It was a great year again at Black Lake. This was our fifth season. One thing I learned this year was to never try to predict if it was going to be a low water level year or high water year. Same goes for weed density and matting. When the season started with very low water for May, I figured that it would be a low water level year. Not so. Turned out that water gradually rose through July 1 and then started to drop until late August. Then it rose 18" through the 29th. Dropping again through Sept until Oct 2nd when it came up over the dock. Tropical storms bringing heavy rains were the cause. By mid October water peaked up at over four feet. As for weed denisity, it briefly got thick in some areas by not like 2006/07 when it was real bad. Good, clean native milfoil was not common this year. But some areas of Prince Island were clean. Temperature wise, this year was the warmest of the prior four. And also one of the warmest years in the last 100. We really had a lot of beautiful sunny days with light winds! Of course, we still had a few days were the winds were very gusty. This always happens with just about any lake. Okay, enough of that and on to the BASS FISHING! This season we caught and released 728 Bass. (yes we counted them all!) Although we didn't do total counts in prior years, it seemed to be the most active fishing since 2006. Unfortunately we didn't catch and 5 pounders again this year. But we did manage 23 bass over 3 pounds. Three of those were over 4 pounds, while two came in a 3 lbs. 15 oz. Denise caught her biggest bass ever weighing in at 4 lbs. 2 oz. She also had a nice 3 lb. 5 oz. My best of the year was 4 lbs. 5 oz. down in L-bay. In June the bite was best as we averaged 22 bass per day. July average was 14 per day. August average was 19 per day. September average was 18 bass per day. The bite in June and early July is always best for us. From June 19th to 27th we caught 187 bass. Our best two day total was 63 bass. (last year was 82). The Dash for Cash - Big Bass - Lunker Hunt Tournament was on Sept. 19th. The morning started out cool with no winds, turnning into a sunny clear day. There were 138 teams this year. We took a tenth place tie at 8.97 lbs, worth $175, our best finish ever! We also won Lunker of the Hour #3 with a 3.92 pounder (3 lb. 15 oz.). It was worth $650. Not too shabby! First place weighed in at 12.75 lbs. They had lunker of the day at 5.77 lbs. We fished a couple more weeks and then took the boat out. We couldn't take the boat hoist out until October 23rd because of the insanely high water. I always hate to close the cottage, but we did the next day. The air is cool and winter is on the horizon. Ice fishing is only 8 weeks away for some guys. But the Lunker Hunters will go into hibernation until next spring. Until then... Fish On!
