The Bass are Biting at Lake Columbia

After a 4 week stretch of cold weather and slow fishing on local lakes my 6 year old Son and I decided to try Lake Columbia.  I usually make it out several times each winter to fish the lake for wipers and cats and this was my first trip to the lake before a snow fall.  If you havnt fished Lake Columbia before you should know it is a cooling water for the Alliant Energy Corporation.  The lake stays 80 degrees all year and there fore wont freeze in the winter.  In years past the lake was an amazing fishery for bass but it has been on a steady decline for the last several years.  I believe that both people keeping fish and a fish kill has crushed the bass population.

last weekend Leo and I set out for cats, war mouths and gills and ended up running into a huge school of bass!!  It is extremely important to note that we did not catch the bass in the main lake but had to trek through the woods to the river to find bass.    The fish where small with the biggest only being 14 inches and most of them around 12 inches.  We caught them on Red Dragon Spinners, Red Dragon Jigs, and STORM Swim Jigs.  I cant get enough of these new STORM Swim jigs and I will make another post later this week about my recent success with this lure.

Lake Columbia doesnt always put out the bass like it did that day for us - I told my Son Leo on the way home that someday he will tell his kids about this epic trip of catching 100 bass in an hour and 1/2!