37 Inch Bass

I played hooky today and headed to my favorite East Metro Bass lake to see if I could find a few Crappies.

It sure felt good to be back in the boat!

I was using my trusty 6 weight fly rod. The water temp was 51-52 degrees, there were some old weeds hanging around, and it was very windy. I was using a sink tip line and a two fly setup; two nymphs on the same leader. That’s legal in Minnesota.

After a lot of hunting around I found some nice Bluegills and one lonely little Crappie. Nothing to get excited about but still great fun after a long hard winter.

After releasing another nice Bluegill I threw back in there and instead of the normal “peck-peck-peck” of a Bluegill, I felt a deep solid “thunk”. Whatever this was, it wouldn’t move. A solid 5 minutes later it was still in pretty much the same spot. And it felt weird, the head shakes were wrong for a fish this big. It finally started to move around the boat, under the boat, back and forth. About 20 minutes later I had the monster up to the boat.

Yup…..TWO Bass, an 18 incher and a 19 incher on the same leader! No picture, it’s not bass season yet and I wasn’t going to mess around with these guys any more than I had to.

Anyway 19 plus 18 is 37, right?

Rootski

Lol. I thought BS! Had me for a second. Good deal!

Nice fish and story ski

Poacher!

Which one tasted better?

Way to go Rootski! That’s awesome… Even more awesome that you respected the resource.

Seen lots of photos of guys with multiple bass in hand during spawn and pre- spawn. Taking these fish off beds, putting them in live wells, etc.

Can’t wait to get to your favorite lake. It is my favorite too. Do they still have the speed restrictions on it?

Hookem: If I read the new sign right, the speed limit is in force from sunset to sunrise during the week, Saturday morning, and all of Sunday. If you remember it changed when some doofus city council member thought property values on the lakes was going down because people couldn’t run jet skis at 5Am or something. Genius…

Dave B: I hope you were kidding and don’t really think that I was poaching Bass out of season. I measured those two nymphs I was using. One was just over half an inch long and the other one was about 3/8th of an inch. Small stuff and I was surprised a bass would bother to eat them. I was definitely looking for Panfish but you never know what’s going to happen when you drop a line in the water.

Jeremy: Found any good carp action yet? Over the winter I tied a whole box of flies that are supposed to work great on Carp.

Rootski

That is cool!

Quote:

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Which one tasted better?

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The one smothered in loon gravy

Nice going Steve,
definitely great getting back on the water.
What is the speed limit when in force?

Jack
Real opener is 2 weeks and 2 day away!

Hello Jack,

5 MPH, and it’s been fairly well respected over the years. On a small lake in the early morning it’s very nice. No noise or boat wakes.

Won’t be long now!