Final 2010 fishing with my dad?

[WatterBoy]

Well, I had one last extended weekend of fishing up at the lake last Thursday through Sunday. I went a day earlier than my wife and parents could go and fished solo on Thursday. Then my dad and I went out as much as we could on Friday and Saturday. It was too cold for him to fish on Sunday morning before they left, but I was able to stick around and fish solo again most of Sunday afternoon. By the end of the weekend, I had caught and released 41 Largemouth and 1 Smallmouth, along with one small pike. It was another great weekend of fishing, and more importantly, a weekend spent with my parents and my wife where we created many more special memories.

Thursday morning tied my best 5-bass outing of the year at an even 14.0 pounds. Fishing started at 6:45 that morning, and the first hour saw three decent LM find their way into the boat, with all three succumbing to a Pop-R (I love that thing!). Those three weighed in at 2lb 3oz, 2lb 15oz and 2lb 13oz, which got me off to a great start. All was quiet for the next 40 minutes before I hit a spot along a reed-filled shoreline where I had a caught a 4lb 3oz LM a few weeks ago. I tossed a 5" wacky-rigged Yamasenko (Motor Oil with Red flakes) right up to the edge of the reeds and had an immediate taker. After a short battle, I had a nice 4lb 0oz, 18.25" LM with a 13.25" girth in the boat. I slowly worked my way along that shoreline and about 25 minutes later had another hit. This time a 2lb 1oz, 14.25" LM was introduced to the front deck of my boat. I only caught two more LM, both under two pounds, before calling it quits for the morning a couple hours later, but I was quite content with my morning successes. I had a bunch of chores to do around the cabin before everyone else arrived, but I did sneak out for 90 minutes of fishing very late in the afternoon and put 9 more LM into the boat. All of them were under 2 pounds except one decent one that went 2lb 8oz.

Here is a shot of the 4 pounder before being released after the morning session.


Once it warmed up a bit (hit the upper 40s) on Friday morning, my Dad and I went out for about three hours. We ended up landing 9 LM (me 7, him 2), all on 5" wacky-rigged Yamasenkos. The best of my seven was 2lb 12oz, and my dad caught the biggest fish of the weekend with this 18.75 incher that checked in at 4lb 5oz. He can only use very light, short rods due to arthritis in his hands and other "aches and pains" that go along with being 75, so he had quite the battle to land this one. It was fun to watch and to see the excitement on his face when he finally got it into the boat!


We had a great two-hour session of fishing on Friday night. The weather was overcast with very light rain off and on, and the fish were really biting. We ended up hauling 10 fish into the boat (5 each), and had several other hits and some hooked up that went Houdini on us before reaching the boat. Again, all the fish were caught on 5" wacky-rigged Yamasenkos. My dad even caught a nice walleye and also had a small pike to go with his three LM. My total included 4 LM and 1 SM.

Here is a photo of the better ones from this outing.

3lb 7oz, 17.5" and 2lb 6oz, 15.5" LM for me and my dad has a 20.0", 2lb 13oz walleye and 2lb 0oz, 14.0" LM.


And here is the smallie I caught -- 3lb 6oz, 18.0" (gotta love the MN weather -- t-shirt on Thursday and Sunday and multiple sweatshirts, coats and stocking caps most of the time in between!)


Saturday was a slow day as we only landed 8 LM in a couple of short outings, with this 2lb 6oz LM being the best fish of the day.


After everyone else had headed home on Sunday, I went out for about 5 hours in the afternoon. The first 3.5 hours was slow with 5 dink LMs. I finally found a productive spot for the last 90 minutes and found 6 more fish (5 LM, 1 pike) willing to stop by and visit the boat briefly, all falling prey to a Storm "Big Bass Square" crankbait in Tennessee Shad color. The best five LM for this outing tipped the scales at 12lb 9oz, and here are the two biggest ones.

3lb 11oz, 17.0" LM


Same fish as above, plus a 2lb 10oz, 15.25" LM


I hope to get out for another outing or two when we're back up at the lake to start the season-closing process the first weekend in October, but it remains to be seen if I'll actually have time to fish that weekend or not. Regardless, it's been a fishing season beyond my wildest dreams at this point!

[Bubba_Bruiser]

I remember playing NBA Jams as a kid and hearing the announcer holler, "Oh my, he's on fire!" That only describes the stats you have been hammering up the past couple of weeks. Nice haul fo sho WB!

[bamabassman]

watterboy..............nuthin else to say man. YOU are on FIRE like bubba said.

[Jrob78]

You had a awesome season! Glad you got to share that with your Dad.