Lake Pend O’reille Report 7.6.16
At Lake Pend O’reille, with the warm weather increasing everyday, bass fishing is slightly slowing down. Most fisherman can go out anytime, and continue to hook into 1-2 lb. smallies, but the 3 lb+ Smallmouth are feeding early. I have been getting on the water around 5:30am, and have been having the best action from 6-7:30 am. My biggest bass of the year I measured at 20 inches, and I caught him at 7:10 am. Unfortunately it wasn't on my fly rod, but it was still a rush to put it in the net. My go to flies now are simple #8 brown or olive woolly buggers. The bass seem to be more concentrated on hexagenia nymphs rather than large helpless bait fish. This isn't to say that a mad smallie won't slam your #4 chartreuse clouser, I have just been having better luck slow stripping a juicy bugger a couple feet from the bottom. The larger bass are cruising anywhere from 10-15 feet, and are slyly grabbing woolly buggers to where it feels like hooking bottom. Fish gnarly points and rocky structure to find the biggest concentration of large bass.