A Real Wet One

Scott & his dad Joe joined me today in search of some giant smallies. Scott had fished with me several times in the last few years and was even here a couple of weeks ago, but his dad had never experienced our bass. We hooked up around 8:30 A.M. and were on the water not too long after. The weather was a dismal and damp morning with light drizzle making the 31-degree temps feel more like the 20’s. Would this be the first morning that ice would be forming on the guides? Winds were out of the east at about 5 K and the water temps were around 48 degrees. I knew we were going to have our work cut out for us with these conditions! We found a few fish rather quickly but they weren’t the size I was looking for and they weren’t really hammering the lures either. I had a few pick ups that just dropped the bait almost immediately leaving me swinging at air. Joe even managed to bring in a scale on one of his casts confirming the negative feeding moods they were in so I relocated. The next area wasn’t much better, but we did manage to catch a few decent fish in the 3 to 4 pound range and hung around a little longer. After seeing that it really wasn’t getting much better, I headed out once again and this time it was for the better. By now the drizzle had blanketed us and it almost seemed foggy, but they were catching bass. Joe & Scott hooked up simultaneously and had the first double of the day. Ironically, Joe’s fish turned out to be over twice the size of Scott’s, confirming that size does matter! In fact, when I put her on the scale even I was amazed to see that it was over six pounds. This was by far the largest smallmouth bass he had ever caught and he was thrilled. All the stories that Scott had told his dad about the fishing were now confirmed! We fished all over in many other places throughout the rest of the day and caught many more bass, but nothing that would top that giant. Both Joe & Scott were hooked up regularly and that’s all that counted. Plenty of smallies were caught today and Joe even managed to land a walleye of almost 5 pounds that was to become a dinner. It was a slow start to the day but ended up finishing with a bang!!