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A DS day on the lake.
Congamond Lakes had always been one of my favorite places to fish in the
Sept/October. Holds quality fish, but more important for me, it has always been productive fishing the way I like to fish best. Basically small jigs and plastics on light line. I looked in my fishing database last week, and was surprised to find I hadn't been there in nine years! How did I ever let that happen? So Half-day Frank accompanied me to Congamond on Saturday. We started at an old ice house foundation, then worked docks and scattered pad beds, moving toward a large, shallow bar that extends out a couple hundred yards off shore. At the bar, Frank got our first fish of the day -- a 3-1/2 pounder -- on a baby brush hog, (grn pmpkn/grn flk). Then I got one about 2-1/2 on a drop shot rig. We worked around the point to the other ice house foundation, where we each got a 2-1/2 pounder. Mine on the drop shot rig, Frank's on the BabyB-hog. That would prove to be the last non-drop shot fish of the day. Knowing we had little time left before the boat traffic started, I figured we'd better hit the extended point again. We putted back there, and imediately started catching fish. Well, I did. DS-ing in 12 to 22 feet of water, I got 3 on consective drops while Frank never got a hit. Then I lost a fish that felt better than the "near-3's" I'd been catching. Frank has never drop shotted, but he figures now is the time to learn, and he puts down the brush hog rod. He has rigged up a spare rod with 6 lb line. It's a bit too much rod for DSing, but it should work. Unfortunately, it appears I have left my DS hardware box in the truck. No fear, There's a few weights rolling around the tray on the gunwale. Frank digs around in his box and the closest hook he can come up with is a tiny #4 or 6 salmon egg hook. He nose hooks one of my motor oil airetailes and proceeds to try. I catch a couple more. He's not getting hit. By now, we are being used as a course pylon for the water skiers and joy riders, so we have to get off that exposed, far-from-the-bank spot. We try a few more shoreline related spots. I catch a half-dozen fish over the next couple hours, but they are 1-1/4 to 2 pounders. Not nearly the kind of fish the off shore point was holding. I keep telling Frank he's over working his drop shot rig. Somehow, it gets to be 2PM. I wanted to fish an extended point in the South Pond before leaving, and we expected to be off the water by 3:30, so we book for the South Pond. It's a lot less crowded on the other side of the culvert. I pull up on the edge of the shoreline shelf, a couple hundred yards before the extended point juts out from it, and we start fishing our way towards it. 50 yards along, Frank sets the hook. The too stiff rod is doubled. The fish runs under the boat, and takes Frank to his knees, reaching down over the side of the boat with the rod banging against the hull. I hear no drag screaming, although Frank typically fishes with (IMHO) too loose a drag, and doesn't back reel. "Frank, back off," I tell him, "You're putting way to much pressure on that fish!" Some how, Frank snubs the fish's run, gets it back on the right side of the boat, and then follows it around the outboard the next time it runs for the depths. I see enough of a flash to know that this is a BIG fish. I'm not talking 5 or 6 pound big. I'm talking BIG, big. Then the teeny, tiny hook pulls free. No doubt in my mind that the first bite Frank had on a DS rig would have been the biggest fish to come into my boat this year. Maybe in a couple of years. In a classic "close the barn door after the horse is gone" move, Frank now loosens his drag. He had no idea how it had gotten that tight, he hadn't used that reel since we went striper fishing in the spring. He may not have landed the fish, but he did break his drop shot cherry. Once we reached the bar, we each caught four more, and like the extended bar we fished in the Middle Pond, the fish on this bar were all solid fish in the 2-3/4 and up range. The largest was a fish just over 4 that Frank got. RichZ© www.richz.com/fishing |
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