I've had 4 guide trips on Black Lake since last Thursday. My trips of Thurs, Fri, and Sat were all very similar as all my customers preferred to fish with crayfish for smallmouth bass. The three days produced between 10 and 17 bass with the largest being about 3 1/2 pounds. It is really hard to beat the fight of the smallmouth on the the light tackle. A few largemouth were also caught but nothing larger than 3 pounds. This past Tuesday 8/24, I had Adam Witz, his dad Joe, and Joe's wife Kathy from PA. This time we used artificials beginning with topwaters. After absolutely no strikes on top I switched them to the crayfish for a few fish but even the crayfish weren't working well....yet. I showed them how to fish a senko too for largemouth which produced a few fish. We went in for lunch and went back out in the afternoon to fish with the crayfish and starting catching smallmouth after smallmouth. All were good sized fighting fish in the two to 3 1/2 pound range.

The main lake is still green and seemed to get greener after the heavy rains Sunday and Monday. The lake has come up about a foot recently. I still believe the strongest bite is with the crayfish on the bottom depending on the time of day. Late afternoon appears to be stronger right now for that. The higher water may change things some since the water is usually lower in the fall. We'll see if it goes back down. Hopefully the main lake will start clearing up as well.

Good luck to all fishing the lake. Please practice catch and release.