A Fall Finalee

Sam, his brother Hassan and their friend Stephan were with me today, for their fill of fall bass fishing. We hit the water shortly after 8:30 and headed to our first stop, hoping for a few quick bites. Overcast skies were upon us but sunshine was expected sometime during the day. Little to no wind was going to make this  a pleasure as I usually get hurricanes lately! I decided to have them drag jigs along an edge in deeper water and it didn’t take long before Hassan was locked up. Although not big, it was the first fish of the day and welcomed. We had a few more fish boated but the action wasn’t what I had expected so I relocated and Sam was rewarded with a nice one on his first cast. This was definitely what I was looking for and I hoped there would be more. His brother also missed another one almost immediately after his hook up, but we’ll never know how big! We made multiple passes in hopes of others just like this one but fell a little short on the size. I wanted the sun to come out so that I could try something different but decided to give it a shot, regardless. The cloud cover was so thick that it looked like it would never clear! I instructed them on what to do and demonstrated on a couple of casts. We were covering water and I was sure they would begin catching more. Both Sam & Hassan had a few chances but unfortunately the fish threw the hooks not long after they locked up. I made a few adjustments slowing them down some and then it began. From that point on, they were into fish for the remainder of the day. I had cracked the code, so to speak and the fish were getting hooked. Although they did lose quite a few, they landed way more  and some were real quality too! Stephane caught several as well but not the numbers the other two were into. He was having a little difficulty feeling the bites and after a little more instruction, he locked up on a good one. I think a lot of his problems were lack of confidence and that hopefully changed with this fish. The three of them managed to boat many, many more fish in the last few hours, right up until we were done. Somewhere around 3:00 we pulled the plug and made our way back to take out. They had a tremendous day of fishing and for a change, the weather held out. The only thing I would have changed would have been the sun. We managed to get less than 30 minutes of it during the entire day, contrary to what the weather had forecasted. Go figure! All in all I think everyone was completely satisfied with the outcome and they all had some real good bass as well. Fall is definitely trophy time and today was a perfect example of what to expect. Big numbers of fish along with big fish too! Hopefully the weather will remain decent for a few more days and not lock me out too soon. I can’t wait to get back out and hammer more of the feeders before the winter arrives. With any luck, I will go right into the next month, once again this year!!