So another week of work in the bank, and another week closer to retirement. Only 20 more years til fishing 24/7/365. Ha!
Anyways, this week was tough in another fashion. Enjoy this little conversation that was posted by my buddy Warren Wolk on the BassNJ Forums:
So last night I call Derek “BassNastyFishing.com” Littlejohns and ask if he’s able to join me on the water today. He says “Hell Yea!” so I tell him to meet me at Lake X at 5:30. He says he’ll see me there. So when 5:40 rolled around & he was a no-show i buzzed him, and when he answered our conversation went something like this:”
ME: “Yo Dawg. Just makin sure you’re not still in bed.”
DEREK: “No, I’m up.”
ME: “It’s 5:40 Dawg.”
DEREK: “Oh s**t, I thought you meant 5:30 PM.”
ME: Guess I’m fishin solo eh?”
DEREK: “yea, gotta work. F**K!”
So long story short I hit the water & decide I’m gonna take video photos of all my fish, just so I can text them to Derek to break his nutz. good thing I did, because it turned out to be the sickest day of fishing I ever had on this lake (Van Sciver). I ended up with 28 video clips, most fish in the 3.5 to 5 pound class. I caught them mostly on a Strike King deep crank & a Spro Aruku Shad, with a sprinkle of picasso School-E rig & PTL Finicky Tickler thrown in out of (sponsor) principle. Half smallmouth, half largemouth, nearly all quality fish.
So anyways, that day he proceeded to send me video texts of a nice selection of his fish. Then, to top it off, he makes a nice little video on ALL his 28 video pics and posts it on youtube, just compounding my misery.
So, as you can imagine, I’m dying to get out fishing after missing a once in a lifetime day of fishing. So, how to get rid of my fishing blues, but to go out and tackle some nasty lily pads (White Water Lilys: Nymphaea spp.) and catch some chunks. And that I did.
BNF rule for fishing heavy pads: When you set the hook, ideally, you’d like to turn the fish, get it on top, and water-ski it to the boat like a B.A.S.S. pro, eliminating getting hung up on the tough stems and stalks and leaves. However, there are more times than not when the fish just heads straight down and gets wrapped around the stems. At this point it is critical that you:
A) Keep some line pressure on the fish, but don’t try to haul it out.
B) Go in and get it. If you try to haul it out, the hook will inevitably twist or pull out from the leverage of the fish and the stems. This is where keeping the right amount of pressure on the fish is critical while you go in and retrieve the fish; your goal is to keep the hook firmly embedded, but not applying the excessive amount of force pulling the fish against the stems that will pull the hook out.
In the video below, you’ll see the two techniques at work. The first fish caught was kept on top and out of danger. The final fish you can see I moved the boat in whilst keeping pressure on the fish. Then I got in there and cut the stems away and got my bass. (I actually spent a minute or so doing that, but cut it out of the video so no-one would fall asleep.)
Without further ado, here’s my video showing me getting a little redemption from the rough week (work and missing that amazing day of fishing), with the added benefits of demonstrating the two techniques for getting fish out of the pads:
