After it seemed like forever, fishing season finally opened up here in Wisconsin last weekend. Both my father and I went out to a local park to do some fishing on foot. We started out fishing near the d**n, which is usually where we do the best. The water was warmer and murkier than I had expected it to be. I had one gentle bump from a fish on a squarebill. I saw some fish breaking on top, and I tried a topwater, but that didn't pan out.
The fishing season opener is like a national holiday in Wisconsin, and us fishing at a public park, it started to get crowded and we decided to abandon the usually good spot.
Instead we went to the south end of the pond where the creek runs into it. This spot is also where we caught most of our bass during last year's opener, as well as this:
This trout was caught during last year's opener, and I also caught some smaller brook trout in the process. So all this winter I have been thinking of what I should throw to the bass to imitate these trout. A few months ago, I went to an outdoor expo and purchased some awesome looking swimbaits made by a local guy in Wisconsin. I had decided I was going to use this opening day the day that I bought the swimbaits haha. Anyways, I rigged up the swimbait Line-through style ( because I have NO confidence in those weighted swimbait hooks).
Me and my dad tried fishing this area, but again zeroed out, not even a bite. We felt a little discouraged, I thought we might get skunked! We had one last spot try on this body of water, which is a long, nearly featureless bank. (that I usually do pretty poorly on). Me and my dad decided to walk the length of the bank (maybe 3/4 of a mile), he had a T-rigged soft stickworm and I had my swimbait.
After fishing a hundred yards or so, I got a tap on my swimbait, then my dad hooked up with a 2 pounder! Then his very next cast, he caught this pond behemoth.
Weighed 3-15 on our Rapala Scale (which I think is off ) And is the biggest Largemouth he has ever caught!
A short ways down the bank, I caught a 2-10, and the first fish I have caught on a "bigger" soft swimbait. A few minutes later, I hooked up with this big girl!
This one went 3-7 and was 2 ounces less than my PB largemouth. Me and my dad were certainly happy we didn't give up earlier! I ended up catching 7 bass and my dad 5, all but two were 15 inch plus fish.
We had a great day on the water, it was challenging at first, not having a meaningful bite for almost 2 hours, but we stuck to it and we figured them out. I don't know what else you could ask for in a day of fishing!
