06-14-2013, 09:00 AM
Since the wife is out of the country for ten days, I thought I&#39;d do what any red-blooded American husband would do, but it turns out I&#39;m too old, so I went fishing instead.<br /><br />Since no threadfin shad are to be had, I prowled the shallow bays looking for golden shiners. Found a few too (maybe 20) with my cast net, along with all the winter sticks and trash and enough weeds to bale. I&#39;ll need a hay fork in the boat if I&#39;m going to keep this up. Had enough vegetation on the boat to use it as a blind for duck hunting.<br /><br />And of course now my back hurts from throwing the net (well DUH!).<br /><br />Lots of current out on the river today. I worked the channel edge, but didn&#39;t get any shallow or on the drops - what I did get were about 30 feet deep. First fish was a huge white bass, 17-1/2&quot; long (18&quot; is a TARP and they are rare). It went into the cooler. Next was a 2-1/2 lb spotted bass that joined the white bass. I only caught 2 largemouth bass, twins at about 3 lb each. One more normal sized white went into the cooler and that was it for the catching today. <br /><br />I had a number of hits on big golden shiners, but they must have been generally smaller fish that I couldn&#39;t hook up, likely whites. There were NOT a lot of fish in the area, and it was rare to see any on the H-bird. The highlight of the day (except for that great white bass) was when I pitched the biggest golden shiner (8-1/2 or 9&quot
out and had a HUGE hookup! The bass pulled drag like it wasn&#39;t even set, went under the boat and jumped on the far side (of course) and wasn&#39;t even thinking of getting tired after a couple of minutes more when the 4/0 hook just pulled loose. I know I hung my head and likely even uttered a bad word. That was the bass of my lifetime, and without weighing it I couldn&#39;t even hazard a guess (but it will certainly get bigger with each telling of the story). At least I didn&#39;t break it off.<br /><br />Saw drumking and cuonthelake, and wished the old fart (uh, drumking) a very happy birthday. 71 today! Congrats!<br /><br />Here is the big white bass. Use your imagination for that durn largemouth!!!! (poop, poop, POOP!)<br /><br />
out and had a HUGE hookup! The bass pulled drag like it wasn&#39;t even set, went under the boat and jumped on the far side (of course) and wasn&#39;t even thinking of getting tired after a couple of minutes more when the 4/0 hook just pulled loose. I know I hung my head and likely even uttered a bad word. That was the bass of my lifetime, and without weighing it I couldn&#39;t even hazard a guess (but it will certainly get bigger with each telling of the story). At least I didn&#39;t break it off.<br /><br />Saw drumking and cuonthelake, and wished the old fart (uh, drumking) a very happy birthday. 71 today! Congrats!<br /><br />Here is the big white bass. Use your imagination for that durn largemouth!!!! (poop, poop, POOP!)<br /><br />