THE BACK STORY (The Breaking Point)

For the last few years my son has joined me for a fishing outing on my birthday.  That’s much better than any tie or chotchky.  Even better than a premium rod & reel combo.  This year he had to miss it.  He’s working on his bachelor’s of engineering, working as a licensed pharmacy tech, and running the NAU Yuma machine shop.  He’s a pretty busy man these days.  He had to take a rain check.  We finally scheduled to go fishing on April Fool’s day.

I ask Rob if he wanted to hit the river, go canal banking, or canoe some water he’s never fished before.  He opted for canal banking.  It was pretty darned windy and being able to get out of the wind in the truck running from spot to spot was a big factor.

We hit a few spots, and nothing.  Long casts to known fish holding spots.  One I could clearly see held two nice bass when we walked up on it, but long casts past and retrieved through didn’t get them to bite.  For canal bank fishing I’d spooled up a 7’6″ moderate speed light action rod with some uber thin 15lb braid.  My intent was to be able to chunk smaller crank baits WAAAAAAY out there.  I brought another one with a new reel and some line in case it turned out to be the ticket.  The idea was to have something that could cast smaller crank baits a country mile.  It worked, and I quickly setup the second rod and added it to Rob’s stack of rods.

The 15 lb braid was “okay” but I actually started breaking off some 20lb on my small Club-O (MLXF) rod.  Generally, braid lasts a long time, and I don’t change line regularly like I did when I was fishing tournaments all the time.  It’s just not that important anymore.  Still, after I broke off for the third time, I stripped it back and spooled it up with some of that brand new 15lb I’d brought.  Instead of a Club-O I stuck a 5″ Square Back Minnow on the line and started working my way back through the brush along a little side water.  Rob headed the other way down the bank throwing a Curly Buzz Frog Mini.  Might have been a Junior, but I think it was a Mini.  He said he had seen some busting fish, so he wanted to fish some topwater.  This was mid to late afternoon with the sun still pretty high.

In my first spot I threw the Square Back up by some cat tails and started very slowly working it back.  Without thinking I set the hook and thought I felt a fish, but then I was wrapped on a cat tail clump.  Being bank bound I couldn’t just run up there and unwrap it.  A moment later it came loose and no fish.  I made a couple casts, hung up and broke off like I was fishing with gossamer thread.  I figured I’d just damaged the line on the previous hang up.  While I was standing there I saw an easy 3 plus largemouth swim past my feet.  He was coming from the direction where I’d been pretty sure I’d gotten bit before.

I retied and broke off on my 4th or 5th cast in my second spot.  Sometimes things just happen.  I didn’t worry about it.

In my third little brush tunnel I found myself standing on dead brush fallen into the water so I could get far enough away from the trees around me to make a decent cast.  I was standing on brush 2-3 feet off the bank, and casting to some laid down tulies on the far side.  I made a little side arm flick and laid it right on top of the lay downs.  I saw a little water movement, gave it a twitch, and saw a more aggressive swirl of a fish trying to get through the lay down.  I gave it a slow pull to drop it off the edge of the laid down tulies and just watched the line.  It may have been moving, so I slowly started reeling in slack to see if it would start to tighten up or if it would just glide towards me.  It started to tighten up so I cranked down and set the hook.  I set it pretty hard, and I guessed solid fish.  2 pounds at least.  As I brought it out into open water it felt bigger.  3 or 4 maybe.  Just before I got it up next to the brush I was standing on it started to bulldog me a little.  Oh, maybe its bigger than that.  I got a look at its nose, before it pulled down again and I thought close to 5.  I brought it up one more time and dragged it up onto the ends of the brush I was standing on, and the line parted.  No pull. No catch I could feel on anything.  The fish didn’t flop and shock load the line.  It just parted as I was gently pulling the fish towards me.  I tried to reach down and grab it, but the fish just gently slipped through the branches and swam away.  Now the fish that got away is always bigger than the one you put on the scale, but it was a very fat bass.  It was easily over 5 pounds and as fat as it was it might have been over 6.  I went back to the truck, told Rob about it, and retied.

While I’d been busy missing fish in the brush Rob said he had a couple blowups on the Curly Buzz Frog, but he failed to connect.  I’ve never really taught him how to fish that kind of topwater.  It’s likely he swung to fast instead of letting them take it, but I think it’s encouraging on the first of April that he got topwater strikes.  In past years I haven’t really seen decent photo period topwater bite until mid April.  Here it was April 1, and he got multiple strikes in open water with the sun still pretty high.

He went back up through that area where I broke off throwing a Club-O, and I followed him throwing a fresh Square Back Minnow.  Neither of us connected again, but it was very encouraging.  My confidence was high the rest of the afternoon.

I wound up landing two just barely keeper size small mouth on my super long casting moderate speed light action spinning rod chunking a small crank bait, and hooked one maybe a little better just out in the middle of the canal.  I was standing up on a high bank and had no way to keep him from jumping, and he jumped.  I figured after the second time we went three feet in the air without throwing the bait I had him hooked pretty good, but he made a skittering jump/slide run along the bank as I was getting ready to drag him up and he came off.

In the end I think if I am around any kind of hangups I’ll stick with 20lb braid or heavier.  I never had any issues with the 15lb in open water, but it just couldn’t take any abuse at all in the tulies and over the brush.

That 7’6″ light action spinning rod, and 15lb braid did work exactly the way I intended for the smaller cranks baits.  I was able to cast just about all the way across the canal in the widest areas, and that’s actually how I caught my first fish of the day.  I knew there was a little shelf along the bank on the far side just below a wash bridge.  I used to just get up on that narrow bridge wall and walk across, but standing on the bank I was easily able to lay the crank bait right up on the shelf and crank it off.  Just as it came off the shelf was when that fish bit.  Just like they are supposed to.