Thread: I enjoyed a nice afternoon in the float tube

The temp gauge was reading 64 on the way to the lake today. The weather liars are saying that colder is moving in soon. I arrived to fins a 8' wide well beaten path through the weeds . It appears the public lake has been "discovered". I licked off into a light breeze while hoping that it holds direction for a real easy return to take out.
The lake surface was at 59 degrees. I took 2 rods , one being the 4pc.7 1/2' Micro- lite (BPS) The other was a nice 5 1/2' Wally Marshall . Light action. I got this rod for horsing big gills up through cottonwood limbs in 30' of water. It is still fun to take in the float tube once in a while .
I tied on a pair of red butt jigs in 1/80 head on a bronze #8. One was purple head and sparkle pearl body. The other an orange head and dark peacock body. The fish were scattered ,some singles and most in small groups . Max depth in this lake is 18' down the center, but most fish were around 14' over 16" of water . I had a shot above the jig to get it down faster and tried to keep it just above and fish spotted. Sometimes I would hold the jig as steady as possible for a while , then just drop it. That brought a hit a few times.
In the 4hrs I fished I only covered about half the lake . The number of fish marked was way down ,and overall size was down. I did get one nice girl gill at 10 1/2". I would imagine that some of my ice jigs might have been a good choice but I was stubborn about finding a way to make the red butts work .I like the way that all but 2 were solidly hooked just inside the roof of the mouth. I was far overdue for some time on the lake and sure enjoyed the time there. I did end up saving 24 for the table