Nothing Superstitious About Today's Fishing

One of my old bosses was so superstitious that, when a Friday the 13th rolled around, she always took a day's leave and stayed locked in her house--I kid you not, this woman never worked a Friday the 13th in all the years I knew her. However, I've never let that particular occurrence influence my decision to do or not to do anything. I only bring up my old boss here because I thought of her this morning as I was pulling away from the ramp. She was a dear ol' soul who would do anything for someone she liked. She had a ton of sayings, many of which I've forgotten, but I still remember one of her favorites. She'd often say, "I may not always be right, but I'm damn sure never wrong!"

Anyway, I went fishing this morning, just like I said I was going to in my blog post last night. For a while, I thought I had made a mistake by going; however, it had nothing to do with the fact today was Friday the 13th. Rather, it simply was that I couldn't get a topwater bite started. In fact, I couldn't get any kind of bite going for a good spell. For about an hour or so, I seriously was kicking myself for leaving the comfort of my bed so early, just to get on the water and beat it to death without receiving any kind of reward.

My best bass of the day--a 1-9

That all changed about 8 o'clock, when I finally collected my first fish--a white perch. I went on to catch three more white perch before boating my first--and best--bass of the day, which tipped the scales at only 1 lb. 9 ozs. The lure responsible for all those fish, as well as everything else that I boated today, was a Bandit Footloose in white with a black stripe down its back. Until today, I hadn't ever thrown this particular Footloose, even though I've had it in my box for a good spell now. I had been relying almost exclusively on the Footloose in firetiger.

Perhaps I'll alter my future strategy, because this new color accounted for a total of 23 fish today, including 8 bass (only 4 keepers), 7 white perch, 7 bluegill, and 1 crappie. I also lost several fish with the lure, mostly, I think, because the front hook needed upgrading--a matter I took care of today after I came off the water.

I spent the whole day in Albright's, which, for my previous two or three outings there, had been yielding some decent sized fish. Given today's results, though, I'm likely destined for parts farther south when we launch our next tourney in the morning.

I sure couldn't complain about the water temperature today. It was 77 when I started at 0630 and only had risen to 82 when I ended my day at 1400.