Possibly His Last Trip of the Season

That's how Jerry billed his outing at West Neck today. "I decided to skip some of my to-do list and hit the water one last time before securing my boat for the season," he said.

Jerry launched at 8 a.m., with the water level still at 3.6 feet and good clarity. The water temp ranged between 57 and 60. Before wrapping things up about 10 a.m., he managed to boat this bass, which measured 11.5 inches. As you can tell from the picture, the fish fell for a Culprit red-shad worm. "Had it not been my last trip, I would not have even bothered getting the camera out," said Jerry.

The only other fish he boated today was a nice yellow perch, which hit an electric-blue worm.

As Jerry was securing his boat at the store, he bumped into Jim Bauer, who had told me yesterday he likely would be back to try his luck again today. The two of them swapped a little dock talk before Jerry realized he was holding Jim up from launching. They each subsequently bid a farewell, and Jerry was on his way home.

Here's wishing him and his family a nice winter and a joyous holiday season. Will be looking forward to getting your trip reports again next spring, Jerry.

I just had finished this report when I got an email from Jim, telling me how his day on West Neck had gone. The bass seen here weighed in at 2.5 lbs. He went for a Thin N, like some other fish in West Neck have been doing here lately.

Jim told me he boated two other keeper bass, weighing 1.0 and 2.0 lbs., respectively, plus one dink bass. The bait he used to entice these other three bass was a Robo worm.

Besides these four bass, he boated four white perch, two yellow perch, four bream, and to use his own words, "one ugly, nasty, mean bowfin." All the perch, one of the bream, and the bowfin fell for the Thin N.

Actually, the bowfin (all 7 lbs. 13 ozs. of him) "inhaled" the crankbait--so badly that Jim had to net him to retrieve his lure. "Biggest one I have caught in quite a while," he said, adding, "it sure chewed up the lip on the crank."

It appears today's venture convinced Jim of the value of adding a Thin N to his regular arsenal. "I hadn't fished it much until today and don't think I had caught a fish with it, either," he noted. "I'll be keeping it tied on now, though."

Jim told me he ran across Bob Glass and Eddie Sapp on the water again today. He didn't hear how Bob had done but learned that Eddie had had a good day with crankbaits and soft plastics.

Jim closed out his email by saying, "I felt pretty good this morning but am pretty tired tonight." He was headed to the shower and, most likely, his recliner after that, then probably off to dreamland.