Final bass of '09?

[WatterBoy]

Well, the boat is in storage and the lift and dock have been pulled out of the water for the year, so the bass you see in the pics below might very well be the final ones I catch this year. The temps have been in the 20s-40s for the entire month of October. It's only hit 50 for a high once this month and that was just to 50 exactly. Last night's low was 15! I still hope to try some shore fishing when we're up at the lake again this weekend though.

Anyway, the last boat outing of the year (Saturday, 10/2) was also the most successful one of the year. My two nephews and I got 20 fish into the boat (11 LM, 9 pike) and had several others that spit us out on the way in. 8 of the 11 LM were between 2 and 3 pounds. We caught all of them on a variety of lipless crankbaits -- color didn't seem to matter, they were pounding all of them.


Biggest fish of the weekend was from Friday night - 3lb 2oz:


This was our first year of owning a boat and a place on a lake. I had hoped to catch 100 bass this year and came much closer to 200 instead. On top of that, I also caught FIVE Largemouth that were all bigger than my PB coming into the year and the same for FOUR Smallies. All in all, an incredible year of fishing for me.

I feel like I learned a lot from reading these boards all year, including how to dropshot (and actually caught a bunch of fish that way!), so I'd like to say thanks to everyone for all the various discussion & tips on rods, reels, line, lures, ways to fish, etc. I'm bummed that I won't be able to bass fish again until very late in May, 2010, but at least I can keep learning during that time by watching the forum boards here.