I spent most of Saturday at Black Hat, getting there around 7:15 after dropping my wife off at the airport. After the rains earlier in the week, that last mile on County Road 5015 was extremely soft and muddy. I'll bet I had at least 200 lbs of mud on my trailer and pond boat by the time I got to the gate! After launching in the heavy overcast and mist, I noticed that the water was very high (see photo) and murky. Visibility was only about 6-8 inches, and the water temp was 71°-73°. I fished toward and across the dam, and caught two 16"+ bass on a bone-colored Yellow Magic before I got to the first "point." I had no action there, but caught  2 on a Whopper Plopper on fairly fast retrieves parallel to the dam. I picked up a 4-pounder on a hollow body popping frog at the far end of the dam, by the fence. The mist changed to moderately-heavy fog, and the topwater bite just stopped. I had no action on a single-spin, except for one catfish; nothing on buzz baits, creature baits, swim baits, worms, or crankbaits. I did catch one bass on a 3/4 oz, red/black Rattletrap, but all of the others I caught were on a weightless, wacky-rigged, Senko in less than 2 feet of water. The only color that worked for me was black/blue flake. All but a few fish were between the new bank and the outer emergent weedline of reeds, rushes, or what looks like flooded Johnson grass.  It didn't seem to matter whether there was a breeze or not - I caught as many when the water was glassy as I did when it was rippled. Around 3:00, the sun finally broke through the clouds, and the bite continued about the same - one fish every half-hour or so. By the time I left, I had boated about 20 bass up to 5-02 and lost at least 10 that threw the Senko back at me. All of the bass I caught were south of the boathouse and south of the rock point on the east side. Nice day.

Posted By: Tom Dillon