Windy Wednesday - 7/23/14

On the Water: 9:30 am - 12:30pm

Air Temperature:  68-72

Water Temperature: 76 - 81

Water Clarity: Stained/ 2.5 ft of visibility

Skies: Mostly Sunny

Wind: 8-14 Mph; Gusts to 20

Barometric Pressure: 29.98 a 29.91"

 I set out on the hunt for smallmouth at a new location for a couple hours. When I arrived, the water clarity, or lack thereof, was not quite what I was expecting. After spending precious time re-tying from clear water colors to murky water colors, I was off to the races; which I did not win by the way. 

I was able to manage two rather small largemouth on a chartreuse spinner bait in the first hour. I figured the bigger fish were out deeper, so I made a move to find some offshore structure that I had marked on my map. However, the wind and current made this a difficult task.  I marked several fish on a deep point, but could not entice them with anything. 

I picked up my anchor and began drifting with the wind and current, casting at the deep vertical banks. I made it to a large lay down that sat over 15-20 FOW, which I was soon to find out had many branches under the water. I pitched in an Electric Grape colored Berkley Power Worm, and I felt the "tic" so I layed into the fish. All I could feel was my 17lb fluorocarbon grinding against the submerged branches, and finally was able to get the fish out of the obstruction, and got it in the boat. A solid largemouth, I'll take it.  After re-tying,  I made my way to the down current side of the tree and pitched the worm in again. Again I felt a "tic", I set the hook, and for a moment I thought I had snagged a piece of the tree.  Then it started pulling back, as I reared back on this fish, it kept pulling back towards the tree and eventually broke me off in the branches. Although I never got a look at the fish, I know it was an absolute giant. It's not often you set the hook on a fish and it just doesn't budge, and in fact hurt your back in the process. The last fish that did this to me, was a 6+ lb fish that nearly ripped the rod out of my hands on the hook set.

The wind really started to pick up, and I couldn't get anything else to happen, so it was off to work for me. 

I will definitely be returning here, hopefully I can locate some smallies on my next trip. 

It's hard to see in the picture, but if you look close, you can see just how frayed the line was after landing the fish. If that had been braid, I never would have got that fish to the boat.