According to KMA (and the Korean news last night) today is the beginning of monsoon season so despite the clouds and light rain this morning, I headed out to the river – have to get it while the getting is good…if and when the rains start in earnest, it’ll be slim pickings, at best. Let’s start out with a couple of dawn pics from this morning…the sun managed to peek through the clouds just long enough to put on a pretty nice display (as always, click on the thumbnails to see the full-sized pics):
This morning, I used a 5 inch Senko, dragged super slow across the bottom…so slow it almost drove me nuts but guess what, the bass were interested.
I caught this one on a watermelon with black tail-colored Senko…not that I think the color really mattered since it was still pretty dark out when I caught it. One other thing I did different besides the lure size and presentation was that I sprayed on some of this scent (the combo craw/shad formula). Here’s the bad though…I lost three; not one, not two, but three nice bass to line breaks this morning. The last one I lost was tough to take…when that fish grabbed the worm and took off, it almost pulled the rod out of my hands and I got so excited that I set the hook too hard and the line just snapped. I definitely need to replace the line on that rod since it’s old, and I also need to follow the advice Rob gave me this morning on the way he ties his palomar knots – he carefully pulls both ends of the line so that the loop tightens equally from both sides; I had been pulling on the rod/line end to tighten the knot and that may also account for my line breaks this morning (and other mornings, 
).
Nice catch and nice sunset!
So you’re supposed to fish very slow now in the hot summer?
Me and my father will go sea fishing saturday and lake fishing sunday this weekend with people from Anglerstown, looking forward to it!
Yea Nomad, my wife just infomed me about the start of the monsoon season, typical…..I’ll get home from Nigeria and it’ll be raining all day everyday
Nice looking bass though Nomad, but I too would be pretty miffed if I lost 3 nice bass with line breakages, that’s another good thing about braid, it will last for years
Good for you Joel, hope you and father have some good fishing, the Anglerstown gang will look after you
Nice going Nomad, and I too hope you and your Father have fun this weekend Joel! By the way, I saw a program on The Discovery Channel over the weekend about the Ice Hotel in Sweeden, pretty neat!
Joel.
To be honest, I don’t have a good formula for summer (or any other season) fishing, except to try different things till I find what’s working that particular day. Hope you and your father have a great weekend…the folks from anglerstown are good people and you guys will have a good time out there.
Steve,
Rain, schmain! The bass still have to eat
I’m going to change the line to Trilene 100% flurocarbon 8-pound tonight or tomorrow on that pole, that should take care of the breakage problems…I’m just happy to see that the big ones are still feeding close to shore early in the morning…I’ll get ‘em next time 
Rob,
Thanks!
LOL Nomad…..you are right, I have a water proof jacket and pants
http://www.froggtoggs.com/
Steve,
It’s supposed to rain all night as well as all day tomorrow but you know what? If I wasn’t so damned tired, I’d still be out there tomorrow morning with waders and rain jacket on…I was so tired today that I could barely keep my eyes open at work and that’s not a good thing! Thank God for coffee