Catching That Week Before

    One-two years ago, my Dad and I were fishing on a sandbar jutting out into the Ohio River (this was the same sandbar where a man ramped his pontoon boat onto shore and offered us a free ride around Brown's Island. None of us felt like getting kidnapped that night so we awkwardly declined.). That night, my Dad caught one fish and I caught zero. While there, we started talking to another fisherman that claimed "to catch fish after fish" a week before that night.

    It seems odd that wherever we go, we always hear about how many fish they caught the week before. So for one-two years, we've been trying to catch up to that "week before" and tonight, it finally happened.

    With a brief stop at King's Creek and one Smallmouth reeled in, we took our gear to the mouth of King's Creek on the Ohio River. We had many good nights here last year and were anxious to see how this year would start.

    I used a Kastmaster at the creek so I thought I'd try my luck with it here. It payed off on my second cast, reeling in another Smallie. For the past 4 months, I've been in a slump but all you need is a few base hits and you're hitting .300 again.

    After reeling in a handful off the Kastmaster, I switched to my go-to Rapala. It didn't matter if I reeled it in slow, fast, jerky, or not at all; these fish were in a frenzy. I've never witnessed anything like this. They didn't just take the lure, they attacked it on the run. Three times we watched  fish close to shore dash through the lure but miss the hook. When they hooked on though, the impact felt like there was a 5 pounder on the end of the line. Once hooked, they'd run and jump until they were finally on shore, where they would then become civil and let me easily remove the barbs.

 
 All and all I ended up with more than 15 Small Mouth Bass/White Bass. They weren't huge in size but their fight was amazing. It was a thrill I haven't gotten from fishing in quite awhile. While I caught up to my "week before," my Dad is still searching for his, losing a few and only reeling in one. I mention this not to rub it in but to say how odd it was. He used the same lure I did and even fished the same spot I did. He joked that I was spitting on my lures before throwing them in. I returned the joke by catching the same 2 fish 15 times.