West Lake Toho 1/07/07

We went to West Lake yesterday, started at 7:15. We hit quite a few places trying to locate some good groups of fish. We started in some pads  with hydrilla around them and Kissimmee grass scattered amongst them. I caught two in this area on a weightless trick worm (color - kinda cotton candy/methiolate clear - I'm not sure the exact color) my partner Greg had three fish on a swimming senko, they were all small 12-14 inch fish, and we both missed two or three there. We started running around different areas, we cranked some open water hydrilla for a while and Greg picked up one more bass on a baby minus. I caught a whopping 40 inch Gar on a Lucky Craft LVD, what a great fight, after the first minute I knew it wasn't a bass because it didn't come up and I didn't think it was a mudfish because it never rolled, but boy did it ever pull some drag. My concern was losing a fifteen dollar crankbait, Greg got the net after about 10 minutes of fight and we could only fit half the fish in the net, but that was enough to snag one of the trebles in the net while I grabbed the pliers and shook the fish off. We went and hit a bunch of other spots with no luck, then we stopped by some docks with a hyacinth mat around them and I caught another keeper flippin a Gambler 4" black/blue tail bacon rind and we missed two other fish there on a floating frog and a horny toad. We moved shallow for a bit on the West bank and caught three buck bass on worms in a foot of water, we didn't see any beds yet. Our total for the day was Greg had 5 keepers, I had 3, we both had a few shorts, and 3 or 4 misses each. Water temps ranged from 71 to 76 degrees, the water was murky most places from the wind that picked up, some areas they had sprayed the pads (we didn't find anything going on in these areas), the hydrilla looks great in most places we found it, the Kissimmee grass is kinda brown right now, and the majority of the fish we caught were holding near the edges between two different types of vegetation in 2 - 4 feet of water. Things are about to change with the approaching cold front, I think the fish are still unsure what to do with the recent weather ups and downs, and this will definitely change things for this Saturday's tournament.