Crazy Stuff! Kayak Storm Chasing, Big Smallmouth, and White Perch Blitz

What a day! Yesterday was just crazy. About as soon as I got the kayak on the lake the weather turned. A small storm cell popped up and began throwing electricity at the ground. I quickly made for shelter, as it isn't wise to be holding a graphite stick in a thunderstorm. But I got some great shots first!

Eventually the weather improved and I got back on the water, immediately I was into smallmouth and perch. It would take a little while before they got any size to them.

Eventually I began dock hopping, and that produced some good fish, especially the first! It was a gorgeous BIG smallmouth that jumped and scared the crap out of me when he did! It took the Bead Head Shrimp Muddler just under the surface, and I saw the fly get eaten. But the discolored water disguised the size. It was on the jump that this fish's impressive dimensions became obvious. This has been a good year for smallmouth!

The dock hopping continued, and I caught another good smallmouth. This

Then things got very interesting, not that they weren't already.... I spotted a surface disturbance over a big sand bar that runs parallel to the shoreline near a feeder stream. On closer examination, it was schools of white perch behaving much like their bigger family members, striped bass. They were busting on schools of bait, thrashing and chopping and making  mess. They even missed some bits, and pieces of fish and stunned minnows floated on the surface. I tied on a white woolly bugger and began to catch hundreds of perch. Literally every cast got a hit. The line got tangles around the rod tip and all I could do was flip the fly out and drag back the fish. What a crazy day. Here's a video of the blitz.