Ice_sled and I met at LB around 6:30 Friday morning. It was a nice toasty 27°. Our plan was to each go out on our boats alone in order to keep our distance. It was our first time out this year and it took me a little while to remember how to launch properly. But we were plenty early. It was just shootin' light when we headed out. We decided to drag baits and didn't go far when we hit 10 fow. I was using one of Pisco's FLAITS in clown pattern and a Santee rig. Thawed cut white bass was my bait of choice. It was fairly calm and the water was 46°. At first we used our electrics to move us slowly through the water but later the wind picked up and Ben just drifted. I haven't caught the knack for doing that very well so I used the Minn Kota to keep direction and move me against the waves when I chose to. At one point the wind got a little brisk and I thought we might have to abort, but it settled back down.
We weren't getting any action so Ben motored on in to the bay between the channel and Benjamin Slough thinking they might be more active in the shallower water. After a while I noticed that one of my rods appeared to be getting hung up then popping loose -- or could that be a fish? It turned out to a be wimpy little 22.5"er. At least it would fill a slot on the leader board and I wasn't skunked. I didn't even have it out of the net when I noticed a stronger bouncing on my other rod. Now this felt like a much better fish. He dug deep and refused to come up. When he finally surfaced I thought, "Holy crap, if that isn't over thirty inches I don't know what would be!" It looked like one of TDs cats that you measure between the eyes. He had calmed down a lot and I scooped him into the boat without incident but there was that moment we've all experienced where you just pray that they won't get off now. I called Ben and told him I just got a double and one was close to thirty and asked him to come out and help me and take a picture. While he was on his way I pulled out my tape and could see that he was, as I thought, right at 30 inches. I had started to have doubts; he was so chunky he didn't look very long on the floor of the boat. When Ben got there I asked if he had a bump board I could borrow. Boy did he! Man is it a beauty. It looked too pretty to get a bunch of fish slime on it. Ben tied our bows together and hopped over to help me. Alas, no matter what we did we just couldn't get more than 29 and 7/8ths out of him. That's okay, we'll just say that in the long run he would end up being the smallest of my three fish in the contest. I took a lot of pictures and had Ben use my camera to take a couple of me holding him. Just as an afterthought I pushed the button to review the pictures and make sure they were good and clear. Oh, sh...iskabobs, a message popped up that said there was no card in the camera! So I pulled out my old phone and took a picture but I couldn't make it save. Tried again. No dice, so I asked Ben to take some and send them to me. Whew, if I had been alone I would have had to take the big guy home and I don't think he would have survived the trip back. Or I could have tossed him back before I realized I didn't actually have any pictures.
At this point I'm sure Ben was pretty excited to go get some himself. He went over a ways and started in again in the 10' water about as far out as these fish had been. A while later I got a call from him. He nonchalantly told me that he had just caught another 29.5" and a 24.5" to boot. Now this was shaping up to be a banner day. We covered a lot more water, deep and shallow, but couldn't get but a couple of more bites. When we got back together Ben told me the rest of his story. He had hooked into what felt like a big fish. When it surfaced![[Image: IMG-0160.jpg]](https://i.ibb.co/fHpsKBy/IMG-0160.jpg)
![[Image: 0.jpg]](https://i.ibb.co/tMLJ2WQ/0.jpg)
he realized that it was bigger than any cat he had ever caught there, well over 32". About that time the behemoth opened his mouth and swam away. Evidently he had just had ahold of the bait but not the hook.
We headed out about noon, confident that we had the biggest fish in the contest so far. And it was cool that we both had "the biggest fish."
We weren't getting any action so Ben motored on in to the bay between the channel and Benjamin Slough thinking they might be more active in the shallower water. After a while I noticed that one of my rods appeared to be getting hung up then popping loose -- or could that be a fish? It turned out to a be wimpy little 22.5"er. At least it would fill a slot on the leader board and I wasn't skunked. I didn't even have it out of the net when I noticed a stronger bouncing on my other rod. Now this felt like a much better fish. He dug deep and refused to come up. When he finally surfaced I thought, "Holy crap, if that isn't over thirty inches I don't know what would be!" It looked like one of TDs cats that you measure between the eyes. He had calmed down a lot and I scooped him into the boat without incident but there was that moment we've all experienced where you just pray that they won't get off now. I called Ben and told him I just got a double and one was close to thirty and asked him to come out and help me and take a picture. While he was on his way I pulled out my tape and could see that he was, as I thought, right at 30 inches. I had started to have doubts; he was so chunky he didn't look very long on the floor of the boat. When Ben got there I asked if he had a bump board I could borrow. Boy did he! Man is it a beauty. It looked too pretty to get a bunch of fish slime on it. Ben tied our bows together and hopped over to help me. Alas, no matter what we did we just couldn't get more than 29 and 7/8ths out of him. That's okay, we'll just say that in the long run he would end up being the smallest of my three fish in the contest. I took a lot of pictures and had Ben use my camera to take a couple of me holding him. Just as an afterthought I pushed the button to review the pictures and make sure they were good and clear. Oh, sh...iskabobs, a message popped up that said there was no card in the camera! So I pulled out my old phone and took a picture but I couldn't make it save. Tried again. No dice, so I asked Ben to take some and send them to me. Whew, if I had been alone I would have had to take the big guy home and I don't think he would have survived the trip back. Or I could have tossed him back before I realized I didn't actually have any pictures.
At this point I'm sure Ben was pretty excited to go get some himself. He went over a ways and started in again in the 10' water about as far out as these fish had been. A while later I got a call from him. He nonchalantly told me that he had just caught another 29.5" and a 24.5" to boot. Now this was shaping up to be a banner day. We covered a lot more water, deep and shallow, but couldn't get but a couple of more bites. When we got back together Ben told me the rest of his story. He had hooked into what felt like a big fish. When it surfaced
he realized that it was bigger than any cat he had ever caught there, well over 32". About that time the behemoth opened his mouth and swam away. Evidently he had just had ahold of the bait but not the hook.We headed out about noon, confident that we had the biggest fish in the contest so far. And it was cool that we both had "the biggest fish."
The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.