Nothing Special

It had been a year since Yacenti & Marco had fished with me, but they were back today for some more smallmouth bass action. It wasn’t quite as warm as the last couple of days, but it was still too warm for my liking! Air temps reached into the lower 60’s with some sun and plenty of cloud cover to make it feel slightly cooler today. Water temps were just below 50 degrees and the winds were out of the N/E at 5 to 10 K. Marco had requested that I show him what he needed to do by an example cast and I knew what was going to happen next. Immediately I was tight to a fish and it wasn’t small! At the boat, it weighed in at 4 ¾ pounds and was immediately released. Marco was astonished and had the confidence to begin casting on his own as Yacenti locked up on a slightly smaller bass from the back of the boat as well. After 5 or 10 minutes without any hits, Marco asked me to show him exactly what he was doing wrong by another example cast. Big mistake! Once more, I was into another bruiser and this one weighed only 4 ½ pounds. By now he should have known what he was doing and been able to get into a few fish on his own, but he kept either missing the bites or losing them on the hook set. Either way, it was frustrating to see Yacenti catching fish & not Marco. After a while, we relocated to another area not too far away, and the same thing happened. Yacenti landed smallies and Marco, nothing. One more place and once again the same outcome. He did have several fish hooked slightly, but they kept coming off each time he began to reel them in and had to make even more adjustments. It wasn’t until I made a drift & drag in deeper water that he finally locked up on a good one and it stayed pinned. Marco had finally gotten that monkey off his back and it began. Each area after that produced fish for both of them and they even had a double, three times in a row. It may have taken Marco a little longer to get the feel for this, but he eventually overcame the hurdle and was now holding his own. I told him not to be too hard on himself, seeing that he only fishes about once a year! As the day went on, I brought them into an area that had been seeing a lot of the larger fish lately and informed them that the bites here were usually bigguns. It wasn’t long before Yacenti nearly broke his wrist on a hook set and was into the best fish of the day. When he was asked if it felt big his reply was, “Nothing Special”. I guess it grew when it neared the boat, because it weighed in at 5 ¼ pounds. A few quick pics and back she went. We fished for a little longer getting into a few more, smaller fish before we called it a day and headed back to the ramp. The weather was looking like it was going to be getting worse and the onset of a storm seemed to be approaching quickly. It may not have been a fantastic day on the water for numbers and size, but it was still a pretty good day nonetheless! We drove home in the rain!