Report: 56th time is the charm

I went out a lot this year chasing an AOTY LMB and I gotta say it's a real tough one for WA. By the regs it's gotta be under 12" or over 17". I caught a lot this year but every last one was in the dead zone. I had a few really "good" days in the 10's of fish but none that were worthy of the AOTY. I had officially given up on LMB's for the year as the trend of 55 fish all in the dead zone was starting to get on my nerves.

I didn't have a lot of time today but wanted to go fish. Was thinking of trying for a coho but it's still just a little early for my neck of the woods. What the hell, my AOTY smallie isn't the best and it really was bass weather. I checked out one of my favorite spots and settled in. A few tosses of the broke back shad rap and the weeds were proving too thick. I switched up to a rainbow trout pattern broke back Rapala minnow and on the second cast got hammered. It was a full on weed battle so I was really happy I had my 15# fluoro. Made 3 nice aerials and proceeded to do a few laps of the yak. He looked legal but I didn't want to get my hopes up. Once he finally calmed down I lipped 'em, checked 'em on the trough, and my '09 AOTY LMB was history!

Z

Nice fishes there Zee Great Job...

Nice work! Did you take it home?

Nice work! Did you take it home?

Nope. All LMB's and SMB's are CNR for me.

Z

Nice fish Zee, must have weighed at least four pounds!  In fact, my biggest LMB ever was taken in Siltcoos lake, and was 18 inches and weighed four pounds.  Congrats on the upgrade!

  Man, that's a nice bass anywhere you catch it.  Up here in the N.W. though that thing qualifies as HUGE!

NICE fishsy Zee!

Hey I didn't realize that LMB counted in the AOTY! We got those!

nice work!

That's a fatty.  Who does eat their bass, and how do you cook them?

That's a nice fish man.

When I was a kid my Uncle always took my brother and I trolling for bass in Lake Moultrie.  We mostly caught striper, but I reeled in a whopper LMB once, and we ate him.  We either fried or baked them.  Pretty sure we fried the LMB.

Where do those cradle/tube style measuring things come from?  Maybe I'm not paying attention, but I haven't seen them at Sportco/Cabellas/Wal-Mart.

Lee ... what your seeing are the Hawg Troughs that were made up for NWKA but there are different versions of them at Cabellas,  that i have seen

Marilyn

  What a hawg!
Nice fish Zee!
That had to have been a blast to fight!

Gracias guys.

I've stopped keeping bass because they're a fun fish to fight and keeping them in the lake insures that it's going to continue to be a fun place to fish. And bass IMO just don't make very good table fare. I'll save the dinner table for the other tasty ones. Some local lakes and ponds have been hit hard recently by people keeping the LMB/SMB and now only put out small bass. It's a real bummer to have a spot that was once really fun place to fish and is now a bust.

That had to have been a blast to fight!

It was pretty nuts. It definitely goes down as one of the funnest LMB fights I've had. It was blasting through the weeds and then would hunker down in them. I'd have to lift him up and out and then he took off and the battle was on again.

Z

Congrats on the bass.
Bass are slow growers, and taking out too many big ones can diminish the fishing experience, but too many bass eat up all the food and none of 'em grow very big. There's got to be a balance in there somewhere, so a bass fisher I know (i don't fish for bass, usually) just takes home a good 11"er or two to eat. He lets all the lunkers go.

Nice bucketmouth !!!  I still need to get one o' them baddies...