October New Hampshire Smallie

[Tokyo Tony]

This is a smallmouth I caught in October in New Hampshire, fishing from shore with one of my dogs, Buddy. Buddy loves fishing, and he's finally learned not to jump in the water and chase after my lure every cast. When it's a slow day, he'll sit there, looking at me, out at the water, back at me, waiting, judging. I always apologize to him for not catching more fish, and urge him to have some patience.

I walked around the lake to one of my better spots. There's a nice rock I can stand on that gives me about 150 degrees of fan casting area. To the left are reeds, shallow rocks, with a grassy bottom. Straight out it's a little deeper with bigger boulders and scattered grass. To the right are a couple sunken tree trunks that always hold a couple fish, and just right of that are more reeds. It's the perfect area for a topwater presentation, and I don't think I've ever not picked up a few smallies in this spot.

I was completing my fan casting from left to right without much luck, just a small one that hit straight out. I was saving the best area for last. I made a long cast of about 50 or 60 yards with a LC Gunfish (those things cast like bullets), just right of the sunken trunks, just left of the reeds. I was walking the bait for maybe seven or eight twitches when all of a sudden this fish just exploded on the lure and came almost clean out of the water. She immediately turned, took a quick zip of drag, then headed 90 degrees to my right, directly towards the reeds. I was too far away from her, and didn't have a good enough angle, to prevent her from going where she intended, so I tried to force her to the surface and skid her in. She did not feel like doing that. She went right into the reeds, and the floating leaves, and for about 30 seconds, I couldn't even make her budge. I put my left hand on the spool and pulled harder than I felt comfortable doing, probably within a few pounds of the breaking point of my M IMX, and finally she and the reeds and the leaves started to give. After another few seconds of her head shakes and generally p'd off behavior, I lipped her with my scale/gripper.

She ended up right around two pounds - nothing huge, but about as big as one can expect from this pond while fishing from shore. All I know is that she had great instincts, and although she's no beast, it's a fish and a fight I'll remember until I'm six feet under. She had beautiful, dark markings, and I think Buddy would agree.

[U.W BronzeBack Hunter]

it's fishing experiences like these that we live for...  :'( (tears of joy)

also, NICE FISH!

[Masshole Mike]

Nice fish bud!

[Tokyo Tony]

Thanks guys  

It's just depressing to thing that the many hundreds of smallmouth in that pond are under a layer of ice, not to be caught again 'til April.