We arrived at Newman Lake about 6:30am for the first time this year. I was impressed with the new boat ramp with a dock and the paved lot with parking lines. It is nice to have dock with a ramp on both sides. That sure speeds up the process when multiple boats are coming and going. I still don't understand why people have to fish off the boat dock when there is a big fishing dock 15 yards away.
We headed to the north end of the lake to what we call the sunken island. The wind hadn't started yet, but it still took 25 minutes to get there from the public launch in a small aluminum boat with an electric trolling motor. I started with a perch rattle trap and my buddy was using a 5" senko. We stopped in about 2' of water and cast to weedy ledge that was 4' to 8' deep. First cast I thought I caught some weeds because my lure lost its action and when I get it back to the boat I see I hooked a little dink smallmouth. Another fish for the wall of shame. This has happened at Downs, Long, Eloika, and Fan Lakes also this year. Each of those times the lure never got hit again so I switched right then to a beat up dark green senko that worked well last week. Had to rig it backwards because head was so hammered. It landed me 3 more fish this day before finally breaking in half. (9 fish is my record for 1 senko, Strike King brand actually)
Within about 5 minutes we found some fish. The bite was pretty light, you could watch your line move one way or the other across the smooth water until it reached its limit and then WHAM! PO'd smallie making your reel sing. Once hooked these fish were very aggressive, pulling like a tractor and then diving under the boat hard multiple times when they got close. Once out of the water they still fought like heck, as if to transfer the hook from their mouths to our fingers.
It wasn't fast and furious, but we caught and released 9 fish in about an hour and a half, then the wind picked up and the fish shut down. All but one were smallmouth, 1.5 to 2lbs, the biggest about 3, estimated, since I dropped my scale in the drink last week. That was pretty dumb. We tried the lillies on both ends of the lake after that with senkos and spinner baits but came up empty. By then then wind made it really difficult to fish in a small boat so we called it quits about noon to go home and burn up some burgers on the grill.

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