04-26-2011, 09:00 AM
What a great day on the water. Started out kinda windy and cool but boy did it make for a great day of fishing. I caught fish all day mainly on soft plastics and cranks and they came off of rocky banks near deep water. Anyhow, finally got my first good 2 lb keeper in the boat about 8:00 AM. I started trying to build a better pattern and think of similar areas to go to to get better keepers and I did. Got to my second area and lost a good 3 lb keeper because I let him come up and jump. Didn't let that bother me until about 10:30 I went to my 3rd spot for the day and had another 4 to 5 lber come up and jump and it came off as well. At that point, I didn't let it bother me too much but I started to get that sickening feeling because I knew I could have had about 11 pounds in the boat by 11:00 am. emoBang At this point, the bite had started to slow and I had to start thinking of where I could go and what I could do to get 2 more decent keepers in the boat. I went back to a couple of my early areas and started wearing the short fish out. Got one decent keeper off of one spot. Well 1:20 started to roll around and I needed another keeper bad and I had to keep ol Mike Iaconelli in mind. It ended up paying off because I went to my last stop for the day and finally got my final keeper on a crank. I was feeling good or better at this point until about 1:45 I picked up a worm for the last few casts of the day and hooked into a 4 lber and I guess it just wasn't my day to be catching big fish cuz this one decided to come off as well. emoBang I think I wound up with 6.48 in the 3 keepers I got in the boat, but boy its a sickening feeling to know that you did the right thing and got the right bites but just didn't boat the fish. Anyway, that's why its called fishin' and not catchin'. Gotta move on and get better. Enjoyed the comraderie and the tournament was ran well. There were a lot of big fish and good sacks brought in and thats just a testament to good fishermen and how good this fishery has become the past few years. Can't wait till the next one. emoThumbsup emoSun emoAngler