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My girlfriend Mikaila, decided early on this year that she wanted to fish a tournament with me. I was willing to fish one with her, and a club up north has a few opens every year one of which I've never gotten to fish. I had fished the lake once a few years ago, but not enough to feel comfortable fishing a tournament. Anyway, we decided to go up last Friday, as it'll probably be the last day we would have a chance to fish there together before the tourney. I was expecting the fish to be in the process of spawning, and water temp told me they should be, but there were very few beds. I saw some big smallies cruising anywhere from 4'-10' but couldn't coax them into biting. Late in the day, I saw a nice looking bed and pitched my dropshot to it and hit right away, but pulled my bait off. Mikaila threw a few casts at it, but couldn't get it to turn so I pitched my ds back in there. In the meantime, Mikaila threw a cast that went "slightly" askew and crossed my line. No sooner had she done so, and that smallie fired again on mine so I set the hook. Mikaila, feeling the thump on her line, sets the hook and hooks my line, so I'm fighting her and the fish and the fish pulls off. She reeled in and made a better cast and the smallie fired on her ned rig, but pulled off. I put a tube in front of it's face a few times to no avail. The only other bottom contact bait I had rigged up at the time was a football jig, and figured, "what the heck, it's worth a shot". No sooner did that jig hit the bottom and that smallie absolutely crushed it. I thought I had it hooked good and got it all the way to the boat. Mikaila dipped the net into the water and the fish was halfway in the net when the jig popped out. That smallie darted right back to the bed, where Mikaila managed to hook it one more time before finally sticking it well enough to bring it to the boat. Her first ever smallie went 19 1/2" setting her PB bar pretty high. She wasn't done though, as about 10 minutes later she caught a 19" also off a bed. I had my drone with and am really kicking myself for not putting it up in the air when I missed the first fish. I've honestly never seen a fish that stubborn and not get finicky after getting stuck. It would have made for some pretty cool footage, but in the end, we have the memories of a special fish.

This last weekend I was out bass fishing on one of my favorite fall lakes. The morning was cold...in the mid 30's and highs were projected around 50*. Still warm for this time of year, but not as warm as it had been. I bundled up and headed out anyway in search of some bass, and hopefully some above average ones at that. It took me a while to get anything going, but I finally got bit on a jerkbait and caught a small bass. I started putting more time in with my jerkbait than other baits and I kept getting bit. All pretty normal stuff, but I was surprised at what I was reeling in: a small northern (which aren't abundant on Otter), a crappie, and a bluegill even. I was just thinking, I was close to an Otter Lake Slam (catching all gamefish species on one trip). All I needed to do was catch a walleye, and although present, they aren't an abundant species on Otter either leaving me a snowballs chance to pull off a slam. No more was I thinking that, when I hooked up on a fish that was fighting more like a big bass. I got it closer to the boat I saw the long thin body with a flash of gold and though, "You've got to be joking me!". Sure enough I pulled in a 20" walleye. Slams aren't that rare if you plan on fishing for multiple species throughout the course of a day, or if all species are abundant. However, to catch them all while bass fishing, off the same spot, on the same exact bait, that makes this one pretty memorable and worth writing about.

Last week I decided to get some fishing in before the wave of city-iots hit full force. It had been a while since I took my aunt fishing, so I had arranged for her to meet me after work as I was going to take her to one of my favorite lakes to fish. It's a fairly small lake tucked squarely in the middle of nowhere. Rain and thunderstorms had been predicted earlier in the week, but the forcast had changed eliminating the storms and lowering the chance of rain significantly. On the trip up there it was cloudy and we had no more than a few sprinkles hit the windshield on the 45 minute journey up there. We get the boat in the water and head down the lake and the boat no more than sets down off plane when it starts to rain. I threw my rain gear on and started to tie some baits on my aunts gear. Before I even finished she had one in the boat and had a norther jump out of the water to try and grab her bait as she picked it out of the water. For the next 4-ish hours, we didn't waiver a whole lot from that initial pace. All in all we finished up with 29 bass 2 northerns and a crappie. My aunt lost another 4 or 5 and I missed a few more than that. All in all it came out to a fish in the boat roughly every 7 minutes. Unfortunately, the rain never stopped the entire time. My aunt was starting to get cold so we had to go. It would have been nice to see what the evening would have had in store, but it wasn't in the cards. Biggest one of the trip was the 18 3/4" that pulled like a freight train. Other highlights were a 17 1/2" that my aunt caught as well as a handful in the 16" range. All fish were caught on Big Bite Bait Cane Thumpers with keel weighted hooks. All in all it was a great trip and I'm glad I got to share that experience with my Aunt who doesn't get to fish all that often. P.S. It stopped raining as we were driving away haha