Memorial Day Weekend - Eldred NY
I ended up spending the long weekend with the in-laws in the southwestern part of NY state. Their community has a couple of private lakes that has decent fishing, and we spent parts of each day there fishing from small boats.
It was a tough weekend of fishing, with only a few bass caught. Most of the fishing happened in the middle of the day, with sun and skittish fish.
The exception was Saturday afternoon, where I had the chance to go out by myself in the afternoon. As I take off, a rain shower hits and I almost turn around. I stick it out, and after 5 minutes it settles into a nice, cloudy, warm day.
I spent a couple hours fishing my way down one side of the lake, hitting stumps and weeds as I go. It looks like nice bass spots, but nothing happens. I make a run to another side of the lake, with less stumps but more shore vegetation. Fishing my way down, I see a fish break the surface by a small inlet. I cast out, and as the worm lands a wake heads towards it. I feel a tick, and set the hook. I have no idea what I've hooked, but it's putting up a good fight making several runs and peeling line off. I manage to get it clear of snags and fight it out near the boat. I don't see it until I bring her up to the surface, and it's a very healthy looking bass, definitely a new personal best!
I scramble around my gear, only to realize I don't have a scale and I don't have a measuring tape >.< I have to resort to measuring it against my rod and measure with a tape later. It comes in around 21 inches, and I damn sure I'll never leave the scales at home again... A conservative guess would be 4 pounds.
I let her go, and cast back out to the same area. A couple casts later, I hook up again and land another nice fish around 19 inches with a very distinctive gimpy tail. Another cast, and another hookup, but this one gets away.
I swap out the chewed up worm for a sweet beaver, and get another solid bite. When I land the fish, it's the same gimpy tailed 19 incher I landed 10 minutes earlier!
It was by far the best 15 minutes of fishing I've ever experienced. My two biggest bass ever, one of them even caught twice. Even with just one more fish the rest of the weekend, it was a fantastic trip =)