I finally got a PB worth being proud of. I've written out a fairly lengthy blurb so if you don't want to read it, there's a picture at the bottom I promise!
This is my second year fishing for bass and I think I have finally clued in on what the bigger fish in my local lake will go for. The vast majority of anglers in my neck of the woods are trout or salmon guys and bass are generally frowned upon (blasphemy I know). Because of this, there really isn't anyone to learn bass fishing from. The belief that my local lake only had tiny bass was almost unanimous (to this day there are still people that are surprised to hear that it even has Largemouth), and it was only through word of mouth after getting to know other residents that fished the lake that there was one fish rumoured to have been in the six pound range that was caught the year before. Most people passed it off as just that however; a rumour.
In my first year of bass fishing, I started out with casting small spoons and jigging curly tail grubs under a dock. This brought in a few fish, but the problem was that they were all in the 6-8 inch range. We ended the year with my girlfriend landing a whopping 10 incher, which we figured was a good size.
This year started with more of the same, except I picked up on wacky rigging some small plastic Berkley trout worms. This worked wonders but again, most of the fish were very small with the odd 12 incher thrown in. Whenever I tried larger wacky worms or tossed larger lures like Rapalas, I would always get skunked. We even rented a rowboat to get to some new spots but all we could catch were these tiny bass, and there were lots. I spent an entire summer day chucking a topwater frog to no avail as well, which made me put it away for awhile (more on this later). About halfway through the summer I started making my own spinners, and this became a very cheap alternative to wacky rigging the Berkley worms. I then discovered a little outflow creek that would hold bass, and I eventually landed a 14.5 incher on a spinner there.
Fast forward to early September. I had upped my average by catching a handful of bass between 13 and 14.5 inches, but it was never consistent and more due to dumb luck than anything. Furthermore, they were still not the monster bass that I believed the lake was harboring. One day I commented on how the lily pads in the lake were started to recede a bit, and my girlfriend said, "why don't you try the top water frog again?" I didn't think much of it, but after a few more uneventful trips I finally brought it out. On that trip I started with my home-made spinners while my girlfriend wanted to try the frog. It didn't take long for there to be a SPLASH as a small bass took a swipe at the frog and missed. A little while later, I watched a much bigger one fly out of the water with the frog in its mouth. Unfortunately we were very green at the whole frog technique and my girlfriend ended up setting the hook much too soon. Regardless I was spurred on by this and immediately went back in the days that followed to try the frog. I got a bunch of blowups but for the life of me I either couldn't hook them or I couldn't keep them hooked. That's when you wonderful people of Bass Resource came in.
After consulting the knowledgeable people on this forum, I went back to try again and finally landed a chunky 16 incher, which became my new PB. This was already much bigger than anything my circle of newly recruited bass anglers had caught out of this lake, but I couldn't help but feel there was something more that I had to experience. In the weeks that followed, I consistently caught fish in the 13-16 inch range and had at least a couple of blow ups every trip, with the majority of the action occurring right where the outflow creek meets the lake. I was pretty content with this new change of pace from the 6 inchers but I figured that with this colder weather it would push the bigger bass out to deeper water and I would have to wait until next year to catch my local lake monster. Or so I thought.
ACTUAL REPORT HERE:
The evening started out as any other frog fishing evening. Got to the lake around 3pm for a couple of hours of frogging before it got dark. The first couple of hours went by without a sniff, with the exception of a fish startling me to death when my frog fell at my feet and was suddenly met by a blow up. Alas, I did not see nor hook that one. After moving along the lake, I came back to my old haunt that had been so good to me over the past month. On the first cast upon my return, a big blow up sank my frog about halfway through my retrieve. Turned out to be a good decision to revisit my haunt as this fish ended up shattering my previous 16 inch PB, coming out to 21 inches in length. Did not get a girth measurement but seemed decently chunky, so I would guess a solid 5lb fish? You can judge for yourself:
I was absolutely elated and was shaking so badly while releasing this fish. I was so excited that I forgot to check my braided line and on the very next cast, another one that looked roughly the same size demolished the frog within a few seconds of hitting the water. I went to give it a good hard hook set when SNAP! My line broke. Serves me right for using old/used braid. luckily for me, I had a spare setup so I immediately put that one together and proceeded to land another six bass in the span of about 45 minutes. The rest were in the 13-15 inch range so they weren't that big, but it was still crazy fun having so many of them explode on the frog. At one point it was 5 casts and 5 blow ups. Best frog fishing trip of my career so far and a fish that I will remember for a long time. I grew up with salmon and trout and I normally head out for salmon during the fall months, but I've been enjoying the topwater bite so much that I am opting for a bass trip tomorrow instead. Consider me addicted!
.thumb.jpg.61c7194e3361b5a982829d3102ad3ba0.jpg)
.thumb.jpg.df52404fc648bc17a641a50eb4c9dac9.jpg)