Caro and I signed up for this fun ripple organized by Jason Gramada on the basin behind his new house in Les Cèdres. Ben and I had been there 2 weeks before to see what the place was like and hammered TONS of smallies but no size really. I was hoping for a similiar day with less fish due to the bad weather and strong winds but it turned out to be better then I expected. We have been getting some strong west winds over the last few weeks and today was no different.
It started off pretty good, catching a 4lbs on my first cast litterally. Someone had stole my net right out of my boat the night before and we found out only when I hooked the first fish... We had to lip and boat swing 'em all day... Some people are so pathetic. I never leave anything in my boat besides a few pliars, scissors and the net... I can't believe i'll have to bring that inside as well from now on.
For my second area, I was looking for a place to be protected from the wind because I knew I was going to run out of battery way too early. It was there that Caro hooked a GIANT. As usual, she doesn't say a word and I see this big smallies leap out of the water about 10 feet infront of me. I look at where the fish jumped and Caro back and forth trying to figure out if she has the fish on or not. The fish was gunning toward the boat and Caro had some slack in the line so I wasn't sure if it was still hooked or not but apparently it was because it didn't take long for that drag to start singing. Without a net, it was nerve-wrecking to bring it in the boat and let's just say that both of us were happy when it was finally in the livewell. Now we only needed to change a 2lbs fish and had plenty of time to do so seeing as it wasn't even 12:00. We probably caught over 10 bass in the afternoon but all of them were around the same size or smaller. We tried new areas hoping to find at least a 3lbs but couldn't do it in time.
Back at the launch I started hearing a few reports and was surprised to hear most that most teams had had a hard time and thought maybe we had a chance at a top 3 and maybe lunker. It was nice because we weighed in last and won it by about half a pound and took the lunker prize as well. I know I say this a lot but I have the best girlfriend in the world. I'm really fortunate to have a girlfriend that share this passion with me at the fullest. Congrats honey for that big smallie! You finally got your 2010 nickel smallmouth! :)
Our bag weighed in at 11lbs for 3 smallies, good for 1st place out of 12 teams (I think). We had a little get together in Jason's backyard and I thought it was a great idea... It's always nice to talk about our day after a tournament and even better if there's beer and good food in the mix!
Next up is the Econobass Classic, the FC.net Rumble in Rockland and the Berkley B1.
