Fantastic fishing at Adventure Lake

By By Mike Giles / outdoors writer
Oct. 31, 2003
Dawn had not yet broken when Andy Olson fired up the outboard motor and we moved quietly away from the dock at Adventure Lake. As we pulled up to a deepwater point Olson hooked up with a largemouth bass almost instantly. The bass engulfed a Zoom Tapered worm and tried to head for deeper water.
Once Olson bowed up and turned him towards the boat, the first fish of the day was history. Seconds later the veteran bass fishermen hooked up with a hefty lunker that stretched his line to the breaking point and then beyond. Another ferocious F-1 bass had proven more than a match for an accomplished angler.
The F-1 bass is a recently developed cross between the Florida largemouth bass and the northern largemouth that most states have traditionally stocked. Ideally the F-1 bass will keep the aggressive characteristics of the northern strain bass, but also have the growth capability that a Florida bass enjoys. As most people familiar with the Florida bass are aware, once they reach seven to eight pounds, they become hard to catch on artificial lures. The hope with the new F-1 breed is that they will continue to aggressively strike lures after they reach lunker size.
As Olson maneuvered the boat towards a cove, Neal Scrimpshire and Lamar Arrington motored by in their search for a honey hole. Shortly after first light we detected shad activity in the back of the large cove. Working our way towards the back, a nice bass almost tore the rod from my hand. After a short fight, he spit the crankbait skyward. Suddenly bass were attacking our lures on almost every cast, and we hadn't even made it to the back of the cove.
Fall schooling bass
Almost in an instant the water in the back of the cove surged with shad activity. Olson had located this spot previously and knew that shad were holding in the cove. Something made a noise and the shad nervously jumped at once, causing a chain reaction that triggered 40 to 50 bass into a feeding frenzy. Memories of grand trips to Toledo Bend Reservoir back in the 70s instantly came to mind. As the shad tried to escape, wave after wave of bass savagely tore at the water's surface as they feasted on the helpless bait fish.
As soon as we got within casting distance the bass tore into our lures as well. Time after time Olson and I hooked up with doubles. With the surface water frothing with activity, we caught bass on shallow to medium running crankbaits, jigs, and worms. The smaller bass were working the surface, with most of the larger ones attacking from below. Any type of shad colored crankbait would draw a strike. Most of our bass were caught on Norman Little Ns or Middle Ns.
After a couple of hours of catching bass on the surface we wore down and started fishing the deeper subsurface ledges. After tying on a Zoom Hollow Hog, I caught a better bass on the first cast. I had rigged the new bait on a Carolina rig and the bigger bass seemed to prefer it. For the next thirty to forty-five minutes Olson and I matched fish cast for cast, catching bass on Zoom plastic worms and Hollow Hogs. Time after time the little dynamos almost took the rods out of our hands. A two to three pound bass would fight like a seven or eight pounder, much like smallmouth or spotted bass do.
Crankbaits for big bass
Switching to crankbaits we left the schooling bass in search of bigger lunkers, and we weren't disappointed. Although this was supposed to be a slow fall day, it was better than almost anywhere else I have fished. Bass in the three to five pound range were not rare on this day. In fact, I caught two in the five-pound range on a Norman Deep Little N on back-to-back casts, while Olson also snared a lunker from the same spot. As we worked the area over, we continually caught bass in the three to four pound range.
After lunch I joined Neil Scrimpshire and together we enjoyed quite an afternoon of fishing. After a slow start things really started heating up. While casting my crankbait over a submerged brush pile, a big bass crushed the bait and almost tore the rod from my hands. It was all I could do to hold on to the rod. The bass would go in excess of five pounds and fought like a ten pounder. It was unbelievable. Just a few casts later, Scrimpshire got in on the fun with a lunker of his own taken on a worm.
The later it got, the more fish we caught. For a "slow" day it was pretty good to me. I caught approximately seventy bass myself, with 12 to 15 three pounders, a few four pounders and a couple in the six pound range. I can't imagine what a good day would be like if this was a slow day on Adventure Lake.
Located near Laurel, Adventure Lake will open March 1, 2004. The 80-acre lake was designed to be a lunker paradise that would give anglers a chance to catch and release lunker bass, as well as numbers of bass, without having to go to Florida or Mexico to do it. For more information contact Neil Scrimpshire at (601) 433-3059 or online at www.adventurelake.com.