My girlfriend Mikaila, decided early on this year that she wanted to fish a tournament with me. I was willing to fish one with her, and a club up north has a few opens every year one of which I've never gotten to fish. I had fished the lake once a few years ago, but not enough to feel comfortable fishing a tournament. Anyway, we decided to go up last Friday, as it'll probably be the last day we would have a chance to fish there together before the tourney. I was expecting the fish to be in the process of spawning, and water temp told me they should be, but there were very few beds. I saw some big smallies cruising anywhere from 4'-10' but couldn't coax them into biting.

 

Late in the day, I saw a nice looking bed and pitched my dropshot to it and hit right away, but pulled my bait off. Mikaila threw a few casts at it, but couldn't get it to turn so I pitched my ds back in there. In the meantime, Mikaila threw a cast that went "slightly" askew and crossed my line. No sooner had she done so, and that smallie fired again on mine so I set the hook. Mikaila, feeling the thump on her line, sets the hook and hooks my line, so I'm fighting her and the fish and the fish pulls off. She reeled in and made a better cast and the smallie fired on her ned rig, but pulled off. I put a tube in front of it's face a few times to no avail. The only other bottom contact bait I had rigged up at the time was a football jig, and figured, "what the heck, it's worth a shot". No sooner did that jig hit the bottom and that smallie absolutely crushed it. I thought I had it hooked good and got it all the way to the boat. Mikaila dipped the net into the water and the fish was halfway in the net when the jig popped out. That smallie darted right back to the bed, where Mikaila managed to hook it one more time before finally sticking it well enough to bring it to the boat. Her first ever smallie went 19 1/2" setting her PB bar pretty high. She wasn't done though, as about 10 minutes later she caught a 19" also off a bed. I had my drone with and am really kicking myself for not putting it up in the air when I missed the first fish. I've honestly never seen a fish that stubborn and not get finicky after getting stuck. It would have made for some pretty cool footage, but in the end, we have the memories of a special fish. 

 

 

Awesome smallies AND that she wants to fish with ya!  

No going back now,Nice Smallies

WTG Mikaila!  Nice catch.