sorry about posting so late, just keep forgetting to. anyway, my buddy j.r. and i headed to mineral for opening day. got there about 2 am. to try and beat the rush. fished our usual hole from the bank. pretty slow to start, but j.r. got the skunk off first with a nice 12 incher. he then proceeded to put on a clinic with a 16", and 2 pounders by noon. i got bites left and right but could not put the hook home in time. finally got the skunk off around 9am with a fat and sassy 3 pounder. went back out with my other buddy, tracy, on wed. the 4th and got there around 8am. pretty slow for the first hour. i had the same problem of getting plenty of bites, but not getting the hook home. tracy started catching fish around 10am with a nice 2 pounder followed quickly by a 16". had to leave by 11:30 so tracy could go to work so got the big skunk. as a side note the fish seem to be light biting a lot. tracy caught his by keeping the pole in hand and striking quickly. it seemed you had one shot at them or that was it. i will say the quality of fish seemed to be better this year than in the last two. having had several years in a row with monster fish in the late 90's has spoiled me, but the last 2 years seemed to be pretty slow, with this year about in the middle. allright done rambling. tight lines. steve

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