Biggest Fish of The Year

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September 11th 2018

 

After a cancellation yesterday afternoon, due to high winds and big waves, I was back out again this morning. Scott, Manson & Cory were with me and looking for something big. I knew just where to go!

I made a long run and idled over the area that I wanted to fish. It didn’t take long before I saw what I was looking for and dropped the anchor to set up. With lines in, all we could do was wait for the first bite. Unfortunately the first couple were junk fish and not what I wanted. The third time was a charm as Manson was finally into his first ever sturgeon. It may not have been big by my standards, but it was still a good fish! It made a spectacular jump and sounded to the bottom a couple of times, giving him a great fight. A few quick pics and back it went, to the bottom where it belonged!

The bite wasn’t great and I had to make a few moves to stay on them, but the fish were definitely there! Not long after we anchored for the third time, I saw a bite and set into a heavy fish. It was Cory’s turn and the rod was passed. The other two lines were cleared to make way for his fight as I knew this was a much better fish! At one point in the battle, I could see the line rising and told everyone to watch as the fish was about to breach. When it did, I knew he was in for a long battle. It was the largest one so far this season and it was a male. They usually put up a better fight than the females with their long slender profiles!

Cory couldn’t believe how strong these things were and was doing everything he could do bring it to the boat. Several times it went around the motors causing him to switch sides, carefully. After several good runs and about ten minutes later, I was finally able to net his fish. It may not have been fat but it was really long! It was going to get interesting as I told him the easy part was over. Now he would have to hold it for the pic!

After torturing him with different angles for the shots, Cory was finally able to release the fish back to the water. A sigh of relief was made, as he no longer had to hold up his heavyweight! I quickly got the lines back in and hoped for an even bigger one next. Unfortunately we weren’t as lucky with several other junk fish being landed and one 10 pound catfish by Scott. We did manage to get 8 fish from the area but only two of them were the targeted species! Everyone decided that it was time for a little bass action!

After a short run, I settled on a location that had been producing quality fish recently and locked the trolling motor in place. I rigged up 3 rods with soft plastics and showed them what they needed to do. Manny was the first to lock up on a bass and it was an average big fish for the area. I took a few pics of his catch and he released it back where it belonged. The others weren’t having much luck as they just kept missing bites! Eventually I had to show them what to do and immediately locked up! I gave the rod back to Cory to fight the fish. At the same time, Manson hooked up again and this eventually made for a great double pic. Scott on the other hand could only get a piece of his bites and was missing all of the fish. Eventually he redeemed himself and finally brought one to net! This area wasn’t an easy place to fish and you really had to pay attention throughout the cast. Manny seemed like the only person that was consistently hooking up and he was fishing real slow.

We moved around the area we were in and they managed several more bites. Too bad most of them were missed or lost on the jumps! I decided to make another cast for Cory and immediately locked up on another giant. At least he was getting to fight some fish! The other two were fending equally as well but Cory managed one more landed fish, giving him a total of five for this spot. I didn’t want to stay much longer as I had other areas I wanted to go to before we were done. I took Cory’s rod one last time for a couple of casts and hooked into another quality bass. I passed it back to him once again and we were done!

I had decided to try one last shoal before we called the day and made another short run to the rocky flat. The low light made it tough to see, but there were definitely fish in the area. Short strikes on Scott’s rod were had but the results were similar to before. Missed fish and nothing to show for his effort! Cory wasn’t doing much better and I decided to make another cast with his rod to show him how to work the bait again. As luck would have it, I set into another big bass and passed the rod back to him to fight the fish. Unfortunately this was to be the only fish for this area before we were done! Scott did manage to miss a couple of other fish but we never had anything afterwards and pulled the plug on the day.

Scott had hoped to get Manny and Cory into a sturgeon and we had accomplished this. He had landed some big ones the previous year and just hoped that they could feel the power as well. The late afternoon smallmouth fishing wasn’t great but the caliber of fish were. They had plenty of chances and landed some really good ones in the time remaining. Scott will be back out with me again next week and hopefully the weather will cooperate enough to catch a few more big fish. If not, we’ll just have to settle for the huge smallies and walleye that live here as well. It’s always great to have a backup plan, in case mother nature doesn’t cooperate. This also makes for a great multi species kind of day!!