Dang-It! Humility Check!

[Bob La Londe]

Dang-It! Humility Check!

I won a couple or three tournaments (local club tourneys) and started to feel a little bit of self confidence, and those pesky fish slapped me down hard.

Geez. We brought three fish to the scale yesterday. In order to even do that I had to fall back on one of my beginners tricks dead sticking wacky senkos. Ouch. Oh, well. I guess it would look bad if I won my own series two years in a row. LOL. I guess that gives Willhide back a couple of those points I gained on him last month.

Have to be fair to ourselves. We did catch fish every place I went. If we could have stapled them together to make them long enough we might have done ok. LOL. Topwater... Crankbaits... Flipping... Spinnerbaits... Senkos... I caught tons of short fish. Finally about a half hour before weigh in we found some aggressively active fish, but didn't have enough time left to determine if it would have worked into a pattern or not. My last keeper came as a chaser on a shorter fish I caught. I could see it trying to steal the bait away from the first fish. I threw back to the same holding spot and caught it. A third cast to the same spot produced another strike from a small fish I saw and was able to shake off. Maybe it was just the start of the afternoon bite or maybe we had finally found the right conditions for some active fish. I'm taking an Az Basszoner out Wednesday morning so I'll find out then I guess.

P.S. If you ever fish with me and I tell you need to stand right up next to me working an area I mean it. Ask Bob Weist about the new scar on his scalp. Fortunately I felt the tug and released my thumb before driving the hook past the barb into his head. In close quarters working a channel you have to fish that way or the guy in the back of the boat gets to throw at fish who have been propwashed by the TM. Its better for both of you to fish out in front of the boat. Usually I tell guys that fish those conditions with me to stand as close to right next to me as they can so I don't get them on the back cast, and if they need to step back then they should let me know where they are going and then go all the way to the back deck. It was really probably my fault since I don't recall telling Bob the second part of that. I just told him to stand next to me so we could both fish without hooking each other. I still haven't got the backlash out of that reel. Maybe this afternoon I'll go after it with some scissors.