The Sluggo Saved The Day

It seems as though this year has been a year of late starts for me when it comes to fishing.  Every time I've had a chance to go I've either hit the snooze button too many times or due to my lack of organization gotten on the water far later than I would've wanted. So why should this day be any different, I got this day started a few hours later than I would've wanted because I was indecisive on whether or not I even wanted to go fishing. Not only was I indecisive but I failed to pack my stuff up the night before, despite my wife telling me I should get ready.  So the late bird has to spend more time than needed packing up the rubber worms.

Despite my late start though I made it to Newburgh lake excited and ready to fish. I jumped out the truck and reached into the back seat only to find that I left my tackle bag at home on the couch. Really... After all that work, I get to the lake and have no tackle to actually fish with. However, thank God I wasn't as organized as I'd like to be because I had my junky backpack in the back which had a couple of packs of plastics in it and I still had last years frog tied on one of the rods. Eureka!! Hopefully my pack of black sluggos would save my fishing trip or maybe I was already smelling a skunk.

 A quick paddle across the lake and three cast in and I hook up with this little guy under a downed tree.  At just over 13 inches he's no monster but a heck of a fish for a guy with no tackle. I assumed this little guy wasn't alone under this downed tree he was sitting in so I threw several more cast in and around it.  Probably around my fifth cast I hooked into fish number 2.  Shortly after pitching into the spot and a couple twitches with the soft jerk bait he smashed it.  This little guy was only about 15 inches but well worth the fight.

I ended up fishing this area for about 15 minutes before deciding it was time to move about 30 yards down to another downed tree that was surrounded by scum.  I ended up fishing that spot for about 10 mins with nothing more than one swirl at my bait.  However right when I was about to leave I saw a bass blow up not far from where I was.  It was time to paddle on and grab the rod with my Basspro Shops Kermy frog on it.

When I got to the spot where I saw the fish blow up I pitched the frog close to where I had seen the fish.  However due to not so accurate casting I was a couple feet off from where the fish had shown itself.  "No biggie... I'll just make another cast", I figured.  One more cast to the bank just behind where the bass had blown up and I was walking the frog right back to where I had seen the largemouth.  That first few feet of walking the frog and nothing so I decided to pause the frog right at the spot where the fish was spotted.  No sooner had I paused it and "splash" she had nailed my bait and was quickly becoming the highlight of my day.

Once I'd gotten this fish to the yak I couldn't be more excited. At 18 inches this fish was not my largest bass by far.  However for a day that started out with me leaving all of my tackle at home and with it my hope of catching anything, this fish made the trip worth it.

After I caught that fish I ended up fishing for about an hour more.  I ended up losing 3 more bass 2 on the frog and one on the sluggo.  But hey, even losing 3 fish is better than sitting in front of a computer at work dreaming about fishing.  Tight lines everyone and thanks for reading.