Lake Barrett

[fishinkid2010]

I know it’s a little different from the typical “bass” reports that seem to be all the rage right now. Since I’m good at breaking off WSB and not actually landing them haha, I thought I’d go after something a little more different today.
Today “fishinfreak” and I went fishing in the middle of nowhere aka Lake Barrett. For those of you unfamiliar with Lake Barrett and its green bass let me tell you… it is definitely somewhere you want to fish at least once in your life! First off, the lake contains Northern Strain Largemouth bass, not the Florida Strain common in most city lakes. They are smaller, but are quite a bit more aggressive.
The lake is only fishable by reservations through Ticketmaster only… well sorta
They only allow 25 boats (100 anglers) on the lake per day. Today, there were only 5 parties, and of the people there I only saw 4 people all day. It was like having our own private lake to ourselves!

The water level was up very high, and has resulted in a lot of flooded timber, and submerged trees. This ended up being the key to catching fish today. Basically, you had to throw your lure wherever it looked like you were guaranteed to loose it. Haha
If you could pitch a Senko into the middle of a brush pile, you’d get a hit at least half the time. Every brush pile contains fish, you just have to be willing to put in the effort.
The best bait today, proved to be a Wacky rigged Yamamoto Senko; purple and watermelon were the best colors. In the morning though, spinnerbaits proved to be deadly, running them through the brush and weed flats resulted in a lot of fish. Drop shot also proved affective, but not so much as the other techniques.
Having a kayak also proved to be very affective. I was able to fish behind the brush piles in the shallow water that the boats couldn’t access. Exploring the new flooded areas FULL of fish was very fun.

Today I set my personal best record for most Largemouth Bass in a single day… 51! I caught fifty-one bass today, and that is only counting the ones that made it into the net, or were lip gripped. Without exaggeration, I probably hooked 150+ fish and lost them due to the barbless hook requirement at Barrett.
Fishinfreak also lost a bunch… but still managed to catch a few. Haha
Big fish for the day was around 4ish lbs. Many fish were small, but they all fight well!


Check out the pictures... they are a bunch, but this lake is so cool that you can't help but take pictures!































Lastly, here is the latest rod I finished up for fishinfreak to be used to slay some Barrett bass... needless to say, it did its job.