06-25-2009, 09:00 AM
<br /> Alvin and I hit the Chick after work today to try some drop shotting. After catching my first fish on a DS this past Saturday I was wanting to give it another try. We headed up river to fish some ledges and the wind was a little on the stiff side. We proceeded anyway throwing Powerminnows at first. We quickly boated 3 blue cats and 1 channel and a short bass. Pretty good if we had be catfishing. The next fish was a nice chunky LM in the 2.5 lb range that for some reason broke off at the boat. After moving around a little we finally found some fish. We ended up boating 13 bass, a crappie, and the 4 cats on the ledges on drop shots. We fished powerminnows, Speed Craws, various worms and tubes and caught fish on all of them. We had 2 keeper LM, lost 2 keeper LM at the boat and boated a couple of spots in the 12-15&amp;quot; range. We would hold the boat in 30-40 feet and cast into 15-20 feet. <br /> We left there and hit a shell bed with cranks and boated two more short fish. These two were in 5-10 feet.<br /> We next hit a shallow gass ledge in Harrision Bay and boated one more slick before dark.<br /> After dark we hit one of my favorite night time spots and I boated the toad pictured below in 12-14 feet of water on the Midnight Special with a Chigger Craw trailor. The fish was amazing when she came up and jumped. Even in the dark we could tell she was a monster. After a valiant fight we boated her, took a quick pic, weighed her and put her back in the water. Unfortunatly she did not make it. We tried for 15 minutes to revive her but with each passing minute she got weaker and weaker until she finally gave up. Very very 
. I decided not to waste such a great fish and brought her home to have mounted. She is now in the freezer. I would never keep a fish of any size for a mount but since she did not make it I will make an exception. I may never see another bass this large. The fish looks to be very old, she is blind in one eye and had multiple sores on her sides. She is very fat and seems to be well fed however. Her weight is very nice considering we are very post spawn. She would have been a real giant earlier this spring. The spinner bait was completely destroyed and took me 5 minutes to straighen out. The big girl measured right at 24&amp;quot; in length.<br /> I ended the evening catching one more short LM. <br /> Tonight will be a night I will remember for a long time and every time I look at the big girl mounted I will remember the great fight she gave me.
. I decided not to waste such a great fish and brought her home to have mounted. She is now in the freezer. I would never keep a fish of any size for a mount but since she did not make it I will make an exception. I may never see another bass this large. The fish looks to be very old, she is blind in one eye and had multiple sores on her sides. She is very fat and seems to be well fed however. Her weight is very nice considering we are very post spawn. She would have been a real giant earlier this spring. The spinner bait was completely destroyed and took me 5 minutes to straighen out. The big girl measured right at 24&amp;quot; in length.<br /> I ended the evening catching one more short LM. <br /> Tonight will be a night I will remember for a long time and every time I look at the big girl mounted I will remember the great fight she gave me.