Dave caught the trip's first fish; a decent little smallmouth on a worm. I'd get the next smallie on a minnow. A better fish.
Then another again on a minnow.
Dave realized the fish were preferring minnows today and scored a nicer fish after making the switch.
I saw the copper flash of the side of the fish as it hit my next cast. I thought it was another decent smallmouth.
It wasn't. It was a decent rock bass. Time for a rock bass selfie. (at least I'm not doing the duck-face)
Cast after cast, minnow after minnow we'd pull bronze out of each hole we fished. The morning was a success in numbers and in quality fish landed. We knew we'd be happy if we had to call it quits right then but one more hole looked so inviting we had to cast at it.
More quality smallmouth came up for a photo. Dave had his rod tucked into his wading belt. His float ten feet from our position. He asked me to help get a Plano box of floats out of the back pocket of his wading vest when I noticed his float was down. I grabbed his rod and line between the reel seat and the big sripper guide and pulled tight to set the hook. Dave took over and reeled in the best fish of the day; 16.5" long 9" girth calculated to 2.25# of bronze!
Dave and I were both happy with the quality of fish today and the excitement of the last catch hadn't worn off before my float went down.
Dave set the tone for my fight when he said "Holy $hi+, that's a GOOD ONE!!" The fish made two runs. I used my 7' custom Micro-Wave spinning rod as leverage to steer the fish away from a fallen log. The fish jumped but I saw the #4 Gamakatsu Octopus-Circle hook was set firmly in it's lip.
Bronze! Big bronze! 18" long, 10.5" girth would calculate to 2.75#. WOW! My biggest smallmouth of 2013 and a little smaller than my personal best.
I was complaining earlier this week I hadn't gotten out and caught my favorite species of fish. I was complaining I hadn't put on my waders much and walked in moving water this season. I decided to change that today and I'm glad that I did.
I was on a Quest for Bronze, and bronze was what I got.
