Camp and Fish 8/23-8/26

Couple of basses Matt and I landed on route to eventual 110 or so on Friday.

Popped a flat tire after everyone left camp. So I was stuck on Friday and didn't fish.

 

Zack and I fished on Saturday. Lots of big fish wiffing at our offerings. frustrating. Think I had upper 40's and Zack had 30 or so. We both had one closer to 19 than 18" but we had shots at more bigguns.

 

Fishing was pretty crazy on the trip. The 12 of us landed and released like 700 bass, but the large fish seemed to be eating late. The really large fish made a couple minor appearances. Matt B got one at 19.5" as largest, but  there were other opportunities. Matt D lost a huge fish far to the north, that "didn't belong".

Quite a Weekend

Saturday, got out with MH for his INSA guided trip with me. Beautiful day, cool, sun, breeze.



We caught a lot of fish 60+, mostly on tubes in about 6 hours. Good time. Glad fish cooperated. I didn't get Mark any monsters, but we tried. Pulled a couple nice ones from Davey Jones, mostly hanging back... Can't get over the pull on these guys.

One of the more bizarre things I've seen from the river:




18.25"


17.5"



Sunday Mike and I got on a different flow. Drastic difference. We WC and Fatbustered them early, until it just became a wake bite. Simply crank and wind. Closer you came to roots the better. Again over 60 bass. I hit two 18.5"-18.75" ers, a 17.25" which came with a dink attached. Lost another acrobat that was in the 17"-18" range. MC was having a rough day casting like I haven't seen him before, probably kept his pig count down, but he managed 26 basses.

Some arial acrobatics from this fish:





No pic of the other 18.5"

BT 37 (2-18.5"-18.75", 17.25" 3-15-15.5")
MC 26

Not too bad, 72 bass sharing the water and taking a backseat, still scoring.

 

8/4/12 Ripping Shin

Strange day. Threatened rain all day, but never did until the bike shuttle after dark. Got started around 11:30.

Brought a LC Fat Blaster that paid dividends late around rootwads. Same basic idea, just can be let to sink for added depth. Rip, pause,Rip to remove fish from cover.

Early a couple fish to hand on swim bait and couple on a Sammy- that wouldn't hold. Turned out to be a tube day again. Bites were incredibly light. Terrible time hooking and landing fish. Must have been barely sucking them in. Lost two really intense drag pulls which would have been big ones I'm afraid. It began to be a comedy of errors when a wind kicked up and they just quit.

Later, it picked up again with this and that scoring action. As the storm moved in it got dark. Camera said 4:30 and then 6:30 some 34 fish later. Tube bite got intentional and sick, pronounced thumps, though most big fish came on Sammy or FB.

I wasn't going to make it to the bike with any light. Fortunately, thunder storm came up and provided light (without rain). Cut across a field and house under construction was my way out across a bean field in darkness. Fell over a low barbed wire fence in the dark and ripped my shins open. GAAAHK! MMMRRRRLLL!

8 hours 48 SMB (3-17-17.25, 16.5", 16.25", 2-15") 11 Misc fishes: hybrid greensunfish/bluegill! shiner, green sunfish, 8 Googs.

Should have been 60+ day. A day like that will make you question yourself, but in all honesty used to be a lot more common when I'd throw tubes 80% of the time.