Your Best Day?

[Swamp Girl]

So, do you have a best day ever...or two?

One was on the north shore of Lake Michigan. When I was a kid, I found an old Field and Stream from the sixties and I read about these smallie fishers finding this rock that held scores of bass. So, I went there and waded and waded and casted and casted, looking for that rock. I didn't catch a single bass for two days and then I found it...or its twin. It was the size of a VW Bug and nearly every cast triggered a strike. The waves were sloshing over my waders and when the smallies jumped, they sometimes were higher than my head. It was a beautiful place to fish, the smallmouth were ready to dance, and no hive holds honey as sweet as the one halfway up a mountain.

The second was on a numbers lake in Canada that I've fished for years. Hundred fish per person per day is the norm, but on one two day stretch, the smallmouth wouldn't quit hitting. We normally fish from fourish in the morning until ten or so and then nap until the evening, when we'd fish another five or so hours. On this lake on these two days, they didn't quit, so we didn't quit. They especially liked a plain Mepps spinner and it was so consistent that if I cast and didn't catch a bass, I'd examine the spinner to see if something were wrong. They reverted to normal aggressiveness after the two days and I've always wondered what made them banzai berserkers for a bit.

[Swamp Girl]

I've been looking at the pics of the smallies you guys catch. You don't catch smallies. You catch biggies. No, you catch the Kraken. Rather, you likely catch and release the Kraken. My best stories are about small smallmouths, but I'd love to hear a story or three about catching a seven or eight pounder. Does it fight twice as hard as a four-pounder? I suppose they're too big to jump. Is that right?

[Will Wetline]

Like your stories and writing style. This is the first time I've come across the term banzai berserkers and I am going to appropriate it for my own use. (Thank you.)

Can't tell you about a seven or eight pound smallie, but a solid six met the net mid day during the second week of June this past season. While I had been doing next to nuthin' using proven baits and presentations, my partner had boated five smallmouth that were good for sixteen or seventeen pounds. Dave was using a rig I had known about for years but can't honestly remember fishing.

At this time I realized it might be in my interest to switch to something that was working so I wacky rigged a 4" Slim Senko . On the first cast I saw my line moving off slowly not long after I had closed the bail. I let the line tighten and then set. Well now, what most anybody would call a big smallie fully cleared the surface, went down, bulled around, came up . . . went down, and hey - it came out again. You can't see me patting my back because we're not on Skype, but I will say that I kept my cool with this fish until I gave the nod to my capable netman. And that's the story of the fish in my avatar photo.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Will Wetline

[Swamp Girl]

What a fish, Will! I also admire your recall. I think acute observation and memory are two tackle essentials, as important as fresh line and a smooth drag. In short, a good watcher makes a good fisher. I've never caught a six pounder, but I wanna and till then, I'll make do with your story.

Feel free to appropriate!

[Bluebasser86]

I spent an amazing day of catching smallmouth with 2 friends this past spring. We got on the water around 6am and literally from my first cast of the day to our last casts of the day there was not a time when someone was not fighting a fish or unhooking a fish. We had more doubles than we could track and several triples. A majority of them fell for jerkbaits and were in the 12-15 inch range. I had over 100 smallies by myself and we ended up with 256 fish on the day, give or take a fish or two. On top of those smallmouth we had 10 walleye, gobs of white bass, and a few big crappie. We didn't have any real big ones but when you're catching fish like that it doesn't really matter.

Our state record isn't even 7 pounds but I've managed to hit the 5lb mark 3 times. In all three cases the fish had no problems launching themselves to surprising heights.

[roadwarrior]

On two consecutive Saturdays in January 2005 I caught the two fish in my avatar and the fish pictured in this article:

http://www.bassresource.com/fishing/smallmouth_record.html

My best fish was the one that got away: http://forums.basspro.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=026926

[Swamp Girl]

@ Bluebasser86 I love those days when the bass are unleashed, unfettered, and uninhibited. I stumble over rocks with my canoe on my shoulders to reach unlearned fish. All hail foolish fish!

Wow, roadwarrior. However, for what it's worth, IF you had altered your line, you likely would never had hooked that fish because cutting the end of your line would have changed everything else. Your bait wouldn't have been at that precise depth in that precise place because every action changes every subsequent action to some degree and even if we're talking about some shifts of millimeters, that slight distance might have precluded a hit from a bass as worldly as that one. I'm trying to make you feel a bit better, but my attempt is probably as nicked as your line was.