Another Personal Best

I picked up my guest for the week last night at the airport and informed him that his timing couldn’t have been better. Takeshi had flown halfway around the world from Japan to battle smallmouth bass and that he would! We hit the water this morning under not so perfect conditions once again with cold air temps, clouds and a hurricane like wind. It was blowing in from the E and that meant no drifting today. The wind was actually pushing us up current in many areas, causing us to be on top of our game. The water temps were barely 51 degrees and never really warmed today with the lack of sunshine. Air temps were around 40 degrees but felt more like 20 with the wind chill. He wasted no time getting into the fish and within the first hour we had boated plenty of decent smallies up to 4 pounds and lost even more. The wind was really a big factor making some of the hits quite difficult to detect and we were just missing strikes. Eventually, we hit several larger ones and Takeshi remembered just why he had flown 13 hours for these, “Angry Bass”! Each and every one had a mean streak and fought like champions when he hooked up and all he could do was laugh. We shifted areas quite often due to the winds and caught fish in each & every one we hit. Although the bass weren’t all the size we had expected, there were several large ones landed. I think Takeshi broke his personal best smallie several times over! We continued fishing for the remainder of the day all the while getting into flurries of activity on a mix of baits. Probably the best ones though would have to be the crankbaits that Takeshi brought from Japan. They just worked phenomenal for him and put many fish in the boat throughout the day. I’m sure glad we hit the current breaks today as it allowed him to present the right choice of lures in just the right locations. This may have been the best day I’ve seen in a long time on the river and I can’t wait to get back out once again. Although Takeshi may have had a little Jet Lag, he definitely forgot about the lack of sleep as he pounded smallmouth all day long!!