Another Piece of Philosophy Bites the Dirt

For a mighty long time now, I've subscribed to the philosophy that, when the water level is high, you head to the back of Albright's. After today, though, there's at least an even chance I very well may toss that idea aside and just go with my gut. It truly couldn't have gotten much worse.

I spent seven hours in Albright's, with all but two hours of it in the back end with all the wood, which has been my best bet for catching fish here lately. For all my flailing, however, I was rewarded with nothing more than this lone bass that tipped the scales at all of 1 lb. on the nose. He was laying up beside a small downed tree and picked up my Senko when it came swimming by.

There were some white perch and/or bream hits spread throughout the day but nothing more. I couldn't even buy a topwater strike, despite all the cloud cover that was in abundance a vast majority of the day.

Thinking perhaps I might find a fish or two along the grass line toward the front of Albright's, I spent my last two hours there--again to no avail.

And then came my trip back to the marina this afternoon. Like the whole trip down this morning, I started off at about 2/3 throttle. However, I knew I needed to kick it in the butt and find out if the overheat problem of last Friday was resolved. The tach just had started cliimbing when the alarm again started blaring. I immediately shut down and got on the trolling motor for about two minutes before deciding to see if I could restart. The alarm indeed already had cleared, so I resumed my run back to the marina at about 2/3 throttle.

Once there, I called my mechanic and made arrangements for him to remove my thermostats later this week. If it was good enough for my Yamaha 115, it's gonna have to be good enough for my Yamaha 150.

While my day proved to be nothing to write home about, I talked to my buddy, Tom, who came in right behind me today, and he had a decent outing. He didn't weigh the fish in this photo, but it looked like it would go somewhere between 3 and 4 lbs.--perhaps even a bit more. He had three more keepers to go with this one.

More important than the fish he caught today, or that he and his tourney partner, Joe, caught last Saturday when they were out, is the fact they now have a pretty solid game plan for the tourney scheduled this coming Saturday.

Meanwhile, all I have are some ideas about where my partner, Rob, and I perhaps should start. If those ideas don't pan out any better than my plans today, I likely will be on Rob's S-list at the end of the day Saturday, especially since we'll be in his boat. Couldn't say I'd blame him, either.

My friend, Skip, also spent about three hours in West Neck today, and as hard as it may be to believe, he had an even worse day than I did. Said Skip in an email to me this evening, "I had 0 fish, 0 bites, 0 swirls, and 0 on the fun scale."

All I can say is, "Hang in there, pal. This crappy--and no, I don't mean crappie (I'd welcome some of those about now)--fishing has got to get better one of these days."