Fishing Articles : Lake Mead Is Unpredictable

As you have probably heard, there are hundreds of horror stories that come from Lake Mead. Well as I have learned it can be both nice and terrible in a matter of days. This Lake is the most unpredictable I have fished ever. Here is my story about my recent venture out to Lake Mead to fish the American Bass South Team Classic. Well we arrived 4 days early to pre-fish. We got out on to Lake Mead on the 20th of Sept. We were excited and yet confused. We have never been on the Lake before. My dad, Larry and I made our way around the Lake and had no problems finding spots to fish. We found the lake is very plain and doesn't have much structure to fish. Therefore we had to find a new pattern. We fished around a brushy cove that was fed with a few small creeks that were dry. We had no success flipping worms and jigs. Therefore I threw a small Fat Free Shad in Citrus Shad color and on my first cast hit a solid 2 pound bass. We thought this might be a pattern or something. Nope! We fished and finally found out that the bass were hiding in the huge rocks and boulders around the lake. I ended up nailing 5 nice keepers on our first day of pre-fishing. The biggest shocker of the day was a ?pound Sunfish ate my ?ounce Vyper Spinnerbait. That was odd. This day there was absolutely no wind for the whole day. We thought this would be a great tourney. But as luck would have it, the horror stories came true. On the second day of pre-fishing, the wind was blowing in the 30's and the waves were 4 to 5 footers. So you can imagine what that is like. We have a small 17' 11" Ranger and we couldn't handle the huge waters. We putted around Calville Bay and still got soaked to the bone. We couldn't believe it. We decided to head in and get off the water. As we were leaving the lake, we asked the areas weather person and they told us the wind would be 2 times as bad. We decided to call the trip off early and head home. No reason in wasting $300 on a tourney we couldn't even fish. We headed home. Our buddies stayed and were going to fish the Classic. As we got a hold of him the day after the tourney, the American Bass staff called the tourney off due to the horrific weather. The first time from what I hear at stopping a tourney on Mead. As I learned, Lake Mead is very unpredictable. I learned it the hard way. I honestly hated every minute of the horrific boat ride in those waves. If I had a much bigger boat, over 20ft, then maybe we could have taken the rough water easier. But we learned that a little Ranger is no match for the terrible waters of Mead. I think Mead is a great fishery, especially after getting 5 keepers on 5 bites my first time ever fishing Mead. I will go back sometime and hopefully be on the better side of Lake Mead's weather. This really isn't a helpful article more a story!!!! If one thing can be learned from this story, it would be, don't take Lake Mead for grantid. If it is very nice one day, don't expect that the next few days. Be careful when you head out to Mead. You don't want to be one of those that meet their fates at the hands of Lake Mead's wrath. Good Luck fishing and the next American Bass Season starts on Oct. 21. Hope to see you out there!!! Tight Lines and Remember Catch and Release!

Eric "Elfish" Elshere