Rod H. submitted this angler report from Parker Canyon Lake two weeks ago: “Had more fall fishing fun at Parker Canyon this weekend. In each of the past three weekends, I've caught and released several big largemouth bass. On this particular day, I put the yak aground in a small cove to hold it in place from the breeze so I could relax a bit from paddling. While against the shore, I put a cast across the small cove to a nearby flooded tree. The first cast using my little Zebco 33 micro using 4-pound mono landed near the edge of the tree branches and produced a nice bluegill.

Feeling a bit more ambitious, I decided my next cast would be a precision effort putting the small soft plastic multi-legged crappie bait on a jig deeper into the tree between a couple of branches. It landed where I wanted. I felt a small tap when the bait settled in the roughly 1.5 feet of shallow water. 'Cool, another bluegill,' I thought. 'I'm going to need to haul back on it to get it out of the branches.' Yeah, right…the rod totally loaded up and the fish on the other end turned and went even deeper into the tree branches and other floating stuff. My little Zebco 33 micro was screaming with the drag ripping line through the extremely strong surge. I thought maybe I’d caught a catfish.

During a slight pause, I managed to wind in a few cranks before it changed direction and moved out from the tree branches. Luckily for me, the line didn't snag on anything as the fish moved to the deeper water of that cove. It pulled and stayed deep for the longest time. You are only able to apply slight leverage when using this ultralight rig. The fish managed to stay pinned to the small barbless jig. I got my first glimpse at about 3 meters from the yak when it rolled and headed back towards deeper water. I saw the big broad side of the fish and realized then it was no catfish. It was a 5-pound bass!

There were other nice-sized caught-and-released fish (see photos below). The fish generally were not as aggressive as they were in past weeks. I suspect the cooler temperatures influenced this. But my photos below show there are still plenty of fish that are willing to play as long as you are able to make precision casts presenting baits near them. A nice mix of topwater, suspended, and deep presentations produced these results. All fish were caught using smaller (less than 3-inch) soft plastic baits on ultralight rigs with 4-pound mono. Wishing you all good fishing (and catching!)"