Cutting It Short

After postponing today’s customers due to the weatherman’s terrible forecast, I awoke to a beautiful sunny morning. I really didn’t want to waste the day so I gave Norm a call and as expected, he was eager & willing to go. We finally hit the water around 10:00 A.M. and fished exclusively for smallmouth bass. There were a few areas that I had been meaning to check out & today was the day for exploration. Although we did have sun, there were also plenty of clouds and for the first time in a while the temperatures felt comfortable. It climbed up to 80 degrees, but a breeze from the south of 5 to 10 knots cooled the air on our skin. We started on a point that I had fished before and almost immediately were into a 4 pound plus blackie. Love the big black smallmouth bass! This was a post spawn fish that had definitely been feeding as it was long & fat. After covering almost a half mile of shoreline with only sightings of fish to show for our efforts, I decided to relocate. The next location also showed signs of life as Norm battled a fish in the mid fours to the boat. This fish was not as fat as the first one, but it was definitely long. Several others slightly smaller were landed by moving around this area but nothing over 3 pounds until the next spot. Here, Norm got into another fish over 4 pounds almost immediately and this one was really feeding by the size of its gut. The balance of time spent along this gravel point only showed us smaller fish again and off we went once more. As soon as we arrived on the next flat, Norm was battling a three pounder to the boat on his first cast. I hooked up quick too, but the fish threw the hooks when it took to the air and another 4 pound blackie was gone. We circled this section of rocks and picked one here and there but nothing big until the end, There, I lost another big fish as it stole my bait and left me with just the hook attached. I was planning on hitting a couple of other areas, but the skies were not looking too good and we opted to pull off before the storms arrived. There’s always going to be another day to fish when you play it safe and I wasn’t about to chance the weather. It proved to be a good decision as we ran through windy conditions and blackening skies on our way back to the boat ramp. We may not have gotten all the time we wanted to fish but in just a few short hours there were some quality fish landed and that’s what it’s all about!!