It was like throwing a chunk of meat into a school of hungry piranhas. Never in my life had I witnessed such a feeding frenzy among freshwater fish ? not bass, not bream nor crappie, and certainly not catfish.
Once, as I reeled in my bait, a bass struck the lure with only about eight feet of line out. That sorta shocked me, so I set the hook a little too hard (well, actually a LOT too hard), which in turn caused the bait to fly out of the fish?s mouth and back into the water on the opposite side of the boat. In short, it was only a nip of the lip.
But before I could reel the in the lure, a 2-pound bass had swallowed it. And this one didn?t get away. It was like that almost the entire time my son, Daniel, our friend, Dalton Hudson, and I fished. We only fished a couple of hours and caught over 80 bass, averaging two pounds. The largest tipped the scales at over seven.
What?s crazy about the whole trip is how it came about. Daniel has a 22-foot saltwater rig that he needed to check out ? bilge pump, outboard motor, trolling motor, etc. ? before he took it to the salty waters off the coast of Mississippi or Louisiana. Dalton has access to a large lake, so the two of them took the boat to check it out.
While there, Dalton couldn?t help but notice Daniel had his spinning reels rigged with saltwater baits, namely plastic cocahoe (hope that?s the correct spelling) minnows. Didn?t matter to him, though, so while Daniel tinkered with his boat, Dalton commenced to cast out the cocahoe minnow. If I recall from what they told me, he caught a bass on his first cast. And it was like that for the rest of the trip.
Daniel began fishing, too, and in less than a couple of hours, the pair had caught over 80 bass, averaging around two pounds. The outing was so successful that they decided to try again the next day, and they bowed to pressure and even invited me. Using the traditionally saltwater baits again, the three of us caught 83 bass.
That seemed too good to be true, so Dalton and Daniel decided to go a third day in a row. This time they invited brothers B.J. and Justin Bailey, and that quartet again boated over 80 bass. Again, we?re not talking about yearling bass, but fish averaging about two pounds.
Therefore, if you?re not having much success with your saltwater fishing trips, you might want to hit the fresh water and use saltwater baits. Of course I?m sure there are freshwater plastic baits similar to cocahoe minnows but, as some folks say, ?If it ain?t broke, don?t fix it.?
The family and I took a whirlwind vacation to Colorado and got caught up in some of the devastating wildfires. In fact, it seemed that every time we left an area, or tried to leave, another wildfire erupted, and I?m truly surprised that Federal Fire Marshalls have not come around to question me!
May relate that story in a future column, but I have bored you enough for now. Until then, be safe outdoors, obey the laws, have fun ? and take a kid with you every time you can.
