08-15-2005, 04:24 PM
Made another trip to Mantua with the two boys. Launched the boat at about 7:30 a.m. and headed to the other side of the lake. The boys started catching fish immediately and kept me busy taking fish off and rebaiting. I tried a heddon prop bait for a little while and had one violent topwater explosion on it, but could not put the stick to it. It wouldn't come back. After a while I resorted back to the jigs and joined the kids hauling in the gills. The biggest difference from two weeks ago was the lack of the larger perch this time. We only boated three of the bigger ones. We moved a couple of times and finally found a spot that starting yielding bigger gills. It also helped that we caught a smaller perch and started using pieces of perch meat tipped on the jigs. My younger boy caught the biggest bass of the trip, a 13 incher. My other son had a big fish take his jig and run under the boat, snapping the line. I would have liked to see what it was. We took home a bunch of gills and are looking forward to the fish dinner. My kids have told me that this is their favorite place to go fishing because they catch so many.
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