My father in law and I hit our preferred local lake on Sunday, JW Smith reservoir. We've only got a few more weeks before this lake closes for the winter, so we were determined to make it a good day.
At sunrise, we couldn't get any immediate takers on topwater, flukes or spinnerbaits thrown at or near busting shad, but I coaxed a small keeper on the spinnerbait shortly thereafter. Then the pickeral made their token appearance. Randall took me out on this lake last year and was commenting on how the pickeral always bite. I didn't believe him last year -- I do believe him now Those toothy critters just maul the spinnerbaits and cranks I throw on every trip. And up until yesterday, I never saw a pickeral hit a topwater. I had one launch itself and my Spook out of the water. Somehow he hooked himself in the belly in midair. I don't care, they fight good
As we cruised around looking for more activity, my father in law hooked one on a shakey head in the creek channel. That sucker shook the hook free at the side of the boat. Crap, I really don't want to throw shakey heads today -- I just don't have the patience. I was throwing a lipless crank and lost a bass and landed another toothy pickeral. At this point, it was shaping up to be another slow day.
And that's when it happened. Right place, right bait, right time. The scenario every fisherman wants. We cruised to a real shallow, grassy flat and I started to throw the toad I had abandoned an hour earlier. Three casts, three blowups...three missed hooksets. It always takes me a few minutes to re-acclimate myself to toad fishing Good thing the fish were in a biting mood. Over the next few hours, the action was pretty constant. We got about 15+ to the boat, and missed just as many. Yes, we need to practice our toad hook setting.
After many small keepers, we finally found better size. A 5.5er, 4.5er and two 3 and change fish made it to the boat interspersed with the 1 - 2.5 lb smaller guys.
So today was a day of quite a few "firsts" for me...
1) first fish (er, many fish) on my new DObyns 704C/Zillion combo. I knew I'd love this thing when I got it in the mail. Now I can officially say it passed its test with flying colors. Gary Dobyns will be getting more of my money shortly
2) my first 5 fish limit over 10 lbs. While I may catch a good one here and there, I "specialize" in the 1.5 - 2.5 lb range. Our best 5 between the 2 of us would have gone around 18. And my best 5 would have been around 16 lbs.
3) the first time I used an entire bag of plastics because the bite was so good. OK, it was only a pack of 5 toads, but still...
4) the first time I can honestly say I lost track of how many bass I landed
Additionally, I heart Suffix braid
Lastly, what the heck is the deal with carp? They're all over this lake and the past month, they'd just swim off in a hurry when we got too close. Yesterday, it was like someone was dropping M-80's in the water. It would be silent and then an entire cove would erupt with carp shooting water in the air. I almost fell out of the boat several times because a few of these displays startled the crap out of me.
A few of the bigger fish pics are attached and below.
