Fishing Journal
(Monthly Progress)
Since I'm beginning this in June of 2017, I'm posting a photo of the best fish of each month with a brief narrative of where the fish was caught, what bait I used and any other useful information that might help others down the road.
January 2017
Crappie 2.0 lbs 01/23 Largemouth Bass 4.7 lbs 01/21
Crappie 2.0 lbs 01/23 Largemouth Bass 4.7 lbs 01/21
This crappie was caught at a private lake I'll refer to as HB Lake. I was fishing for bass and was wading out into some dead vegetation at a point on the lake with a water temp around 40 degrees. I casted a 3 inch Rat-L-Trap in the red crawdad pattern and was waiting for it to hit the bottom approximately 30 yards off shore when I noted it was taking longer than normal to get to the bottom, so I instinctively jerked the line and noted weight on the other end. Once I got it in, I was thrilled to find this heavy crappie.
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This bass was caught at Bickham-Rudkin park in Edmond. The water temp was again around the 40 degree range, and I had fished approximately four hours without a bite, when I moved to the south end dam wall, waded out maybe 10 yards from the shoreline in waist deep water, and began casting parallel to the bank towards the eastern shoreline with a bluegill pattern, shallow diving scatter rap. As the lure bounced off some of the large rocks under the water, I felt this bass hit the line hard, and set the hook. With the cold water, I landed her fairly quickly - saying a prayer she wouldn't get off.
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February/March 2017 (Combined)
Crappie: 1.9 lbs 03/06 Largemouth Bass: 2.4 lbs 02/23
April 2017
Crappie - 2.6 lbs, 16 inches - my personal best
I caught this beauty of a crappie after spending a rather unfruitful couple of hours in my little inflatable pontoon boat. The sun was going down, so I paddled into shore, took the boat apart and left it at my car to dry off. By the time I got back to the shoreline where I had just put in, the sun was below the horizon and I tossed out my "Jerry Rig" combo and caught a couple of smaller crappie. Then something phenomenal happened. The surface in front of me started boiling and I knew that something was chasing baitfish up in that little nook where I was fishing. I tossed over an old dead tree's root system and reeled nearby and this monster hit it. From the hookset, I knew I had a good fish, but I was almost believing it was a bass just due to the long runs she made from left to right. When I finally got her up in front of me, she rolled up onto her side on the surface, and my heart rate just exploded. In the near darkness, she looked like a 4 pound crappie in my eyes. I asked God to help me and reached down and lipped her. Afterwards, I called the lake owner over and he was astonished. With his permission, I kept her and she is in the process of becoming my first wall mount. BTW, this photo was lightened in Lightroom for the purposes of bringing out the detail and color, so believe me, it was dark.
April Bass - 3 lb ???
April Bass - 3 lb ???
Don't have this one's accurate weight, but remember she was the biggest of several 3 plus pounders I caught on this particular day. I do know I was fishing with a Strike King swim jig, blue black in color and using a Zoom Super Speed Craw in the Okeechobee Blue pattern. This was when I first discovered just how effective swimming a jig could be and I caught a bunch of nice bass during the month utilizing this same technique.
May 2017
Bass - Pics of the two biggest of the month. The top two were the same fish - no working scale that day. The bottom two are the same fish, and I can't find the weights I did take for that fish. Suffice to say, I think the top fish was the heavier of the two.
Bass - Pics of the two biggest of the month. The top two were the same fish - no working scale that day. The bottom two are the same fish, and I can't find the weights I did take for that fish. Suffice to say, I think the top fish was the heavier of the two.
June 2017
Bass - These were my three best bass of the month of June. Note the first one has a familiar "bump" on her tail. I am assuming this is the same bass from the previous month as the size was essentially the same, and that bump isn't a likely coincidence. I caught this bass after sundown. Previously, she had blown up on an H2O topwater prop bait in 3 feet of water. I tossed it out again, and she came up behind it from the side, her head coming out of the water, as though she were eyeballing it, but didn't strike at it. I tossed a small spinner bait out about 15 feet from where she was and immediately hooked up a slightly smaller bass, and got hung up. After wrestling with that fish, losing a snake chap off my leg in running to the dock to get a better angle on her, and ultimately having to break my line, I picked up the prop bait again, and being parallel to the bank now, I tossed it out to the same spot I had missed her on earlier. She exploded on it the first time I twitched it, and I wrestled her quickly to the doc. Too quickly, actually. She was flopping like crazy and in an attempt to lip her, one of the treble hooks stabbed me in the finger. Thankfully, in jerking my hand back quickly, it came loose, but then dropped along with the fish and hooked my pants leg on the way down. The second bass, I caught at the BR park pond. The same H2O prop bait proved to be her demise. Her weight was 3 lbs 10 ounces. The final bass at the bottom matched her weight exactly and was caught 80 yards offshore - an unusual place for me as I'm fond of shallow water fishing. On this day, I was fishing at HB lake and after having noted a log sticking out of the water so far offshore, I decided to paddle out and see if it held any bass. Unfortunately, the wind was not cooperating and I had to paddle about 20 yards SE of the log (using a dark blue Senko worm - Texas rigged), and began an immediate hoping retrieve. By the time I had gotten the worm back in, I was passing the log in a pretty quick drive to the NW. I made another cast about 10 yards past the log and as I drifted, I waited for it to hit the bottom and hoped it twice when I felt the familiar "thump" on the line. With very little bow in the line, I reeled down and set the hook and knew I had a good fish. After landing her, weighing her and snapping this photo, I had drifted nearly 100 yards beyond where I had made my first cast. The last picture in this group happened the same day. I hooked a catfish on this H2O square-billed crankbait, and after getting him to the boat, I was holding the line cautiously about 5 inches above the lure trying to decide how to remove the hooks (remembering that I had a bad encounter with a catfish last year at Lake Hefner which resulted in me getting a hook that penetrated all the way through my ring finger). As I turned to grab a pair of pliers, I felt a sudden and vicious flop on the line, felt the hook penetrate my finger and turned to see that the catfish and somehow hooked me, and THANKFULLY freed himself all at the same time. Needless to say, it was yet another sickening, pit-of-the-stomach feeling. Particularly as I had 300 yards to row my boat just to get back to the bank where my car was located, and I was rowing against the wind. Afterwards, I pulled the boat ashore with my one good hand, climbed into my car and drove myself to Urgent Care to have it removed. The process itself wasn't too difficult, and the staff were impressed that I didn't seem bothered by the situation, and used their pliers to break the hook free of the lure, with my left hand while the doctor waited for the shots to numb my finger. One thing I want to point out is that the 6-8 shots administered to the base and tip of my finger were far more painful than getting hooked. TAKE NOTE: Biting a previously undamaged finger helps when they start poking a three inch needle into your victim finger. Now I own a pair of fishing clamps, so I can net the fish and lock those into the bottom of their mouth and HOPEFULLY, avoid any future foul hooks.
Bass - These were my three best bass of the month of June. Note the first one has a familiar "bump" on her tail. I am assuming this is the same bass from the previous month as the size was essentially the same, and that bump isn't a likely coincidence. I caught this bass after sundown. Previously, she had blown up on an H2O topwater prop bait in 3 feet of water. I tossed it out again, and she came up behind it from the side, her head coming out of the water, as though she were eyeballing it, but didn't strike at it. I tossed a small spinner bait out about 15 feet from where she was and immediately hooked up a slightly smaller bass, and got hung up. After wrestling with that fish, losing a snake chap off my leg in running to the dock to get a better angle on her, and ultimately having to break my line, I picked up the prop bait again, and being parallel to the bank now, I tossed it out to the same spot I had missed her on earlier. She exploded on it the first time I twitched it, and I wrestled her quickly to the doc. Too quickly, actually. She was flopping like crazy and in an attempt to lip her, one of the treble hooks stabbed me in the finger. Thankfully, in jerking my hand back quickly, it came loose, but then dropped along with the fish and hooked my pants leg on the way down. The second bass, I caught at the BR park pond. The same H2O prop bait proved to be her demise. Her weight was 3 lbs 10 ounces. The final bass at the bottom matched her weight exactly and was caught 80 yards offshore - an unusual place for me as I'm fond of shallow water fishing. On this day, I was fishing at HB lake and after having noted a log sticking out of the water so far offshore, I decided to paddle out and see if it held any bass. Unfortunately, the wind was not cooperating and I had to paddle about 20 yards SE of the log (using a dark blue Senko worm - Texas rigged), and began an immediate hoping retrieve. By the time I had gotten the worm back in, I was passing the log in a pretty quick drive to the NW. I made another cast about 10 yards past the log and as I drifted, I waited for it to hit the bottom and hoped it twice when I felt the familiar "thump" on the line. With very little bow in the line, I reeled down and set the hook and knew I had a good fish. After landing her, weighing her and snapping this photo, I had drifted nearly 100 yards beyond where I had made my first cast. The last picture in this group happened the same day. I hooked a catfish on this H2O square-billed crankbait, and after getting him to the boat, I was holding the line cautiously about 5 inches above the lure trying to decide how to remove the hooks (remembering that I had a bad encounter with a catfish last year at Lake Hefner which resulted in me getting a hook that penetrated all the way through my ring finger). As I turned to grab a pair of pliers, I felt a sudden and vicious flop on the line, felt the hook penetrate my finger and turned to see that the catfish and somehow hooked me, and THANKFULLY freed himself all at the same time. Needless to say, it was yet another sickening, pit-of-the-stomach feeling. Particularly as I had 300 yards to row my boat just to get back to the bank where my car was located, and I was rowing against the wind. Afterwards, I pulled the boat ashore with my one good hand, climbed into my car and drove myself to Urgent Care to have it removed. The process itself wasn't too difficult, and the staff were impressed that I didn't seem bothered by the situation, and used their pliers to break the hook free of the lure, with my left hand while the doctor waited for the shots to numb my finger. One thing I want to point out is that the 6-8 shots administered to the base and tip of my finger were far more painful than getting hooked. TAKE NOTE: Biting a previously undamaged finger helps when they start poking a three inch needle into your victim finger. Now I own a pair of fishing clamps, so I can net the fish and lock those into the bottom of their mouth and HOPEFULLY, avoid any future foul hooks.
July - August 2017
I'm combining these two months for a couple of reasons. The first is that August has just ended and I caught the biggest bass of my life, actually two of the biggest and both on the same day, August 28th. Up until that day, I had been catching great quantities of bass throughout July and August, but without ever breaking the four pound mark, but as August came to a close and this is the second reason, one day beat out the previous month and a half by itself. It's hard to get discouraged when you're getting out and fishing 8-12 hours per fishing day, catching over 20 bass, along with an assortment of other species, but with the end of August looming, I decided it wasn't that the lake wasn't loaded, it was just that I needed to try something different. For that entire period, I fished a blue/black Senko worm and a white Greg Hackney swim jig with a white rage craw trailer almost exclusively and as noted, I caught good numbers of 1 - 3 pounders every time out. However, I just wasn't getting the big fish and oftentimes, I lost fish, and that was discouraging. So, on this past Monday, I went out to the lake the the mindset that I'm going to fish my normal spots early, but not for the extended periods I normally do because I wanted to try something different. That something different had just made itself apparent a couple weeks prior when fishing offshore (meaning anywhere 20 yards or further from the nearest bank or vegetation), I had some great luck using an inline spinner in schooling baitfish. I fished my normal spots early and headed to the south end of the lake where a point extends out into the lake and also where it gradually goes from super shallow to 4-6 feet of water. I wanted to get out and fish those bait schools and hope to find the big bass coming out of the deeper water for an easy snack. As my luck would have it, my earlier success a couple weeks back started when fishing a "squirrel tail spinner" that I friend picked for me on a vacation trip to Kentucky in a convenience store. Sadly, I lost it after six fish in less than 20 minutes, but it clued me in on all that was going on in those bait schools. After trying a similar in line spinner, the Mepps Anglia and a few Rooster Tails the next week, and losing the Anglias (at over $5.00 per) several times, I decided on a whim when visiting Walmart to grab a couple inexpensive alternatives and give them a shot the next trip out.
If you have fished any length of time, you know this bait by name - The Johnson's Beetle Spin. I bought the 1/4 oz, black beetle spin with a silver spinner for .84 cents and upon arriving at my spot, I had a Rooster tail tied on my Zebco 33 reel and tossed it into an area I had noticed baitfish blowing up on as I rowed out. I immediately hooked up on a fish only to have the line break very close to the tip of the rod. Not paying much attention to what caused the break, I retied one of the Beetle Spin's on and tossed it into the same spot, immediately got a fish on, and had the line snap again. Now, I'm furious and start examining my pole only to discover that the top guide on the rod has a split in it, and that is what's causing the line to fray and break. My next option was to put that pole away and grab my Lew's spinner reel which is on the cheapest rod I own and tie on that last Beetle Spin (BS). On the next cast, I hooked a 5 pound bass and fought it all the way to the boat, certain that it was a catfish until it broke the surface 6 feet from my net. After scooping it up and happily weighing it, I was so excited that I accidentally let it go (along with my fish clips), and before I could get a photo of it. Needless to say, I was not happy with myself, but I kept fishing...and I kept catching bass. Soon after I had one weighing 3.11, which was bigger than I'd caught since June. I piled up several more in the 2 1/2 to 3 pound range before having a fish break the line and keeping that last precious BS.
Try as I could the next couple hours or so, I wasn't putting anything significant in the boat, so around 2:30 in the afternoon, I rowed back to the car, anchored my boat to the bank, changed shirts and shoes (as both were mud stained and wet), and drove three miles to Walmart. I bought about 10 BS's and came back to the lake. The wind was up and I caught a few bass in those bad conditions, but eventually, by 7, the wind had subsided substantially and I was about to call it a day after 11 hours of fishing, when I noticed the top of a stick about the size of my forearm peeking out from the water approximately 60 yards offshore. It was in the direction of my car and I wasn't sure if I had fished it earlier in the day so it looked like the place to try. When I was within 15-20 yards of it, I dropped my anchor and noted I was in about 3 1/2 to 4 feet of water. I made a cast yards beyond the left of the stick and got nothing, and then made the fateful cast equally as far to the right side of the stick and began my retrieve. Suddenly, I felt a powerful tug on my line and set the hook hard. The fish immediately pulled in the opposite direction and I assumed it was a big catfish, simply because I have caught more large catfish as of late than bass and this one was trying to go deep like a catfish does. I did notice this one was bigger than normal by the weigh it was pulling and I feared the line would break, but I didn't have the angle to use my left hand to turn the drag on the reel down, so I flipped the bail and grabbed the line and used my hand as a break. The fish turned and started coming straight for me, and I had to engage the reel to take up the slack. As I did so, the fish was going underneath my boat and my rod tip went under water. Since I was anchored underneath me, I flipped the rod tip hard around the front of the left pontoon and could now let the fish keep running behind me, but also was able to crank the drag down so it could pull drag and it did. Again, I'm thinking this has to be a catfish, as I'd been often disappointed before hoping for a big bass, but as I started feeling control over the fish and tightened the drag up a big to recover line, the fish started giving up and as she got closer to the boat, she jumped out of the water just enough for me to realize, the loss of that earlier 5 pounder would more than be made up for if I netted this much larger bass. In all honesty, this is where I asked God out loud for assistance and soon, I had netted my new Personal Best (PB) largemouth bass. She measured 22 inches long and weighed 6lbs 1 oz. After releasing her, I accidentally caught another 3 pound bass just holding the bait in the water near a log. My point is....the BS works and it works on large bass. As a side note, I did not get the catching of this bass on my Go Pro simply because I didn't have it turned on at the time I hooked her and once she was on, she commanded my full attention. Sadly my hat got pushed back somewhere along the way and not realizing it, my footage of her afterwards and during the weighing process isn't the best either, but regardless - Thank you God for blessing me with something I've been seeking through a lot of hot, 12 hours summer Mondays. Just as a side note, I kept the weights of my best five fish on this day and I had appx 19 lbs, 11 oz, so I set another PB with that five fish limit.
If you have fished any length of time, you know this bait by name - The Johnson's Beetle Spin. I bought the 1/4 oz, black beetle spin with a silver spinner for .84 cents and upon arriving at my spot, I had a Rooster tail tied on my Zebco 33 reel and tossed it into an area I had noticed baitfish blowing up on as I rowed out. I immediately hooked up on a fish only to have the line break very close to the tip of the rod. Not paying much attention to what caused the break, I retied one of the Beetle Spin's on and tossed it into the same spot, immediately got a fish on, and had the line snap again. Now, I'm furious and start examining my pole only to discover that the top guide on the rod has a split in it, and that is what's causing the line to fray and break. My next option was to put that pole away and grab my Lew's spinner reel which is on the cheapest rod I own and tie on that last Beetle Spin (BS). On the next cast, I hooked a 5 pound bass and fought it all the way to the boat, certain that it was a catfish until it broke the surface 6 feet from my net. After scooping it up and happily weighing it, I was so excited that I accidentally let it go (along with my fish clips), and before I could get a photo of it. Needless to say, I was not happy with myself, but I kept fishing...and I kept catching bass. Soon after I had one weighing 3.11, which was bigger than I'd caught since June. I piled up several more in the 2 1/2 to 3 pound range before having a fish break the line and keeping that last precious BS.
Try as I could the next couple hours or so, I wasn't putting anything significant in the boat, so around 2:30 in the afternoon, I rowed back to the car, anchored my boat to the bank, changed shirts and shoes (as both were mud stained and wet), and drove three miles to Walmart. I bought about 10 BS's and came back to the lake. The wind was up and I caught a few bass in those bad conditions, but eventually, by 7, the wind had subsided substantially and I was about to call it a day after 11 hours of fishing, when I noticed the top of a stick about the size of my forearm peeking out from the water approximately 60 yards offshore. It was in the direction of my car and I wasn't sure if I had fished it earlier in the day so it looked like the place to try. When I was within 15-20 yards of it, I dropped my anchor and noted I was in about 3 1/2 to 4 feet of water. I made a cast yards beyond the left of the stick and got nothing, and then made the fateful cast equally as far to the right side of the stick and began my retrieve. Suddenly, I felt a powerful tug on my line and set the hook hard. The fish immediately pulled in the opposite direction and I assumed it was a big catfish, simply because I have caught more large catfish as of late than bass and this one was trying to go deep like a catfish does. I did notice this one was bigger than normal by the weigh it was pulling and I feared the line would break, but I didn't have the angle to use my left hand to turn the drag on the reel down, so I flipped the bail and grabbed the line and used my hand as a break. The fish turned and started coming straight for me, and I had to engage the reel to take up the slack. As I did so, the fish was going underneath my boat and my rod tip went under water. Since I was anchored underneath me, I flipped the rod tip hard around the front of the left pontoon and could now let the fish keep running behind me, but also was able to crank the drag down so it could pull drag and it did. Again, I'm thinking this has to be a catfish, as I'd been often disappointed before hoping for a big bass, but as I started feeling control over the fish and tightened the drag up a big to recover line, the fish started giving up and as she got closer to the boat, she jumped out of the water just enough for me to realize, the loss of that earlier 5 pounder would more than be made up for if I netted this much larger bass. In all honesty, this is where I asked God out loud for assistance and soon, I had netted my new Personal Best (PB) largemouth bass. She measured 22 inches long and weighed 6lbs 1 oz. After releasing her, I accidentally caught another 3 pound bass just holding the bait in the water near a log. My point is....the BS works and it works on large bass. As a side note, I did not get the catching of this bass on my Go Pro simply because I didn't have it turned on at the time I hooked her and once she was on, she commanded my full attention. Sadly my hat got pushed back somewhere along the way and not realizing it, my footage of her afterwards and during the weighing process isn't the best either, but regardless - Thank you God for blessing me with something I've been seeking through a lot of hot, 12 hours summer Mondays. Just as a side note, I kept the weights of my best five fish on this day and I had appx 19 lbs, 11 oz, so I set another PB with that five fish limit.
September/October
September and October have become a mixed bag for me because two things have happened. One, September came in unusually cooler than normal, which slowed down my bass fishing simply because the baitfish started moving into the shallow water and the crappie came with them. Two, I love crappie fishing as much as bass fishing from the standpoint that the lake I fish is loaded with them and being an opportunist, I've fished baits that are just as likely to catch a good crappie as a bass. I'll post some photos of the crappie I've caught in this time period soon. The biggest was 1.15 lbs, but I've had several others over 1.10 lbs and still had several bass in the 3 pound range, which is good considering the fact that I haven't been targeting them as specific as I did throughout the summer. However, it being the end of the first week of October, I do plan on putting a little more emphasis on them when I fish tomorrow. The video below is one I made last week when the wind was too strong for me to effectively fish where I normally do, but as a back up spot, this small cove held a brush pile I had just discovered a couple weeks back and it was loaded with crappie. Enjoy.
September and October have become a mixed bag for me because two things have happened. One, September came in unusually cooler than normal, which slowed down my bass fishing simply because the baitfish started moving into the shallow water and the crappie came with them. Two, I love crappie fishing as much as bass fishing from the standpoint that the lake I fish is loaded with them and being an opportunist, I've fished baits that are just as likely to catch a good crappie as a bass. I'll post some photos of the crappie I've caught in this time period soon. The biggest was 1.15 lbs, but I've had several others over 1.10 lbs and still had several bass in the 3 pound range, which is good considering the fact that I haven't been targeting them as specific as I did throughout the summer. However, it being the end of the first week of October, I do plan on putting a little more emphasis on them when I fish tomorrow. The video below is one I made last week when the wind was too strong for me to effectively fish where I normally do, but as a back up spot, this small cove held a brush pile I had just discovered a couple weeks back and it was loaded with crappie. Enjoy.
November / December
These two months saw my focus primarily on crappie until these past Monday, a week before Christmas. On this Monday, I focused almost exclusively on bass as I knew the weather was soon to be too cold for me to fish for a couple months and I wanted to go out with a bang and catch a big bass. So for November, I'm posting one of the biggest crappies I caught all year - 2 lbs, which I caught on a big bite bait crappie trailer (Video footage in the first video below). I attached two different videos showing some of the nice crappie I caught and a few bass that I missed due to bad hooksets.
For December, the last bass I caught was this 4 lb, 3 oz bass I caught in about 7-10 feet of water fishing a Berkley Flicker Shad (Silver with black dots) that I fished like a jerk bait. For this fish, I had gone about 5 hours without a bite, and finally moved to the north end of the lake where I fish so I could have access to the deeper water by the dam. I had avoided it because there were a group of guys putting large rocks in with a small dozier to prevent erosion from a piece of private property there. I didn't want to get near them because I didn't want to be asked questions such as "how do you get permission to fish here? etc". However, I had no choice, but I swung out away from the bank as I approached them to give myself a wide birth. It was just after passing them that I felt it in my heart that I was getting read to catch a big fish and approximately two casts later, I felt "Spotty, " as I'm naming him, latch onto my bait. As soon as I set the hook, I knew I had a good fish, and I also knew immediately that I'd made all the guys on the bank aware as they were watching me closely and I could hear them telling one another that I had a fish on. As luck would have it, I had two other poles with lines hanging in the water hoping to get a bite from a crappie and those lines were soon in the way, but I was too busy trying to land this fish. Call it peer pressure or just guy pride, but I couldn't bare to let him get off while I'm being watched, and with God's blessing and whatever skill I've acquired in the last year or so, I soon netted him after a good fight. As soon as I took a deep breath, I got my hand in his mouth, unhooked him, and held him up high above my head and let out a loud yell. The guys on the bank, yelled back in return and I felt the enviable position of being a man's man. After taking a few photographs of Spotty (noting in this photo and a couple others, I took that he has very unusual birthmarks), recognized him almost surely as a fish I caught earlier in the year or late last year, and released him. My crowd barked their disapproval of my release, but by that point, I was as happy as I'd been all year. Sadly on this day, I had forgotten the Go Pro at home, so no video is available. With temps dropping below freezing now, I'll probably take some time off and concentrate on loosing some of the unwanted weight I have gained in the past couple months.
For December, the last bass I caught was this 4 lb, 3 oz bass I caught in about 7-10 feet of water fishing a Berkley Flicker Shad (Silver with black dots) that I fished like a jerk bait. For this fish, I had gone about 5 hours without a bite, and finally moved to the north end of the lake where I fish so I could have access to the deeper water by the dam. I had avoided it because there were a group of guys putting large rocks in with a small dozier to prevent erosion from a piece of private property there. I didn't want to get near them because I didn't want to be asked questions such as "how do you get permission to fish here? etc". However, I had no choice, but I swung out away from the bank as I approached them to give myself a wide birth. It was just after passing them that I felt it in my heart that I was getting read to catch a big fish and approximately two casts later, I felt "Spotty, " as I'm naming him, latch onto my bait. As soon as I set the hook, I knew I had a good fish, and I also knew immediately that I'd made all the guys on the bank aware as they were watching me closely and I could hear them telling one another that I had a fish on. As luck would have it, I had two other poles with lines hanging in the water hoping to get a bite from a crappie and those lines were soon in the way, but I was too busy trying to land this fish. Call it peer pressure or just guy pride, but I couldn't bare to let him get off while I'm being watched, and with God's blessing and whatever skill I've acquired in the last year or so, I soon netted him after a good fight. As soon as I took a deep breath, I got my hand in his mouth, unhooked him, and held him up high above my head and let out a loud yell. The guys on the bank, yelled back in return and I felt the enviable position of being a man's man. After taking a few photographs of Spotty (noting in this photo and a couple others, I took that he has very unusual birthmarks), recognized him almost surely as a fish I caught earlier in the year or late last year, and released him. My crowd barked their disapproval of my release, but by that point, I was as happy as I'd been all year. Sadly on this day, I had forgotten the Go Pro at home, so no video is available. With temps dropping below freezing now, I'll probably take some time off and concentrate on loosing some of the unwanted weight I have gained in the past couple months.
February - March 2018
Well, after nearly two months of dreaming of fishing, and trying it out a few times in January, but getting skunked more often than not, I finally hit upon a gold mine of a day on February 9th. I arrived at the private lake that I fish at about 10:15 in the morning knowing that I had to be at work by 1:15, but the opportunity to fish in 51 degree weather after a warm day prior was too good of an opportunity for me to pass up. I brought three bait-casters and a spinning combo with the intention of fishing a small Flicker Shad (FS) on the spinning gear and fishing a Livingston Jerk Bait (LJB), Optimum Baby Boom (OBB) Swimbait, and Texas-rigged UV craw (UVC) on the other three. Within 10 minutes, I had landed a solid 2 lb, 8 oz bass on the FS, and followed it up with a 4 lb, 11 oz giant fifteen minutes later. As with the last bass of the year that I caught in 2017, I fished the FS like a jerk bait and often paused it several seconds between jerks, as this bait goes nose up and suspends when not being retrieved. It's also important to note that I was fishing in 3-8 feet of water along a NW section of a cove from a boat dock. There was a slight wind of 11 mph coming out of the SW, so just enough ripple was on the water, but with enough sunlight to draw the bigger fish closer to the dock. I was thrilled to have two bass and wondered if it the bite could stay this good from the small dock I was fishing. After a few minutes without a bite, I switched to the OBB and working it on a painfully slow retrieve to keep it in contact with the bottom, I landed a solid 3 lb, 10 bass. Afterwards, I caught another solid 3 lb'r the FS before getting it hung up on some object on the bottom just to the SW of where I was standing and had to break the line. Instead of retying, I picked up the rod with the UVC and fished it over that spot and another spot just NE of where I was standing where I had lost a Wiggle Wart a couple weeks earlier. Since this lure is by and large weedless, I was hoping to see if I could feel what the objects were and possibly hook up on a bass holding close to whatever structure it was, but no takers, so I tried the five inch LJB and got no takers, so I cut the line and tied on a brand new, shiny Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap (RLT), and began casting it out as far as I could and hoping it off the bottom and allowing it to dive back to the bottom and sit for a second or two before pumping it 2-3 hops and reeling up the slack. On my second retrieve as it neared the NE corner of the dock, I remembered the unknown hangup just off to my left and decided to risk a hop or two as close to it as possible, maybe 8-10 feet from my position based on the 7 foot rod Daiwa rod I was using and immediately upon diving out of my sight, I felt a big hit and pulled hard to my left to ensure the hooks set properly, and in doing so, caught sight of what was to be my new PB. She looked huge and thankfully, the cold water temps were in my favor as she pulled hard and went on a pretty good run towards deeper water, but didn't jump where should likely would have thrown the hook. I have to say that the Daiwa Tatula reel didn't budge one bit when she began a long run, and I clicked the button and thumbed it when I felt she might put too much tension on the line, which she did several times, running from my NE all the way around the SW corner or the dock, and under it before I eased her out and back around to the NE side where I carefully slid my thumb into her mouth (admitting I was cautious as she only had one hook in her lip and the other five looked open to grabbing my hand should she struggle during the landing process). My heart was pounding like I'd just reached the plateau of a cardio workout on an elliptical, when I knew I had her in my grasp and lifted her out of the water. I was very apparent that she was between six or seven pounds, and I rushed to the shore to video, photograph, and weigh her (6 lbs, 5 oz first time and 6 lbs, 7 oz on a followup - so split the difference - she was 6 lbs, 6oz). I released her and observed the time was 12:28 pm.
No way I was going to work with this type of bite going on, so I called and took off until 6 pm. The RLT didn't produce another bass as I had hoped, so I tried the OBB again and again no takers, so I tied on another FS in a different color on the spinning rod, and here is where things really got funny. I was fishing it like I had the earlier one, when I suddenly got hung up in the same spot I'd lost the first one, except this time, it immediately came loose and as I reeled the line in, I realized my back treble hook, had caught the split ring of the other FS that I had lost and freed it, so I managed to get it back. Since it had been so productive earlier, I retied it on in place of the one I was using and a few minutes later, I lost it again after hanging it up on the object off to my NE, and strangely enough, after breaking the line trying to free it, the Wiggle Wart I had lost two weeks prior came floating to the surface, and I was able to catch it on the RTL I had tied on.
Afterwards, I made a move that I didn't have a lot of confidence in, but acting on a hunch, I retrieved a brand new Jawbone Lipless Rattlebait - Orange Belly Craw (OBC) from my tackle bag (simply because I had bought it on the following Friday when I bought the RLT and thought....maybe my newest two lures will both produce). On the very first cast, I hooked another bass and followed it up with two more, all in the 2 - 3 1/2 lbs range, before the bite died down. I walked along the shoreline killing at least 30 minutes before I came back to the dock and finished my day with another good bass, 4 lbs, 1 oz on the OBC. In the end, the wind shifted during this time and a front blew in from the NW dropping the temps within minutes and helped me change my mind about going to work late, so after picking up some lunch from a nearby Arby's, I was able to make it to work by 3:30. Here are some of the pics of the fish I caught that day, along with a video of me weighing my new PB (note the shaky hands and how winded I am...probably could have heard my heart beating in my Go Pro if I hadn't have forgotten it at home). I thanked God repeatedly throughout the day, as I know He blesses me amazingly in all things.
No way I was going to work with this type of bite going on, so I called and took off until 6 pm. The RLT didn't produce another bass as I had hoped, so I tried the OBB again and again no takers, so I tied on another FS in a different color on the spinning rod, and here is where things really got funny. I was fishing it like I had the earlier one, when I suddenly got hung up in the same spot I'd lost the first one, except this time, it immediately came loose and as I reeled the line in, I realized my back treble hook, had caught the split ring of the other FS that I had lost and freed it, so I managed to get it back. Since it had been so productive earlier, I retied it on in place of the one I was using and a few minutes later, I lost it again after hanging it up on the object off to my NE, and strangely enough, after breaking the line trying to free it, the Wiggle Wart I had lost two weeks prior came floating to the surface, and I was able to catch it on the RTL I had tied on.
Afterwards, I made a move that I didn't have a lot of confidence in, but acting on a hunch, I retrieved a brand new Jawbone Lipless Rattlebait - Orange Belly Craw (OBC) from my tackle bag (simply because I had bought it on the following Friday when I bought the RLT and thought....maybe my newest two lures will both produce). On the very first cast, I hooked another bass and followed it up with two more, all in the 2 - 3 1/2 lbs range, before the bite died down. I walked along the shoreline killing at least 30 minutes before I came back to the dock and finished my day with another good bass, 4 lbs, 1 oz on the OBC. In the end, the wind shifted during this time and a front blew in from the NW dropping the temps within minutes and helped me change my mind about going to work late, so after picking up some lunch from a nearby Arby's, I was able to make it to work by 3:30. Here are some of the pics of the fish I caught that day, along with a video of me weighing my new PB (note the shaky hands and how winded I am...probably could have heard my heart beating in my Go Pro if I hadn't have forgotten it at home). I thanked God repeatedly throughout the day, as I know He blesses me amazingly in all things.
March 5th.
By all measure, this day was extremely poor. I fished from just before noon until the sun was setting and with the exception of some small crappie, I hadn't caught much all day and hadn't had a bass bite in over five hours. As the sun was just going down, I started to row across a pocket (cove) to fish one more spot, and then decided I had to throw a 3/4 ounce Rat-L-Trap at this retaining wall I love fishing. Just after casting near it, I turned on my Go-Pro and soon afterwards, set the hook on a bass that I initially thought had to have surpassed my new PB shown above. As it turned out, it was exactly one pound less at 5lbs, 6 oz. Here is the video of this catch. Needless to say, I was very excited.
By all measure, this day was extremely poor. I fished from just before noon until the sun was setting and with the exception of some small crappie, I hadn't caught much all day and hadn't had a bass bite in over five hours. As the sun was just going down, I started to row across a pocket (cove) to fish one more spot, and then decided I had to throw a 3/4 ounce Rat-L-Trap at this retaining wall I love fishing. Just after casting near it, I turned on my Go-Pro and soon afterwards, set the hook on a bass that I initially thought had to have surpassed my new PB shown above. As it turned out, it was exactly one pound less at 5lbs, 6 oz. Here is the video of this catch. Needless to say, I was very excited.
Not Every Fish Story has a Happy Ending
March 16th - 11:26 am
I arrived at the private lake I fish regularly and rushed to the dock to get in an hour or so of fishing before I had to go to work. RUSHED being the key word, and it would soon come to haunt me. In a rush to leave home, I forgot my Go-Pro and in a rush to get to the dock, I left my net in the car. On my second cast of approximately 25 yards, and as I waited for the white chatterbait with a matching blade minnow trailer to settle on the bottom, I felt a hard "thumb" and realized a fish had grabbed it on the fall, so I set the hook and immediately knew I had a very large fish. As I began reeling her in, I made a mental note of obvious underwear obstructions between me and the fish just a bit to my right, and also the presence of a boat tied to the dock to my left and didn't have any intention of letting her get any momentum towards either of the two. Knowing I had just put some 20 lb P-Line fluorocarbon coated line on my pole, I was sure I could trust it and planned to "horse" the fish to me as quickly as possible. More than once, she breached the surface and each time, I got a glimpse of a big bass -- a very big bass, so as she neared the dock and attempted to go under it, I tried to turn her back from under it and as she came up and out, I saw she was HUGE. Now, I hate judging or trying to guess a fishes weight from glimpses - especially in the heat of a tug of war, and normally by this point, I wouldn't have to because I'd be scooping her up into the net. Remember what I said about being in a rush? Yep, I left the net in the trunk of the car, so as soon as I got a glimpse of what I was sure was well over my new PB, she dove hard, and that new 20lb test P-Line popped loud enough to hear it clearly. I shouted "NOOOO", and then spent the rest of the day thinking about how ill prepared I was and how it cost me. If I had the Go-Pro recording, at least I could prove what I lost and possibly get a really good look at her, and if I had the net, it probably would be posted on every social media page I have in pictures. As it turns out, I'm left with a broken heart of sorts and newly cemented plans and preparations for my next trip out. Starting with ridding my rod of that 20 lb P-Line....Having caught a 6lb, 1 oz bass on 8.lb mono and my PB of 6lbs, 6oz on 10 or 12 pound mon0, I refuse to ever again put my trust in a line that failed me under the weight of a bass that was very likely was in the 7 - 9 lb range. Either way, God is All Good and I thank Him for the experience.