Full Moon

Part 1: Without my potential clients getting back to me for today, Christiane & I headed on the lake looking for a few big fish. The full moon is always a good time to target the bigguns and today would prove that theory right. Flat calm conditions and scorching heat had us just dying out there! We were in & out of the sunshine throughout the morning and the cloud cover was a welcomed blessing. Dog pecker knats were everywhere without the aid of any wind and that made it almost unbearable. We began our morning with a troll as this was the only way we could actually move and feel a slight breeze. First fish to fire a reel was a northern of about 8 pounds but not what we expected. I was in a walleye zone and had hoped for a different species when another reel went off and I knew we had the right one. A three pound walleye was landed and livewelled for dinner tonight! We kept trolling over specific areas and ironically, every reel that fired after turned out to be a surprise. We were now hitting smallmouth bass that were roaming and they were big! The first one that came aboard was close to 6 pounds and gave one hell of a fight. When she jumped, I couldn’t believe my eyes as this fish was exceptionally long. Once aboard, she measured slightly above 22 inches and she was fat too! So as not to overstress her, I quickly released this beauty after a couple of pics. We kept at this and were getting into average 4 pounders when another big one hammered the lure and took to the air once again. This one too was long and at over 20 inches went above 5 pounds. Obviously they were well fed because every one we landed, were not only long but pretty fat as well. The remainder of the morning saw similar results as several more big bass were caught & released.