My obsession...

As a bank angler I believe we need to work harder to produce as we can only cover a limited amount of water. Some days it takes quite a bit of time and diligence to land anything. Add the recent heat wave here in NYS and it gets even tougher. One of my locals, a 160 acre lake is notoriously tough to fish after spawn for the "bankers". And its become my obsession.

I got out yesterday morning spending a few hours sweating and pretty much just disturbing water. Topwater got nothing, bottom plastics, nothing. I left my usual lake and drove over to another spot where I caught nothing but a nice lure someone lost in the water. I did however meet a gentleman and his young son launching their boat. We got to talking and I found out he recently moved here, (Lower Hudson Valley), from Virginia. We exchanged #'s and we'll hopefully get together so I can help him find all the area spots... No catches but a good morning.

Fast forward to later that day toward evening. I head out to that same local for some late evening action... I definitely got there a bit early, 'bout 6pm and started off with a Plopper then switching to a creature feature for some bottom. spent about an hour and a half moving around but nothing. There were several others fishing but nobody was having any success. A bunch of kids in from College hit the area I was fishing so I moved to the long bank and hit my favorite spot.

Switched to a T rig worm with a bullet weight and still nothing. Got caught up on a rock and lost the rig. I figured I gotta change my presentation so I tied on a Football head jig and a Power Bait worm with a twister tail Pumpkin Green. Figured I needed that worm to be more vertical. Second cast in and my line goes tight but no lateral movement so I'm thinking I'm stuck in brush and I start to pull through when the line goes left so I set hard and FISH ON! Great fight and I land a nice healthy fattie largemouth!

Fate however can be a fickle thing. Next cast out I lose the jig TO THE SAME ROCK! Unbelievable!

I quickly rig up another Football and go at it again. Several casts in and BANG! Another beauty. I realized I was the only angler still working water and its about 8pm. Diligence and changing up... It works...

Somehow I lost the second jig to that bottom rock... Really insane as I've fished that spot plenty and never had that happen. So with no Footballs left I tie on a weedless jig but the bite was off. I finish up doing some froggin' on the back inlet with no results but felt great having landed two beauties.

I know two fish may sound like poor pickings to many of you, specially down South but this is a tough Lake and takes work to produce there especially from the bank and becomes a point of pride. I'm obsessed with this body of water and it's teaching me a lot.

So here's to all my fellow bank anglers... TIGHT LINES!