Bobby Hucks and Tom Spangler

January 30, 2007 : Sunny and Cold, Water temp 41*
Got out on the water this morning before 5am to catch bait. Hung a lantern on a bridge to attract Herring and went to hit some lighted docks. On my first throw of the cast net the net froze to the side of the boat [14* this morning] . Next throw the net was frozen so it did not open properly. Ended up having to dip my net in the lake before every cast just to get the net to open. Moved back to the bridge to throw on my lantern and could not get my trolling motor to go into the water, it was compleatly frozen. After struggling to catch bait I picked my clients up and went just a short distance from the marina so they would not freeze in a long boat ride. I put out my spread [6 downlines , 6 planner boards and a bobber rigged with Herring and Threadfin Shad, running deep points with large schools of bait on them. We had 3 hits in the first 15 minutes, 2 on downlines and 1 on a board, without hooking up. After 5 more minutes we hooked up on a board with a Herring and bob caught a nice Bass, 8lbs 14ozs. Ran another 200 yards and caught a Striper and decided to go back to the marina to check the bass in for a Citation. Went uplake to fish an area I caught fish 2 days before but the water temperature had fallen 3 * and all the bait we saw was in the channel. We fished it anyway due to the depthfinder showing so many fish but could not get any strikes. I decided the water temp. was too cold so we ran back downlake till we found the water temp. at 45* and put the spread out over some 20'flats. We started getting hits and within the next 2 hours boated some nice fish. Ended up the day having only 14 strikes catching 2 Stripers and 6 Bass. Although Bob got a Citation for his 8.14, we missed out on 2 more Citations by 1/4 and 3/4 of an inch. After measuring the Bass I told Tom his fish was too short for a Citation, he commented "I 've been told all my life I was a little too short'.