Losing Big Smallies

Darrin & I decided that big fish were what we wanted and there was only one lake for this. The last time we were on the lake, he took a bass that probably went close to if not over 6 pounds. He was pumped! The weather began with lots of fog and difficult driving conditions to the lake. The fog also took a while before it lifted and looked like rain clouds, but the fishing began great. In the first 30 minutes there were 3 good fish taken on senko’s and jerkbaits and things were looking up. We covered plenty of water and had a few fish after but realized the fishing was going to be tough. The skies cleared and sunshine made for great viewing, enabling us to actually see some of the fish during the afternoon. With these conditions, senko’s were the only baits we were going to be throwing. Now we were actually hunting instead of fishing as we approached some of the largest bass in shallow water. It felt more like bone fishing in the keys than bass fishing! Several large smallmouth of 4 pounds or more were taken with this technique during the remainder of the afternoon. Darrin missed a really huge bass that looked like it would have been in the 6-pound range but we will never know. He did however manage to land a couple over 5 pounds and several in the high 4’s. It ended with about 15 big smallies and a nice northern of almost 10 pounds by the time we called it a day. These sunny days can be great, but they can also be tough if the fish don’t cooperate. Seeing them is a good thing, but really frustrating if they don’t want to bite. This day was a great one!!