A retired buddy and I made a day trip yesterday (3 hr drive each way) to the lake I grew up on as a child to do some bass fishing. The weather forecast looked great with a high of 78 which was over 10 degrees cooler than my home forecast. It was not exactly an early start leaving home at 8am and we returned by 8pm. Unfortunately we only got to fish for about 3 hrs with the weather.
We launched from the front yard and proceeded to paddle about 3/8mile to the lilly pads. My buddy was using his 10 ft kayak with electric trolling motor and I was using my Hobie Compass with mirage drive.



The very first thing I did as soon as I got in the pads is use my kayak as a "paddle board", standing and using my long kayak paddle like a paddle board paddle. My primary weapon is my prescription polarized fishing glasses and a proper hat to shield my eyes from the sun because my absolute favorite form of fishing is sight fishing. Right away I noticed a couple baby tiger muskies (~14"). They were gorgeous little predators with very contrasty tiger stripes . This was the first time I had ever seen a baby tiger muskie and my guess is the fish and game must have just planted them. Dinking around I tossed a crawler about 3 feet off the tip of my Graywolf 5'4" 4pc bfs rod and modified 1500c to the fish and it immedeately gobble it up, unafraid of my kayak and white T shirt. I was using 10# fluoro for leader and when I gently set the hook the line sliced clean like a razor blade. I was really hoping for a picture of the fish up close but the best I could do was take a picture of it eating my crawler. You have to look hard to see it here just seconds before my line was sliced off.



I started looking for nesting largemouth and within 15 minutes I realized its too early and the fish were scarce in the shallows. In a couple weeks it should be perfect. After 20 min or so I finally found a largemouth that staked out a territory of about 1000 square feet. I tossed a wacky senko and let it drop to the bottom and it immediately swam over and sucked it in. When I "set" the hook with the ultralight rod all I got was a bare hook. I worked that fish a few more times over the course of the day and ended up loosing it twice later in the vegetation. Giving up I continued the search (standing somewhat unsteadily on the kayak) and then we heard lightning. We kept fishing until the rain started then realized it became a race to get back to shelter (about 1/2mile).



I was faster in my pedal kayak than my buddy so I took a pic of him after I got to the cabin.



Shortly thereafter it "really" came down with some lightning and poured harder than I can remember in the last 20 years there.



We sat around in soaked clothes and I made some hot coffee while we waited for it to clear. After a couple hours the sun came out so we headed back out.

I started searching deeper water (4-5 ft) instead of the 2-3 ft I did earlier and finally found another bass that I was able to land. It put up an excellent tussle on my ultralight bfs outfit and I was able to free it from tangling in the vegetation. I snapped a quick pic of it on my lap before releasing her. Mission accomplished! As I headed back to the cabin I searched for some smallmouth in the sandy gravel areas and caught a dink. Back at the dock I caught a few bluegill and was very impressed with how fun it was to use such a light baitcasting rod on them. Overall I am very happy with it.





Thanks for looking!

excellent bass ! must have been a lot of fun on the bfs..