bass
I think a good strategy in fishing is to take all your bad luck and pile it onto a single bad day so that all your other days good luck days. I guess it was my time to pay the piper on Friday. Nothing too horrendous just quite a few lost fish, missed bites and forgetting to turn my camera on after lunch. After my previous fantastic trip it just resulted in a big let down on what I was anticipating to be an epic day.
Now, it was not a horrible day by far. I ended up with 19 bass with 5 being over 17" but it could have been so much better.
I started off the day throwing a topwater towards a small rocky point that had two deer standing on it. The sun was brightening the sky in the backdrop and the water was like glass. There was a lady on the shore photographing the beautiful morning sky so I told her that there were deer on the point. I was talking to her as I was reeling in my first cast of the morning when my whopper plopper was destroyed by a really nice bass. I set the hook but was a bit distracted in talking to the lady on the shore and maybe I did not get as good of a hookset as I should have. Anyway that fish came up and made a beautiful, head shaking leap that sent my whopper plopper a good 10' through the air. Really quite impressive.
I know folks say catching a fish on the first cast is bad luck, but I have to tell you that losing a nice one is even worse
I then caught a small bass or two when I had another good fish on that once again tossed my plopper on a beautiful jump. So here I am on a gorgeous morning and I have already lost two nice bass. The rest of the morning I had a lot of bites but my conversion rate was not very good. It was frustrating to say the least. I am not sure if the issue was that I was using a larger 110 size (instead of my normal 90 size) plopper or if it just wasn't my day.
After the sun came up a bit the topwater bite eventually died and I hit a long lull where I had a hard time finding a bite. I picked up one fish on the spy bait off of spot that is usually good for a handful. I went to another money spot and did not get a sniff. It was just a weird and frustrating day. Eventually as the morning went on I found a spot that was holding some decent fish and I was able to start to catch some nice fish in the 17-18.25" range. However compared to the previous week the bite was much slower. I was typically making quite a few casts between fish instead of getting bit on almost every cast (which is common when they are schooled up and chasing bait).
Here are few action shots:
They were biting pretty good on this spot until the wind died around 10am. I decided that I was hungry and so I decided to take my pills and eat my lunch. I turned off my camera while I ate lunch like I always do but I forgot to turn it back it back on after lunch. So I spent the next few hours catching bass and holding the up to the camera that was off like an idiot I did not realize I had forgotten to turn the camera back on until I went to turn off the camera much later in the day. With the bright sun and glare I could not see that the camera was off.
So I did miss recording a handful of fish including my biggest of the day (18.5", 2lb 14oz). The interesting thing is the wind started out calm and I was getting bit pretty good first thing. Then the wind picked up out of the East and I found a spot where they were biting pretty decently. That spot died when it got calm. After lunch while it was calm I found another spot where I did pretty well but then the wind shifted out of the West around noon or so I did not get a bite for the last two hours. The strange thing is that the normal wind is out of the West (when I fish that area) so I did the worst under what I would consider my favorite condition. All in all it was just a day that felt off.
So while the day was far from a bust it was littered with way too many lost fish, way to many missed bites, this sense that I could never get comfortable and the cherry on top was some stupidity on my part. However, I take solace in the hope that this was my bad luck purge trip and I will be running on all cylinders next trip out!
Here are some pics and video from before lunch
Now, it was not a horrible day by far. I ended up with 19 bass with 5 being over 17" but it could have been so much better.
I started off the day throwing a topwater towards a small rocky point that had two deer standing on it. The sun was brightening the sky in the backdrop and the water was like glass. There was a lady on the shore photographing the beautiful morning sky so I told her that there were deer on the point. I was talking to her as I was reeling in my first cast of the morning when my whopper plopper was destroyed by a really nice bass. I set the hook but was a bit distracted in talking to the lady on the shore and maybe I did not get as good of a hookset as I should have. Anyway that fish came up and made a beautiful, head shaking leap that sent my whopper plopper a good 10' through the air. Really quite impressive.
I know folks say catching a fish on the first cast is bad luck, but I have to tell you that losing a nice one is even worse
I then caught a small bass or two when I had another good fish on that once again tossed my plopper on a beautiful jump. So here I am on a gorgeous morning and I have already lost two nice bass. The rest of the morning I had a lot of bites but my conversion rate was not very good. It was frustrating to say the least. I am not sure if the issue was that I was using a larger 110 size (instead of my normal 90 size) plopper or if it just wasn't my day.
After the sun came up a bit the topwater bite eventually died and I hit a long lull where I had a hard time finding a bite. I picked up one fish on the spy bait off of spot that is usually good for a handful. I went to another money spot and did not get a sniff. It was just a weird and frustrating day. Eventually as the morning went on I found a spot that was holding some decent fish and I was able to start to catch some nice fish in the 17-18.25" range. However compared to the previous week the bite was much slower. I was typically making quite a few casts between fish instead of getting bit on almost every cast (which is common when they are schooled up and chasing bait).
Here are few action shots:
They were biting pretty good on this spot until the wind died around 10am. I decided that I was hungry and so I decided to take my pills and eat my lunch. I turned off my camera while I ate lunch like I always do but I forgot to turn it back it back on after lunch. So I spent the next few hours catching bass and holding the up to the camera that was off like an idiot
I did not realize I had forgotten to turn the camera back on until I went to turn off the camera much later in the day. With the bright sun and glare I could not see that the camera was off.So I did miss recording a handful of fish including my biggest of the day (18.5", 2lb 14oz). The interesting thing is the wind started out calm and I was getting bit pretty good first thing. Then the wind picked up out of the East and I found a spot where they were biting pretty decently. That spot died when it got calm. After lunch while it was calm I found another spot where I did pretty well but then the wind shifted out of the West around noon or so I did not get a bite for the last two hours. The strange thing is that the normal wind is out of the West (when I fish that area) so I did the worst under what I would consider my favorite condition. All in all it was just a day that felt off.
So while the day was far from a bust it was littered with way too many lost fish, way to many missed bites, this sense that I could never get comfortable and the cherry on top was some stupidity on my part. However, I take solace in the hope that this was my bad luck purge trip and I will be running on all cylinders next trip out!
Here are some pics and video from before lunch