Took my wife out fishing on Green yesterday, since I had an extra day of vacation to use up. Stopped at Mels bait shop in town and found they were out of Leeches, and that the fishing has be pretty poor lately. Grabbed some fatheads instead, and tried for some walleyes in the morning, planning to switch to smallmouth in the afternoon. Fished walleye till lunch, with one stupid perch to show for my efforts. The wife didn’t even bother to fish, just read a book she brought along and got a suntan.
Did lunch at Melvins, which my wife really loved. Blue Moon beer on tap, good food, and a nice deck right off the lake to enjoy it from.
Switched to smallies after lunch, and things didn’t get much better. Nothing deep, nothing in the weeds, and no action on plastics or cranks. Tried moving up shallower and using using an X-rap, finally started seeing some fish, but they would just follow to the boat, then scram, including one that would have gone over 3 easily. Then the wife gets up and tells me something, “OK, it’s time to impress me”, just as I get my X-rap tangled in my cast. I give my line a few jerks and get the line cleared from the hook, and tell my wife “OK, now watch something grab it.” On cue, a 2 lb smallmouth smashes into the X-rap sitting there on the surface. This is the first sign of aggression from a fish today! Even though it is 80 degrees with bluebird sky, they are telling me they want topbaits!
Not being an absolute idiot, I listen to the fish and switch to topwater. That’s the ticket all right. I only had another 1.5 hours before we have to leave, but I get 6 more smallies in that time, and lose three, one that would have tipped the scale at 4 lbs. They wanted topwater, and they wanted it a certain way. Most of the fish would swirl under the bait without taking it, and if you stop the retreive and dead-stick it, they would just destroy it in about 5-10 seconds!
A very satisfying conclusion to a tough-bite day!