I HATE Indian summer.

Over the past 30 years, the vast majority of the lousy fishing days I've
experienced in the late season were days just like today. Mid-70s or
higher, calm and mostly sunny.

And again today, the indian summer blues bit me on the posterior.

Half-Day Frank brought a bunch of chubs and we went out on Squantz, hoping
to have a blast with the smallies, and maybe pick up a walleye or two.

HA! Who was I kidding? I saw the weather report. Warm and calm. Not a
chance.

Anyway, I caught one little smallie on a 2-1/2" Fin-S Fish. Frank got one
on bait. He also got a LM about 3 pounds on the bait. I broke one fish off
on my 4 lb test. Never really got enough of a feel of it to know if it was
a good fish or not. I just hammered a bit too hard on the hook set.

Other than that, I had a very weird experience. As slow as it was, I
decided to trail a chub behind the boat with only the tiniest of split shot
a few feet ahead of it, as I fished along, casting the little fin-s. I
thought I saw the rod tip on the bait rod twitch, then do nothing for a
while. A while later, it twitched again. I reeled in my Fin-S and reached
for the bait rod, just as the tip really started to bend. I followed the
fish with the rod tip, letting it move off a good 4 or 5 feet before
setting up on it. This was the 8 pound test rod, so no real fear of busting
off. The rod doubled over and the fish pulled hard. I had it on for a few
minutes. The way it was fighting, I figured it was a big walleye. Then it
finally came toward the surface, and we got a look at it. Not a walleye.
BIG largemouth! Seven plus range. Then it was gone! And in its place, I had
about a 5" rock bass. Then the LM turned and grabbed the rock bass again!
This time, it didn't get as good a grip on it, and I didn't try to pull
hard on it. But a moment later, it let go of the panfish and was gone. I
reeled in the rocky. It was next to dead. My chub & hook were WAY down its
gullet. In fact, IT wasn't actually hooked. I pulled the hook and baitfish
straight out with no trouble.

All I can figure is that the 1st tap I saw was the rocky grabbing the chub,
and then it just swam along with the tension of the line. Then the rocky
went and got itself et up. But the hook was down inside the panfish, and
there was no way I could actually hook the bass. It was amazing I had it on
as long as I did with no hook in it, and even more amazing that it hit the
rock bass again, after I finally pulled it out of the bass's throat.

The rocky was, for all intents and purposes, dead. It flitted and fluttered
a bit on the surface until a seagull came along and put it out of its
misery.

I still hate indian summer.

RichZ©
www.richz.com/fishing