It had been a week since I last was on the water, so I decided to go looking for Bubba today. As it turned out, though, I not only didn't find Bubba but nearly didn't find a fish period. My total for the day was one bass about 11 inches long that I caught this morning on a Yo-Zuri SS Minnow.
The water still was so high that all my favorite stuff in West Neck was underwater. After wasting two hours fishing the main creek, with nothing but one swat and a miss at a popper to show for it, I decided to check out some coves. The first one I visited was where I found my one and only fish today. I had one other swat and a miss--again on the SS Minnow--before going to a second cove, where I got hooked up with a second bass on the SS Minnow, but he came unbuttoned about 10 feet from the boat.
The third cove I visited is one I often see Bob Glass and Randy Conkle in on tourney mornings. I had switched to a SwimSenko by the time I got there and hadn't gone very far before a fish picked up the worm and started swimming with it. When I jerked, I saw a swirl, but only because the fish was slow to turn loose of the worm. Instead of the hook going into the fish, the worm had pulled off the keeper in the hook's eye. That proved to be my final chance of the day--a very poor showing for 7.5 hours on the water. I couldn't help thinking about that saying: "If it was easy, it would be called catching."
Like Jerry's son the other day, I learned a valuable lesson today. Mine, though, had nothing to do with drag settings. Instead, it was about how to handle one of those "birdnests from hell." I was sitting under a tree in the back of a cove when I let loose a lot-less-than-perfect cast. As the lure went straight up into the tree, I felt the line bubbling up under my thumb. When I looked at the reel, I only could shake my head in disbelief.
Most times, I would have broken out a knife and started whacking, all the while muttering things under my breath. Today, however, for some reason--and I'll never know why--I just removed the lure, rolled up the reel with the bird's nest still there, and laid the rod down. When I got home and had unloaded all my gear, I went out in the driveway with that messed-up reel, and don't you know I was able to completely undo that whole bird's nest. Seriously, I didn't have to cut out a single inch of line. I hope I can remember this episode the next time I get another bird's nest on the water. I can't tell you how good I felt when I got that mess unwound.
Another positive from today's fishing trip was the fact I got to experiment with the coffee stirrers and 6-inch steel leaders on my lines. While the information I read about the coffee stirrers indicated you wouldn't notice any difference in how the lures worked, that wasn't my experience. Both the SS Minnow and Bandit Footloose lost a fair amount of wiggle with a coffee stirrer on the line. My Bomber Square A, though, didn't appear to be affected. And when I threw the SS Minnow and Bandit Footloose with one of the steel leaders attached, they both performed as they usually do. Both suggested remedies significantly reduced the fouling problems I've been having--I didn't have but four or five cases total today. I learned one thing about the coffee stirrers that wasn't mentioned in anything I had read. They are small enough to slip through all the guides on my rods, so you have to watch what you're doing with them.
So, all in all, it wasn't a bad day. It got warm pretty fast, but I knew that was going to happen. I saw Skip Schaible on the water today--he had a couple when I last talked to him, and I think I also saw Lenny Hall but didn't get a chance to exchange notes with him. That was about the extent of fishermen today, except for a fella who came in shortly before I left. I didn't recognize that rig.
Good luck to everyone who has a trip planned yet this week.
Following is a photo of one of the two bass that Skip caught today on a Pop R. In Skip's own words, it was only "7.5 lbs. short of a citation."
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