Day 1 - We started at the same area from prefish and noticed that the water warmed up to 72 degrees, 6 degrees warmer than previous times there and that the schools of shad had moved. There were still fish in the area and shad as well but they had moved out with the warming water. We went down the bank and managed to catch one keeper on a jerkbait and number short fish on topwater. As we came around a steep cliff Mike threw out a small crankbait and caught a nice keeper smallmouth. A few casts later to the same spot and he hooked up with another one, this one over 5lbs. After a decent fight it ended up shaking off the crankbait. Even though it was a heartbreaker it showed us that there was going to be a crankbait bite, one we couldn't find the previous 2 weeks. A few minutes later he hooked up again and we had 3 keepers in the boat. I decided to throw out deep with a deeper diving crankbait to see if could get a kicker fish. Second cast I was coming up the break-line and the bait stopped, I thought I was snagged, I pulled into it anyways to try to keep it coming and then the line shot to the top of the water. The massive fish came up shaking its head throwing water everywhere, and also shook free as my bait went flying out of its mouth. I was in shock, it was my own fault I never really set into it, only pulled into it. It took a few minutes to reset myself but had to stay focused. We made a run to our spot from last year that had bluegill beds, and we fished dropshots in order to fill out a limit. With one pass we had our limit while also culling a couple times. We went back through the area but didn't produce any other culling fish. We decided to hit another area with steep sides with crankbaits and big worms hoping for the big bite. Once again my partner hooked into a beast that was jumping and ripping line then all of a sudden was off, we couldn't believe it. Under closer inspection, the hook actually broke at the barb, key lesson always upgrade stock hooks! We made another move and managed a few more keepers of jigs and worms, to cull up but nothing of size. We weighed a limit of 10.77 and we were seriously behind the 8-ball needing a massive limit, which we had the right pattern if could only get them in the boat.
Day 2 - We started where we had the smallmouth and lost the big one, and within a couple casts we had a good fish on a crankbait and we were excited for the day. With 2 fish in the boat we came around a steep drop corner, through the deep crankbait out and it got slammed, I could tell was a big fish but something wasn't right, after a fight back and forth finally got the fish to the boat, a 15lb channel catfish. Right size wrong fish, learned a valuable lesson though while handling the fish, never stick your hand it its mouth, it rolled and ripped my thumb pretty good. The rest of the morning was tough, we fished out same areas but only had 4 fish in the livewell. We hit a steep shelf area and I hooked up on a texas-rig but it came off at the boat, fish swam straight at me and couldn't catch up. A minute later my partner had a good fish that was jumping from one side of the boat to the other, after a battle on super light test he got it in. It weighed 4.01lbs and boosted our spirits a little that finally got a quality fish in the boat and didn't lose it. We fish a few areas on the way back in and caught a few fish that culled and tons of bluegill. We managed to catch a limit for 12.21 with the 4.01 big fish. We finished 16th and could only blame ourselves due to the unforced errors. It was a ton of fun though and look forward to next season.
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