Friday Night Tournament

[Apoc81]

Seeing how most guys in our fishing club are old men, and we don't go out drinking on the weekends, we started a Friday night "Old men's league". Everyone is welcome, but it's just us 40+ members who regularly fish it.

The water was dirty after hard rain ended earlier in the day, and the bite was scarce starting out. Our Friday league is a 3 bass limit, from 6pm to 10pm biweekly. By 8:30 I had hooked a pike, which cut my line about 3' from the boat.

Then at around 8:30pm thr magic happened and the bass started feeding relentlessly. I put down my drop shot rod and picked up my crankbait rod and a KVD Magnum squarebill 8.0, and second cast I hooked up hard on a 3lb 4oz smallie, which is great for this water system.

In the next 30 minutes I caught six more bass, but the largest were slightly over 2lbs, so I moved to another spot where I knew there might be a good top water or jig bite, I had caught good fish in there before, and I knew a lot of guys never go there because it's usually extremely shallow, but after 3 1/2 days of hard rain, the lake was quite a bit higher than normal, so I figured I could easily troll over the sandbar to that area. I was right. I started off flipping a jig, and soon caught a 3 1/2 lb smallie which culled one of the two pounders.

After about half an hour I was getting bite's constantly, but they were all small. I decided to throw a frog, and after 5 or 6 casts, I got blown up on the top water. Scored a 2lb, 14oz bass to cull my last two pounder.

I had about 30 minutes before it was time to run back to the docks, and got hit on topwater multiple times, but none were were bigger than the fish in my well.

9lb 9oz scored me first for the evening and put me second in our overall standings for the year. A great night on the water, and a perfect way to start my "vacation" (leaving tomorrow for two weeks of hauling the boat and fishing new waters across Ontario, Quebec, and then our hometown in New Brunswick where we'll launch my 31' regulator (I keep it stored at my parents place) to go fishing Yellowfin tuna in northern US waters. Two great weeks with my best friend of over 30 years, and his daughter who is also a very avid fisherman (I help sponsor her high school bass team, she's the only girl in the league).

Today we pack, tomorrow we hop in the truck!

Good luck and tight lines!

[Donald Garner]

Apoc81

Congrats on a very successful outing and thanks for sharing the trip with us.  Safe travels for ya and your family.  Tight lines on the upcoming outing also.

[Mike Cork]

Congrats on a great day of fishing  

Three pound plus Smallmouth is a blast to catch!