I learned a big lesson today

I was fishing in less than ideal conditions: cloudless bright sunny day,
45-50 degrees and windy. The water temp wasn't too bad at 65.

I finally found them under the docks on the east side of the lake (until the
sun started setting and shining under the docks). I was tossing a
watermelon seed lizard as close to the docks as possible. I landed one
right on the corner post of a solid top dock and immediately the line
started moving out. I set the hook and ended up with a nice 6-7lber at the
side of the boat. Just before I would have had my thumb on her, the line
broke.

The lesson: I knew it was time to change the line--I could feel and hear
the fray running through the rod tip guide, but I was feeling lazy and
decided to wait until after one more cast. Need I say more?

Actually, I probably would have landed it if I had a net. It took me a
while to get her into position to lip her and I would have had several
opportunities in the process when I could have netted her. That's the other
lesson for today.

She was probably closer to 5, but she'll be 8 tomorrow In any case, that
size is too hard to come by on a day like today.

Keith

But Keith, wasn't it still alot of fun getting that "lady" up to the
boat! g But you are right, it's o.k. to lose a fish because it out
smarted you, but not because you out smarted yourself!
JK

Similar thing happened to me on the second day of a light tackle smallie
competition.

I was fishing a jig and it got hooked up on some rocks. I jiggled it free
and on my next cast hooked into a beautiful fish. She jumped, went down,
swirled and then she was gone. The line had snapped just in front of the jig
on a chink in the line caused by the rocks I was hooked up on. My partner
and I came 11th but I'm sure we could have made the top 5 with that one
fish.

"luv2bafield" wrote in message
link.net...
I was fishing in less than ideal conditions: cloudless bright sunny day,
45-50 degrees and windy. The water temp wasn't too bad at 65.

I finally found them under the docks on the east side of the lake (until
the
sun started setting and shining under the docks). I was tossing a
watermelon seed lizard as close to the docks as possible. I landed one
right on the corner post of a solid top dock and immediately the line
started moving out. I set the hook and ended up with a nice 6-7lber at
the
side of the boat. Just before I would have had my thumb on her, the line
broke.

The lesson: I knew it was time to change the line--I could feel and hear
the fray running through the rod tip guide, but I was feeling lazy and
decided to wait until after one more cast. Need I say more?

Actually, I probably would have landed it if I had a net. It took me a
while to get her into position to lip her and I would have had several
opportunities in the process when I could have netted her. That's the
other
lesson for today.

She was probably closer to 5, but she'll be 8 tomorrow In any case,
that
size is too hard to come by on a day like today.

Keith