Searching For a Trophy

Well, Norm was back again today to see if he could become a member of that elusive six pound club. Would today be the day? Last year at this time he was struggling to try and beat the five pound mark but now he was shooting for a greater target. We began in beautiful bright conditions with sun and cloud cover and a very light breeze from the west. Air temps were around 43 degrees and expected to climb to about 55 by days end. Even the water had risen slightly and was now almost fifty! It didn’t take long before he was locked up and bringing in a nice starter fish of around 4.5 pounds. In the next few hours there were plenty of bass caught but he was still unable to match the first fish of the day and I moved on. I wanted him to get the big one almost as much as he did and tried all kinds of things to try and locate his trophy fish. We fished deep and we fished shallow just to give a fair shake to all the zones that were producing daily. As with before, we still concentrated mostly on the current brakes in this river and had most of our luck within this type of water. By mid afternoon we still hadn’t been able to locate anything that would come close to his trophy and made a long run to an isolated spot that I hadn’t fished in quite some time to see if there might be some sort of activity there. After about 45 minutes of washing lures without a strike, we opted for the long run back and hopefully “Moby Dick”. Well, he did hook up on a biggun on his first cast and we both knew it was a heavy fish by the way it was staying down, but as it neared the boat we realized that it was a walleye. It may have been over 5 pounds but it was still an eye and not what we were looking for! With about an hour of light left in the day, we stuck it out and just pounded fish on every other cast. Unfortunately, they were at best four and a half pounds and the six pounder was not to be today. Big fish are never easy to come by and although sometimes they bite great, they never really bite on command. This day had plenty of action throughout but not the trophy we were looking for and we had to settle for the numbers instead of the size. With only a few weeks left in this season before “Mother Nature” freezes us out, he will have to get back out to beat the six pound target at least once more. Somehow I don’t think that will be a problem as he has demonstrated in the past. Norm’s never been one to just give up and the bass just make him more determined to succeed. I know he will be back and sooner or later he will become a member of that elusive six pound club. I can’t wait too!!