Father’s Day 2010

Not sure how to express how thrilled I am to publish this but Jerry called me out of the blue in the afternoon of Father’s Day and said let’s go out for a few hours.

Ho-hum I agreed. We hit one spot, nothing then with the electric we dropped into Mr. Bojangles home to see if he was till around but he wasn’t.

Jerry and I found this one spot on a big flat that we both agreed should hold fish but had yet produced.

I was working one of my lures and Jerry was working a glide bait. I am always so impressed when i fish with Jerry. He puts in so much effort and time to learn a lure and will often use a new lure much longer than I ever would without getting a fish.

I let out a long bomb and just as I heard the splash of my lure I heard commotion behind me and turned in time to see the swirl and the hook set.

Jerry said it hit about 15 feet away but from where I was standing it seemed so much closer. I remember reeling in as fast as I could, I so wanted to net this fish for Jerry more than I wanted to catch my own fish. Half way thru my reeling I could see Jerry already had the fish at the boat. For a second I thought about putting down my rod and reel but I paid $475 for the combo and wasn’t going to chance it.

I finally got my line in and like a Chinese fire drill I got the net ready. Jerry worked at getting the fish to the net and it just didn’t want to get it’s picture taken. I am pretty sure my heart was racing as much as Jerry’s was.

Then I pulled the bone head move and did what I tell everyone in my NOT TO DO. I reach for the fish, I so wanted to net her that I knocker her in the head. A real amateur move and worthy of being thrown overboard for. Thank god I didn’t knock her off. I really felt like shit but that passed once I scooped her up.

Jerry’s personal best casting at 36 1/2 inches.

What really makes this cool is we had talked just a bit earlier about how cool it would be to get a tagged fish. Well wouldn’t you know it, this fish was tagged. I must of had stupid for lunch because I couldn’t read the tag so I thought it was the best thing to do so I cut it off. More to follow.

Geez if it wasn’t 20 minutes later, same style lure, me with a full cast and Jerry hooks his second fish. I clearly remember giving Jerry heck for waiting until I was at a full cast before getting a fish.

This time I was a bit better at netting and not only was this also another tagged fish but it had a transmitter on it. I remember Sean telling us to remove the transmitters but I was still digesting my stupid lunch and removed the wrong transmitter. He wanted the ones with an antenna not without….DUH!

Another personal best at 39 inches.

Sean came by my place and picked up the tags and transmitter. He said the 36 1/2 was measured at 34 but his measuring is by tape and may not have been accurate. The 39 was measured at 39 and he told me the dates and locations of where they were tagged.

I have to say this was one of my top days fishing and I just couldn’t have been happier.