It Takes One To Catch One

   Today I decided I would go and sling a couple big live baits out under some floats at my neighbors pond and see if I could connect with a decent largemouth. I fished for probably an hour with what I would consider perfect baitfish, 3-4" bluegill that were very lively, but I only had one fish hit and he wasn't big enough to get the bait in his mouth. My little brother came down to the pond and tossed out a couple rods with cut bait to see if he could tie into one of our newly stocked channel cats from Lake Anna. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him cast a 2 pound fish back into the water and I yelled to him across the pond asking him what the heck he was doing. He excitedly told me that  huge bass tried to eat his catfish while he was reeling it in.
    I picked up my bait catching setup and caught a 5" bluegill as quickly as I could, and ran over to where he was to cast it out. After about 3 casts, slowly reeling the bluegill back towards me once it got down deep, I could tell that it was getting nervous. I continued reeling it back towards me and could see the big bass following it, but he wouldn't take it. I have seen him do this before so I took off the bluegill and went searching for another one to catch for bait. The first thing I saw was a small largemouth and decided to try using it as bait. I caught it, quickly put my 5/0 circle hook through his top jaw, and pitched him out in the direction of the big bass. The big bass immediately began chasing the little one around on the surface and ended up chasing it back into the weeds next to the bank so I had to pitch it back out to it. The bass tried 3 or 4 more times before finally engulfing the 8"er. It reminded me of watching a great white chase a seal on TV, except this was happening about 5 feet away from where I stood!
     I let the fish eat for a few moments and then slowly swept my rod to the side to set the circle hook. I had a 6'6" medium heavy spinning rod paired with a Shimano Symetre 4000 spooled with 30lb braid, so the fight did not last long, but I sure could feel how much power the bass had, it even peeled a few yards of drag!  My little brother netted it and then went to get a tape measure while I revived it in the shallow water next to the bank. The fish taped out at 24", my 2nd citation largemouth this year! After a couple of pictures, I returned the fish to the water and it shot straight out of my hands back into the pond, to hopefully be caught another day. I go back to school on Wednesday, so I consider that a pretty good way to end the summer (although something could happen tomorrow or tuesday). Thanks for reading!

 

 Bait!