Sawyer Lake is located near the town of Covington and is the perfect size for a couple of fly-chucking bass chasers. We launched the boat around 8:00 a.m. and quickly found the one other boat on the lake right where Ben landed a solid 4-pound smallmouth last year. So, we headed to our second favorite spot from last year, a shallow flat that dropped into a creek channel.
The water was still pretty cold for bass, ranging from 49- to 55-degrees. I was fishing a new pattern I created last year called the Mega-Craw (hopefully available in the store in 2012). Ben primarily threw a Sheila’s Sculpin, but fished a ton of different flies. Both of us fished fast sinking lines nearly all day, trying to walk our flies on top of the weeds, down drop-offs, and through submerged timber.
About an hour into the day, something felt a little fishy on the end of the line and I set the hook in a way that would make Bill Dance proud. Up from about six feet of water came a nice little largemouth, angry as hell after a long, cold winter and early spring. Just a few casts later, Ben stuck a fish that would turn out to be a beautiful native cutthroat. We were pumped. We had a couple fish to the boat and the day just started!
If we could get a few more warm days of weather around here, the bass should really start to turn on. Once the surface temps reach the 55- to 60-degree mark, look for the fish to start staging close to spawning areas and for the fishing to get excellent!