Jimmy's biggest fish of the day--and, in his own words, perhaps his biggest fish of the year--unfortunately came unbuttoned right beside the boat. It was only about 10 minutes into the fishing day when he hooked the bass on a topwater. Shortly thereafter, he had another fish swirl and miss the topwater bait, followed by another one that came unbuttoned en route to the boat. Jimmy says he then changed to a different topwater bait but that the move only netted him a couple more passes with no hookups. After changing to a Bandit Footloose, he caught a dink and a small striper.
It was then that Jimmy started tossing his favorite Slider, but with only a steady tap-tap-tap from bream to show for the move, he decided to see if anything was happening around the West Neck bridge. There, he caught a bunch of crappie and bream before sliding into a cove, where he caught the fish pictured above.
While Jimmy was working around the bridge, Tom Acree happened along and shared the details of his day down in Albright's. Tom caught a mess of fish in the grass--all on a Senko. He told Jimmy he was culling fish by 7 o'clock this morning. He had five nice ones in the livewell that he showed Jimmy while they were talking.
The water was down a good bit when he launched this morning, said Jimmy, but the south wind that kicked in during the afternoon was bringing the water back in when Jimmy quit at 3 o'clock. The water temp at launch was 80 degrees, compared to 86 degrees when he returned to the ramp.
The other email I received today was from Charlie Bruggemann, who paddled his kayak down to Spitzli Creek this morning. "Topwater was a killer this morning," quipped Charlie. He hadn't had a chance to check his video yet when he sent me the email, but he estimated that he caught 12-15 bass today, the biggest a 2-8. He also had a couple that went about a pound and a half, with the rest being a pound or under.
Charlie's topwater bait of choice this morning was a frog. All he had to do was toss it to a sparse patch of grass and hang on. He also caught a couple fish on a Storm Subwart before changing to a Senko about 9 o'clock, when the topwater bite died.
It seems that Charlie is busy with something tonight, and it'll be tomorrow night or maybe later before he gets all the details and video of his day posted on his site. If you don't already have it, here's the link: http://vbfishguide.blogspot.com/.
Epilog: With all these fellas catching fish--and my outboard problem fixed--I'm anxious to get back on the water. It turns out my problem was some sandy grit in the carburetors. And, just to be on the safe side, my mechanic also installed new filters. I ran her for about 30 minutes last night just before dark, and she never missed a lick--knock on wood.
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