Well, instead of going out, partying, hanging out with friends etc like everyone else on the 4th, I spent most of the day at home. I was recovering from getting sick on sunday night. So it gets to be around 8 pm or so and I was feeling better so I decided to go fishing at a local lake.

When I got to the park, there was a lot of people already there. Most of the shore spots were taken up by people, none of which were fishing. I was pretty much limited to one spot from the start but it was ok because it ended up being a pretty good spot.

For the first hour, fishing was really slow and I expected it to be because the rock bass don't really come shallow until night fall. Within the first 5 minutes I caught a little largemouth about 7 inches long or so. Then about 30 minutes later, I caught another little largemouth about the same size but a little fatter. At just about 9 pm when the sun started to fade just a little bit, the neighbors along the lake started shooting off fireworks. One of the houses must have spent thousands because for about 2 hours straight they were blasting off huge artilery shells that shook the ground and echoed after exploding.

So the fireworks start, the sun starts to set, and the bite is on! From about 9:30 - 11pm or so I caught over 30 rock bass and 3 more largemouth bass. The biggest largemouth only went about 10 inches or so while the biggest rock bass went about 8 inches. The average rock bass I caught was in the 5 - 6 inch range along with a few dinks that I probably could have used as bait.. If it was legal that is..

All fish were caught on a Shakespeare Durango 5' 0'' Ultra Light Rod that I bought at Walmart for 8 bucks. The reel came off of an Ugly Stick Ultra Light Combo that I bought last year but one of the eyes popped out so I sold the rod for 10 bucks. I was using 6 lb mono with my drag looser than it needed to be. This just added to the fun factor :)

So the fireworks stop at about 11 pm or so and the bite died immediately. I mean stone cold. I couldn't get a bite to save my life for the next 30 minutes. So this makes me wonder.. Do the fireworks make fish active and bite? Perhaps it's all the bright lights and flashes and vibrations. I don't know. But I do know that the best went red hot when the fireworks started and went stone cold when they stopped.

Oh yeah, I was using a drop shot most of the time. I threw a top water popper just for the hell of it when it got pretty dark. I had 3 explosions at the surface but none of them yielded a fish. The first one was most likely a rock bass judging by the size of the splash that I saw in the moonlight. The second one was definitely a 3+ lb largemouth because the surface exploded like someone just threw a basketball sized rock into the water. The third one was a pretty good explosion that probably came from a small largemouth. I have never caught a fish on a top water popper before but then again I have barely ever used one before. Definitely looking forward to trying again in the near future. The water temps are up so the fish should start getting aggresive and hit more top water. It's almost getting to that time to start throwing buzz baits, frogs, top water plugs, etc etc.