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You Have to Fish This Lake- Part 1
Newton Lake is a hot water power plant lake located 30 miles southeast of Effingham and is a popular early season destination for Illinois bass anglers who are antsy to get started fishing after being cooped up all winter. Many diehard anglers visit this 1,850 acre lake during every month of the year. Tony Lynn of Morton and I headed for Newton at 5 a.m. on April 5 to cash in on some early season crappie and bass action from Newton's warm water. We drove the 3 hours and 15 minutes to the boat ramp and were surprised to see several dozen cars already in the lot on a Wednesday morning. The air temperature was about 50 degrees when we started fishing at 9 a.m. The water temperature at the ramp was 64 degrees. During the day we would fish the hot arm of the lake where water temperatures ranged from 67- 82 degrees.
The day would be ideal weather with sunny skies and light winds of less than 5 mph from the south. Air temperature reached 70 degrees, which is a rare treat for April 5th in Illinois. We headed up the hot arm because of the bright skies since it nearly always has murkier water than the clearer cold arm of the lake. Water clarity there was between 12 and 18 inches. In general, the upper end of the hot arm has a flatter, more gradual sloping bank on the east side. Bluffs and steeper dropoffs with stumps and trees in the water are located on the west side. Before you reach the first area of rip rap there are plenty of wooded bluff banks on the east side also. We chose to fish the flatter east side, which is where we have caught good bass during previous spring trips. There are also five short areas of rip rap located on the east side, as well as an "overflow discharge" that constantly dumps water into the lake. This area of discharge is often filled with shad, which in turn attracts bass. The actual area of warm water discharge from the power plant is located farther north at the very end of this arm of the lake.
We spent most of the day fishing between the first and last areas of rip rap, alternating between spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, Texas-rigged lizards, crankbaits, and swimbaits on jig heads. The most successful lures were a 3/8 oz. white Nichols spinnerbait with two white willowleaf blades and a 6-inch blue fleck Berkley Gulp lizard. Each lure caught an 18 1/2-inch keeper bass. A 1/2 oz. white Nichols spinnerbait with silver/blue willowleaf blades also caught several nice fish. We headed for the ramp at 5 p.m. with 30 bass for the day, including 10 fish between 16 and 18 inches long. The trip was off to a good start.
Coming Soon- Part II- The weather turns ugly for day two, but the big bass move shallow to feed. |
