Day of Firsts

Posted by MNAngler On September - 21 - 2010

My brother moved to Boulder, Colorado about 15 years ago. In all those years, my wife and I have talked about visiting him, but either time or money has gotten in the way. This year, we decided that if I went on my own, both the time and the money would be less of an issue. I was able to make my first trip to Boulder for my first visit to my brother’s place this past weekend.

As my regular readers know, my brother is a bigger (and better) fisherman than I. So, of course, we would have to go fishing while I was there. He was going to take me to two bass lakes and a trout lake during the weekend.

One bass lake had large bass, but was a 1/4 mile walk. The other was a much shorter walk, but had smaller fish. I wanted to hit the bigger fish lake Saturday night, but after visiting BassProShops for a few hours, having lunch, and buying my Colorado fishing license, my brother decided it was best to hit the lake with the shorter walk to make sure we got the most fishing in before dark.

The lake turned out to be more of a pond. What you see in the picture (below) is about 70% of the water surface. It was my first time on such a small body of water.

We were in our tubes and fishing by a little after 5pm. I started with a bubble gum fluke figuring the bass would never have seen such a thing and hit it early and often. But after a few casts, I came to believe that the fluke wasn’t going deep enough. I’ve found in my last few outings in a float tube that I don’t really like casting a fluke when I’m that close to the water. I resolved that I would keep my flukes for casting from standing on a boat from now on.

I then switched to a green watermelon jig and pig. We spent about an hour going across the lake without even a bite. As it got dark, my brother said we should start heading back to our put in spot. I had noticed earlier that there was a shelf in the middle of the pond and after going it over it a second time, I threw a cast back over it. I felt a bite on my line and tried to set the hook, but I missed it. I threw a second cast over the shelf and this time, I hooked it. I couldn’t believe the size of it when I got it to the tube! It turned out to be this nice beauty.

Species: Largemouth Bass
Size: 18″
Lure used: green watermelon jig and pig

My first 18-incher and a personal best! It’s been added to my Hall of Fame.

I kept casting over the shelf and got another 6 to 8 more strikes, but couldn’t set the hook on any of them. Since I didn’t bring any of my own gear, I was using my brothers rod and reel that was spooled with mono. It was my first time fishing with mono in about 8 years, ever since I discovered braid and I had forgotten how much it stretched. Last time my brother in town, he had mentioned that he had a really violent hook set. Now I knew why.

Eventually, I had to abandon the shelf and head towards shore. I would get one more hit before having to get off the water a little after 7:30. It wasn’t the best fishing I’ve had, but I can’t complain about landing a new personal best. My brother said that 18″ was the average size on the other big bass lake. I was looking forward to breaking my personal best a couple of more times before the weekend was over.

11 Responses to “Day of Firsts”

  1. Nice bass! I hope you enjoyed your time in Boulder. It’s really scenic and a great place to visit. I can’t wait to hear about the big bass lake.

  2. kmurray says:

    Congrats on your bass! What a great fish and I must say, those ‘things’ you fish out of sure look like fun.

  3. Mel says:

    Very nice Bass. Glad that you had the time to travel and fish with your brother in Colorado. Hope he can turn you on to some more nice fish while you are there.

  4. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ben Gustafson, DeerPassion, Larry Bourgeois, Kari Murray, MNAngler and others. MNAngler said: A day of firsts, including a personal best largemouth bass: http://bit.ly/ao9qFD […]

  5. Mattsabasser says:

    Outstanding! Quality bass and excellent write up! Good to see Colorado water treating you well. Great post.

    Matt

  6. […] The title of this post might lead you regular readers to think that I made it back to Boulder to fish with my brother. No such luck. As you know, I’ve been a bit preoccupied as of late. […]

  7. […] #2 as we call it. A nice size body of water with five islands on it. This is the first place I took my brother when he came to […]

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