headed upriver out of the lake. I got confused for a minute and
thought I was back down in Yuma dodging sandbars, and flipping tulie lines
in heavy current. I did flip one fish, but didn't get him in the boat.
Looked to be a heavy 2 or light 3 pounder. I spent two hours flipping, but
that was the only bite I got. A littler later I got one slap on a crankbait
out of a grassbed in the current protected by a sandbar. I spent more time
trying different cranks in and aroud that area and then switched to a
dropshot, but that was it. Just the one.

So far Havasu is kicking my tushie. I haven't even located any solid one
fish spots that I can go to like I have here.

--
Bob La Londe

Cheapskate's Ways to Do Fishing Stuff
(The Frugal Fisherman)
Through the Month of October 2005

http://www.YumaBassMan.com