Hook, Line & Sinker...

I received a couple of emails from fellow anglers today, telling me about their recent on-the-water pursuits, and I plan to add two-cents worth about my trip today, so here goes.

The photo at left shows Tom Acree's culled five-fish limit from Sunday, Sept. 16. The top three fish here were caught in West Neck Creek on Senkos. The bottom two were caught in the horseshoe with all the wrecks on 7.5-inch red-shad Culprit worms. All five of these fish, plus the 20 others that Tom caught Sunday, were boated between 0700 and 1230. Here are the weights of the fish in this photo: 3.00, 2.00, 2.00, 2.00, 1.75, according to Tom's digital scales.

Tom fished by himself both Saturday and Sunday--his partner, Joe, had to go to Raleigh on family business. His Saturday outing was so windy that he was limited to using spinnerbaits and crankbaits, neither of which is really his strong fishing style. Nevertheless, he managed to boat five bass, but all were under a pound.

Then there was a note from Charlie Bruggemann, who spent five hours today in Straight Creek, where he said the action was ever so s-l-o-o-o-w. He tried unsuccessfully to establish a topwater bite this morning. After working his way through all the topwaters in his tacklebox, he tied on a beetle spin, which netted a couple of small bass, a grindle, a couple of white perch, a striper, and a crappie. It wasn't until he changed to a jig-and-pig combination, though, that he eventually boated a 2-13 bass, which he said "saved the day."

And, finally, these three fish were my reward today for spending six hours in West Neck Creek. All three fell for a 5-inch watermelon-black-red swim Senko. From the left, the fish weighed 1-10, 2-3, 2-3. Both 2-3s came on back-to-back casts to the same spot in the knees of a big cypress tree. Getting these three fish to the boat today was both a delight and near-torture. The latter trait was a result of the resurgence of an old health problem: "fishing elbow." It flared up last week after I started fishing soft plastics seriously again after a long dry spell.

As a result, I lost three fish today that would have equaled the size of the ones I boated. I know because I saw all three--they were leapers, and I lost them because the pain wouldn't allow me to reel fast enough to keep slack out of the line. Just for grins and giggles, try reeling a right-hand baitcaster upside down and backwards with your left hand sometime--with a two-pound bass or better on the end of the line. I seriously doubt that you'll have much more success than I did.

My single goal at this point is simple: Try to get healthy for Saturday, at least good enough to be some help to my partner, Paul. He certainly deserves better than what I handed him the last tourney. I now know I can catch some fish with these Senkos; the problem is going to be getting them in the boat after they're hooked. I plan to have my left-handed Lew's dusted off and mounted on a rod, ready to use Saturday, just in case I still can't handle things the usual way. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though.