A Day Filled With Timid Strikes and Few Hookups

I just had pulled up to a point in Albright's this morning, when a fish threw water everywhere but missed my Bang-O-Lure. A few casts later, this toothy critter jumped all over the same bait, and I'm guessing it was the same fish as missed the lure on the first pass.

When I started trying to get my camera out of the case, this pickerel had both hooks lodged squarely in his jaw. By the time I got this picture, only one hook still was fastened, and as I started to lift him out of the water to use my pliers, the second hook popped free and saved me all the bother, which was perfectly fine with me. If only I had the same luck unhooking all the bowfin I catch.

I was hoping this fish would mark the start of a good topwater day. Mother Nature certainly had cooperated by providing an abundance of cloud cover. But as I soon would learn, it was going to be a trying day. I must have had 20 or 25 strikes throughout the course of the day, but in the vast majority of cases, the fish were hitting very lightly, and I couldn't seem to find the solution. In most of the cases, I didn't get a hookset at all, and when I did get a hookset, the fish usually pulled off before I moved them very far. I tried different kinds of hooksets, but that didn't seem to help.

Before I finally threw in the towel, I managed to boat three bass like this one, which weighed 1 lb. on the nose. I also got one 10-incher, along with two white perch and one bluegill. Only one of the bass fell for the Bang-O-Lure. All the other fish today went for a super shallow crankbait. I also had one hit on a chatterbait. It turned out to be one of those cases where the fish pulled off, though, before I had moved him very far. My swim Fluke didn't draw any attention whatsoever.

It was a pleasant day, and the water was beautiful. I saw pods of baitfish throughout the day, but nothing appeared to be chasing them. With the heavy overcast, I kept an eye on the sky, and it's a good thing I did, because about 10:30, I looked up to see a wall of rain coming my way in the distance. I just had donned my rain gear when I felt the first drops hitting me. For about the next half-hour, the rain fluctuated between light to moderately heavy, but when it had passed, the sky started lightening up, and the sun was out for most of what was left of my day.

My friend "Doc" Murdock launched right behind me this morning, but he already had departed the premises when I returned to the ramp this afternoon. He told me he likely only would stay out about four hours, so I wasn't surprised to see he had left. If I should get a report of his fishing day, will either tack it onto mine here, or perhaps draft a whole new article, depending on how much info he sends me.

I received an email from "Doc" this morning, letting me know his experience on the water yesterday mirrored what I found. "I had quite a few short strikes on a swimbait and a swimjig," he said. As a result, he didn't catch anything. With fishing, there, thankfully, always is next time.