A Very Happy Independence Day Indeed!

 July 7th and 8th, 2012

Well since the 4th of July fell on a Wednesday we got to choose to go before the 4th or after the 4th up to my uncles cottage on Rock Lake. Looks like we chose right!

The wife and I cruised up on Friday night and I got fishing early Saturday morning. Sleeping Friday night was terrible since it was 90+ degrees at night. I went to bed around mid night, and woke up at 3am hoping that when I looked at my phone it was more like 6am... Ah well I made it through after going to sleep on the couch and made it down to the lake early Saturday morning.

I figured that since it was so hot the fish would be pretty active so I would start off with a top water and finish with a spinner. Well my theory paid off on my very first cast. I tossed the Heddon Spook Top Water Minnow walk the dog type lure. Tossed it out there and bamm this beautiful 14'' pound and a half bass hit. What a fun time when your thought process of what you are going to toss out pays off on your first cast. This was only the 2nd time that this has appened in my 3rd year of fishing and it is a TON of fun!


Even though I got off to a good start it was slow going after that! I fished with the Spook for another 2 hours with not even so much as a missed hit! While I cant get mad after pulling in a nice bass cast one, I was getting a little frustrated not having continued success. So I implemented plan two which was tossing a spinner bait out there. Since I figured the fish were active I went to a Mepps #3 with a brown buck tail with a little red color hanging out the back. In the first 10 minutes of casting the Mepp out there I got two rock bass. The first of which was small but with a beautiful set of coloring. 








The second rock bass was the largest one I ever caught. This rock bass was pretty fat and was in the 7 to 8 inch range and may have weighed 10 ounces or so. The first picture to the right it does not look much larger than the first one. However, the second picture which is next to my St Croix Premier 6' 6'' rod with a type 4 grip which is 7 inches of cork at the base shows that the fish was right in the 7 inch range.

These are the subtleties that I have started to  notice now 3 years in. A few years ago I would  have said 'this is a funny looking little bass type fish'. Now not only do I know it is a rock bass but I knew it was a size-able one at that. Pretty cool to see my progression as an angler to really start to understand the little things and appreciate even the small fish!

So that was the end of Saturday morning fishing. I was happy to have a decent bass on the board and the large rock bass was a fun catch that I have only really begun to appreciate.

I still had one goal that I wanted to achieve and that was to catch a fish on my new Pflueger rod and reel. So why mess with a good thing? I strapped my Heddon Spook Top water onto my new light weight and light action rod. I told the wife I would only be down at the lake for 30 minutes after dinner. However when you dont catch something in 30 minutes one needs to take 60 or 90 right? Well it took me an hour of solid casting before I was able to get this 12 inch bass on my top water. It was skinnier and shorter than the first but it was a solid fish. I was more than happy reeling this fish in on my new rod.

Now the Pflueger rod did not quite feel like my other St Croix rods. Price wise the Pflueger was about $50 bucks for the rod and reel. While a nice Premier St Croix rod will run you in the $120 to $150 (and higher depending on the weight and action). So to say that the Pflueger felt quite a bit different. Fishing with it for the first few times it felt much like the St Croix rods. However having actually caught a fish with it the action just is not the same. It felt cheap reeling in this bass. It was hard to feel the fish its almost like I just felt a bend and not the fish pulling itself like you get with the St. Croix. However I should be using this pole more for smaller fish that I was so I'll try it on more applications and see if it can excel in a particular setting.

Now if Saturday was good, Sunday was unbelievable! It was a top two fishing days in my last three years. First things first. It was a very clam day so I decided to take the row boat out and see what I could find.

I NAILED this beauty to the right. A solid 6'' Northern Pike! It was the absolute smallest Pike I've ever caught (or seen). Somehow this fish latched onto a white chaterbait where the blade of the bait was larger than the mouth itself. Hey it was a first fish and I'll take all that I can get.

Next up was a very nice bass. This was a 13 inch pound and halfer. This fish was quite strange it was the smallest fighter I have ever caught. Honestly it fought less than the 'big' rock bass I caught the morning before. I got it on a white chatterbait and was excited to see active fish hitting some crankbaits. This fish was pretty fat and honestly might have even made it up to being a two pounder. My thinking was this, if a chatter bait in about 12 foot of water is getting this a big DT 14 in 20 foot of water would do really well.

That is where the fun started. After bagging that bass the pike just started jumping on the line. I got seven pike in an hour! It was awesome. Not only that I did get a KEEPER! The pike to the right is a 26'' beauty. I didn't know it was a keeper at the time but it was fun to get my largest (and smallest) pike all in one afternoon.

It was so much fun every five to ten minutes chucking my deep diving crank bait out there and feeling a big throb at the end of the line. There was a point however when I started hoping that one of the

smaller pike was really a bass and it was little disappointing when it was yet ANOTHER pike. Although at the end of the day how could one be disappointed catching pike after pike? It was one of the best fishing days to date. It was so much fun!