Global warming means it’s over 60 degrees in mid November. So rather than beat my head against the wall with deer, I accepted the invite from a college buddy to head out in the boat and chase smallmouth and sauger. I thought this was a wild goose chase. Turns out- it was lights out. Started out with a channel cat that seemed lost. But then 15 smallmouth in the 13-17” range, plus a surprise largemouth. And a few of the biggest goldeye I’ve seen.
Then it was moving on to look for sauger. Deeper water in the same hole yielded a surprise while trying to wrangle the boat in a big wind and some rain.
One more sauger in that hole, but it was slow. I mean slooow. So we relocated, and it was game on. Never caught anything other than sauger there, but we didn’t move the rest of the day.
Probably caught 35+, mostly around 17-21”. Three were 24” and one was a skinny 25”. I didn’t even know these things got that big. They went back, and 4 of the smaller ones got to go home.
Nothing quite like feeling that “tick” and setting the hook to think you’ve got a log only for it to shake its head. I’d do this again in a heartbeat, but don’t know if it’ll ever be this good again in my life. Damn glad we went fishing.
Then it was moving on to look for sauger. Deeper water in the same hole yielded a surprise while trying to wrangle the boat in a big wind and some rain.
One more sauger in that hole, but it was slow. I mean slooow. So we relocated, and it was game on. Never caught anything other than sauger there, but we didn’t move the rest of the day.
Probably caught 35+, mostly around 17-21”. Three were 24” and one was a skinny 25”. I didn’t even know these things got that big. They went back, and 4 of the smaller ones got to go home.
Nothing quite like feeling that “tick” and setting the hook to think you’ve got a log only for it to shake its head. I’d do this again in a heartbeat, but don’t know if it’ll ever be this good again in my life. Damn glad we went fishing.
