The calendar says fall, but the temperatures of late feel more like winter. I was pleasantly surprised to get an e-mail from Robert Paradise last week inquiring about the possibility of coming fishing. Robert usually fishes several days at AP every year, but had to cancel his fall trip and had limited opportunity to fish closer to home as well.
I have seen some really good winter fishing at AP over the years, usually on days w/ bright, sunny skies and south wind, so I told him to pick out a day that looked favorable weather and schedule-wise and come on down. I decided to go out with him as a friend (not the guide) when he could not con any of his buddies into joining him on this great adventure.
We put the boat in the water shortly after 9:00 AM and caught our first fish about halfway down the s bank of Beaver Hut Cove. We boated 22 more fish over the next 6 hrs after locating the fish and tuning the retrieve on the smoke grub that got all of the strikes. The only downer of the day was the 5 fish I broke off, but I did land a 3 lb fish and we had several keeper size bass as well.
The sun only came out for a few minutes, and we figured that it probably never got much above 40 degrees, but as usual, the stiff south breeze had little opportunity to get on us and we were warm enough that we ate lunch in the boat instead of heading to the house and a warm fire.
This was not an unheard-of winter fishing experience at AP. Give us a shout if you see a favorable weather day and would like to try some light line bass fishing. Don Kentner Angler’s Paradise – The Midwest’s Finest Fishing Camp