ANGLING REPORT - ROLLINS LAKE - 10/16/21
Alright lets get into this. This was my first time fishing this lake. The only information I had was that the lake is small and has spotted bass, smallmouth and largemouth.
I rigged a variety of baits literally jsut before launching mostly hoping there was shad or at least abundant shad in the lake. Spoons, tail spinners, small profile spinnerbaits, 6th sense curve, tiny buzzbait, dropshot a keitech swing impact and so forth...
I Had planned on starting on a point near our launch. I felt the conditions and the way it looked just felt a little off so I ran to what looked good. Steep clay banks with a lot of rock and primarily rock in some places where the lake narrowed down. kind of the last point where the river becomes the lake or should I say reservoir. I threw my secret spotted bass buzzbait (keep an eye out for a YouTube video on it). There was a slight chop on the water so I was not sure if the tiny buzzbait was a good idea. It was! I was getting blowups every couple of casts. First fish in the boat was a keep smallmouth. My partner (shared weight format club tourney) was throwing a popper and small whopper plopper. They would not take it. My experience told me to start with this buzzbait. It's tiny, it's very loud for it's size. Perfect. The buzzbait just does such a good job mimicking shad or baitfish busting being chased by bass and this action/sound I think can really trigger the bass into biting in certain situations over traditional baits like a popper, walking bait, or plopper. I quickly put 3 fish in the boat. Then the next two took a little more work but we got it done. As the morning went on the buzzbait bite died off. The fish were up shallow on the steep banks. I think the way the wind was coming through the narrower portion was creating a little current so the fish were positioned mostly behind the wind/current breaks (slightly larger rocks sticking out). I could almost call the shots on getting at least a blowup. Ok so as far as I can remember (a little hazy already by this point as this report is late and I was going on little sleep that day. I decided that I needed to cover water, try a variety of banks. I went back to the starting spot but went the opposite direction into a clay bank that was much less sloped. We fished points and pockets and whatever was in between. I didn't have much rigged up for the situation actually. I left some things at home. I found 1 single free rig (baby d-bomb) and started dragging that. Bam bite. We made a small cull. I think my non-boater also got a few bites on a tiny 2.8 or so keitech or similair bait. I did toss a 2.8 and 3.8 underspin but that did not work for me. We fished around some more and the bite was definitely getting very tough. The wind disappeared and we were struggling. We had 5 but not the right 5. We needed 1-2 kickers. I got bit on the free rig a few more times and then eventually broke it off. My non-boater actually caught the fish that broke me off and I got my bait back! crazy! So around the lake we went casting at anything and everything with whatever lure seemed to fit the situation. We made micro culls a few times. Towards the end of the day maybe around 1pm I ran a little further up into the river arm and the wind was picking up a small bit. I picked up a 6th sense curve in bone and bam I got one. then missed a couple. Then worked our way through the rocky steeper stuff (we did fish this area in the middle of the day as well with dropshots and ketiechs but they were short striking). As we went down the bank we came up on another boat so I cut across to the other side which is the bank we started on and by now the wind was coming in hard. trolling motor on 10 and barely moving. I got a big bite. A 3.89 or so spot on the 6th sense curve. Then I got a couple more rats and hooked myself trying to boat flip one. Yes I had a treble hook in my leg with a fish attached. Glad it was a small fish. The point went in and back out so I just cut off the tip and pulled it out. that was it. We weighed I believe just under 10 lbs. for 2nd place. That's not saying much as I think we could have done better had I been familiar with the lake. First place went around 11 lbs as they had 2 bigger fish.
- Tow Vehicle: Ford F-150 FX4
- Boat: BassCat Pantera Classic
- Motor: Mercury ProXs 200hp
- Trolling Motor: MinnKota Ultrex 80lb.
- Electronics: Humminbird Helix 12" x 2, Humminbird Mega 360, Hydrowave
- Rods: M/F Spin, Secret buzzbait - Med Custom S-glass rod
- Reels: Smoke,
- Line: 10 lb. cortland braid to 8lb. leader, - 20lb. cortland braid to 12lb. leader
- Lures used: Secret tiny buzzbait, Curve, Free rig.
- Pressure: no clue.
- Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous
- Weather:
- Wind: calm to pretty windy 15-20mph?
- Air Temp: 55-79
- Water Temp: I forgot to check maybe 66
- Water Clarity: 0-2'
- Areas targeted: Everywhere but mainly steep rocky banks. Some mildly sloped clay banks and flats.