The weather was perfect: semi-cloudy skies, little or no wind and temps above 72 degrees.
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The usual small soft plastics, between my son and I, caught 61 fish in 4 hours. (I hadn't seen him in over 35 yrs. and when we connected (totally by accident), he expressed the desire to go fishing like we did when he was young.)
The first step was showing him how to tie a uni-knot. The next was how to cast very light lures without problems using braid. Once on the water, I had to coach him on the proper retrieve for using micro-lures. Since the day was perfect (no wind to mess up casting accuracy and the fact that fish were all over the place, he did well. Granted, he will never be the fishing fanatic his old man is, but at least he will be open to going if not just spending time with me.
When he wasn't catching anything even though I was, we'd switch rods (and lures) and I would continue to catch fish - he not so much. I put his mind at ease and told him: right place, right time, right fish. He added over 2 doz. to the total and caught a pickerel and 5 small bass on various shapes.
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He wanted to try a surface lure and did get some hits but no hook ups. A 2" floating Rapala would have been better, but for sure next time. Shots of areas we caught fish:
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Nice were the shallow locations we caught fish whether near pads or over rocky flats - none over 5'. Unexpected was catching fish in open water on large flats near wetlands. Also, the number of tiny fish hitting our lures such as this yellow perch:
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Nice when you can catch different fish species in the same areas:
yellow and white perch, sunfish, bass, crappie and a pickerel.
Note the fish grabbers that made getting hooks out much easier for fast release, avoiding fish slime on my hands and/or fish flopping free on the bottom of the boat. Some sunfish got the lures hooked deep (no jig head in sight) and the grabbers + needle nose pliers got the lures out easily.
The greatest excitement of the day is when I was bringing in a 6" white perch and a bass started attacking it over and over again! The fish didn't know who to be more afraid of - me or the bass! :yikes
