Senior Fishing Trip – Friday, May 27, 2011

I was blessed to have the opportunity to take a couple of seniors fishing Friday, May 27, one lady and one gentleman.

We got to the lake at about at about 11:40 a.m. and I had them rigged, ready, and at the first spot by noon.

The only female angler of the group had a very nice bite rather quickly, but unfortunately, a true hook up did not materialize. She and I both watched the line move to the side and then went slack. Retrieval of the line revealed that a decent portion of the night crawler was gone.

The first bass landed occurred at about 12:20 p.m. by the van driver. It was a cute, 10” bass.

We arrive at spot number two and the next forty minutes of fishing was definitely an exercise of patience and near-maddening frustration. There were barrages and onslaughts of nibbles and tugs followed by the undulating bounces of rod tips for both of the seniors that all ended in loss of bait and line going. These repeating events suggested to me that we were probably onto a group of smaller fish. However, I kept those suspicions to myself. Shortly afterward, the gentleman landed his first fish of the day. It was the cutest 5” smallmouth bass. Not even five minutes later, he lands another one about two inches longer. Although he was thrilled to catch these two, he most certainly didn’t want to take a photo with them.

At about 1:10 p.m., fishing just a bit east of them, I felt a decent tug and I could hear in my mind that famous fight announcer’s voice yelling, “Let’s get ready to rumble!!!!” The battle was on! I brought in a fair-sized smallmouth bass in and took a quick picture of it.

The gentleman caught his third bass about thirty minutes later and we called it a day after that.

The weather forecasted for today was gloomy enough to keep some of the folks who signed up for this trip home today, which is really unfortunate. By the grace of God, those who fished were blessed with not a drop of rain but sunny skies instead, a mild breeze, and a chance to go fishing for smallmouth bass in the heart of Seattle without a boat… Now that sounds like a winning day any way you look at it.

Location: Lake Union, WA
Conditions: Sunny, mild temps about 60°F., after a period of rain.
Tackle and Bait for the Seniors: Spinning Gear, 8# monofilament line, live night crawlers and whatever they wanted to use from my personal stash.
Results: 5 bass caught

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