My son and I arrived at Eloika Lake about 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning. It was overcast, slightly breezy, and colder than we expected. We scanned the shore for a good starting point, motored over and started casting. The boat drifted slowly in the wind along the shore within casting distance. About 15 minutes in WHAM! My son has a fish on! I reel in fast, look around - no net - I had forgotten it and this fish was pulling hard. He got it to the boat and after a few head shakes I grabbed him by the mouth and pulled him in. It was a good size bass, about 4 lbs. The battery in my scale was dead but I feel that is a fair estimate.
The boat drifted on along the shore for another 20 minutes and BAM! He has another! We get him in the same as the first. Not quite as big but still good, maybe 3 or 3.5 lbs. That's two for him and I'm still trying.
The wind picks up little as we drift along. Another 30 minutes passes and WHAM! Something big! My son has hooked yet another one! He tells me it's big, we haven't seen it yet, but I knew it was by the way he was taking line and pulling the boat around 180 degrees! Then the fish comes straight at the boat. He reels like mad to catch up and when he does we see it's belly flash underwater just under the water near the boat. It looked like a whale! One more run, turns around and dives under the boat! Somehow, with rod doubled over, he forces the fish out and up before it reaches the motor. I couldn't believe the size of the mouth I was staring down at. He could have swallowed a soft ball! He was straight up just under the surface, I grabbed the line in one hand and his fat bottom lip in the other and hauled him up. My son points to the fishes mouth. I see that 3/0 hook in the corner of his mouth isn't even set as deep as the barb! One more shake and he would have been gone. Then we started laughing. I have not caught a bass that big before but I believe this this guy had to be at least 8 lbs. He was fat and maybe 22".
Jr. picked up two more small bass the next two hours. Around noon I finally hook my first fish and before I get him halfway to the boat the kid hooks another one! We land them both and I end up with the smallest fish of the day.
The wind gradually picked up and we didn't get anymore bites so we decided to pack it in around 2:00 p.m. We saw another boat near us catch a few crappies but that was it.
We headed home the score: DAD 1 THE KID 6. He kicked my butt. Probably my best day fishing ever. All of these fish we released unharmed so we can catch them again when they are even bigger.

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