Once again I'm giving this trip a 5 because of quality fish not for numbers. I had to fish alone yesterday. MY wife had planned on coming along but wanted to go visit her dad in the hospital instead. Total understood.

I hit the spot that has been producing for me first but it was horribly muddy and choked out with weeds, not to mention lacking in water now. I moved on to the main lake in search of the usual cabbage beds. First stop found some of the cabbage getting close to the surface but not much of it yet. It's down there, it just hasn't shot up yet. Should be seeing it in a coup[le of weeks.

Moved on to the next location and found a feisty 25"er with a Mepps spoon. He gave me a second chance when he missed the bait on his first attack. A couple of tosses later in the same spot and he hooked up nicely. No need for the net on this one.
Fish number two on the other hand was a different story. I catch a few fish on the Rapala Glidin Rap baits throughout the summer, but it's normally my go to bait in the fall. I hit a main lake point and was going to change lures since I hadn't managed a bite in close to an hour. I was reaching for a spinner bait when the Shiney Gold Glidin rap in one of my boxes, glistened in the sun and said, "Pick me, pick me". With the sun shining and not a cloud in the sky, I though "Why not"?
Three casts later as I watched the bait work it's way back to the boat in it's beautiful side to side gliding fashion, out of nowhere she appeared. The bait was gliding over about 10 feet of water. From a distance away, in about 15 feet of water, she showed herself. The water was amazingly clear so I was able to see her from about 20 feet rom my bait. It was almost like slow motion, although she was moving at a very high rate of speed in attack mode. My 5" Glidin Rap disappeared into a WIDELY opened mouth full of teeth, and the fight was on. She stripped line on me three times as I switched on the Gopro camera for a video. Unfortunately by the time I got it turned on, there was very little of the fight left. Once in the net I decided this was a pretty nice fish, and just might reach the 40" mark. As I lifted her from the net, she just seemed to keep coming, and coming, and coming. 43 1/2" and weighed in at 23 pounds. I would love to see her full of eggs in the spring. I'd imagine she would be more like 30 pounds then. She was a pretty tired girl when I first got her in the boat. I put her in the live well to revive her and about 45 minutes later I managed to flag down a couple of friendly bass fishermen and talk them into taking some photos for me. One of the guys asked me if he could have the fish to eat. I told him, if she doesn't swim away, she's all yours, but I'm hoping she goes on to make lots of babies. I had to baby her along for about 5 minutes but she finally gave me the shower I so badly needed with a big tail kick, and off she went.

A slow day for numbers, turned in to a great day with one monster fish.
Water temps were as high as 72 in the main lake.

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