Preston area report

[Belasko]

Made it to Twin Lakes yesterday morning with my son. We went out in float tubes looking for bass and gills. Found a fair number of tiny bass shallow and on the edges of the flooded timber. But no blue gills! After lunch we took a short nap the hit it again near the narrow area between the lakes. Some people said they were finding gills in the timber there and they were leaving. We moved in and after hunting for a while finally found some pockets of fish. They were pretty spooky though. After catching 5-6 they wouldn't bite anymore and we'd move to another pocket. While we're doing this my son found a beast of a bass. Got some pics and debating keeping it or not we put it back. After all a fish that size probly has a ton of mercury, plus where we found it I'm not sure F&G view on it being legal take. It still had a flicker of movement on the pectoral fins but that's it. Suspect it was a casualty of the tourney Saturday. Today we chose to explore other waters and headed to winder where I landed another nice bass, but not as big. At least it was alive though! We also saw a ton of gills shallow, but none with any size. We then went to Oneida and caught six smallies. My son caught the biggest at 11 inches. Saw one other person catch a carp but otherwise everyone denied finding any fish. We then headed home. I figure the bluegill spawn should heat up this week sometime.
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[gstott]

Those are some nice bass, though too bad the one was on its last leg. It's kind of looking like the bass are mostly spawned out now. That's what I found at Twin last week.

I saw a fair number of decent gills there, but they were predominately when I was wading the shallows on the inside line of the trees. Same with the better bass. Out in the tube fishing the outside edges I mostly saw those little wolf packs of small bass cruising about. I hadn't fished Twin for two years since it didn't fill all the way last year, but overall I was disappointed by the numbers and size of the fish of all species this year. I have a feeling I may have been a week or two late for most of the better bass action there. Maybe I'm just spoiled now. I still caught 46 bass, but I couldn't get any over 15". I did find one area towards evening that seems promising. I had already packed up my tube, so I could only wade it. I may have to hit it one more time to give it a try.
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