This evening, I was lucky to land my two personal best smallmouth bass ever! And better yet, it was right in my own back yard! I headed to my secret morel mushroom spot to see if any had sprouted, but there weren't any, so I went fishing. Ewing was reeling in a 4" bluegill when a monster smallmouth hammered it 3 feet from the bank! The hook didn't set in the smallmouth, and despite many attempts, we couldn't get the fish to hit. So after half an hour of nothing, other than a 12"er that I caught on a 3" rebel floater, I tied up the only live bait hook I had, a #8 gamakatsu circle hook. I caught a small 3" redbreast sunfish, put the hook through his lips, and pitched him into the current on my ultra light with 4lb test. When the fish hit, I felt very undergunned as I payed out line, waiting to crank down on him and maybe getting lucky and hooking him. After 20 seconds of letting the fish eat, I reeled up the slack really fast and the fight was on! After numerous runs, and 3 jumps, my little brother Ewing netted the monster smallmouth. 18-19" (measured on my fishing rod and put a tape on it this evening) may not seem like a big fish, but out of a river with a 6ft max depth, and a max width of no more than 20 yards, this was a trophy. After a few photos, I released the fish back into the river...
I decided I would check for another, and to my surprise, another 18-19" smallmouth picked up my 4" shiner on the very next cast! After another crazy battle on 4lb test, and wading past my waist in crazy fast current trying to get the fish out of a snag, I managed to lip the 2nd monster smallmouth, another 18-19"er, but this thing was so fat that it had to be 3lbs. I also released this one, but the pictures turned out bad because it was getting dark. I tried 2 more times, but only caught a 10"er and the 12" fish from earlier in the day, I could tell it was him because he had a huge raw spot the size of a quarter on his gill plate. So this was definitely my best day on the North Fork of the Rivanna, and I saw a smallie that will easily pass the 20" citation mark, so I will be heading back soon with better smallmouth tackle! Thanks for reading!
This picture turned out beautifully! And you can see the size of the river behind me.
This was the fat one, but as you can tell, the picture didn't turn out well because of lighting.
1 comment:
This is one fat fish. Have you been feeding them?
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