Went out to a local pond today and had a pretty good day. I was dissappointed when I fist got there seeing the murky water and lack of bedding bass that I have been seeing recently. I made my way around the pond until I found my way to the back left hand corner. This corner contains a lot of sunken plants and has a deep hole. I noticed fish boiling on the surface but could not get them to hit a zoom fluke or a jerk bait. I decided to switch to a slower approach and tie on a 6 inch purple robo worm. On about my 5th cast along a submerged brushline I got hit. I let the line go tight and set the hook into a big bass. This fish put up a great fight and got three jumps in. This bass also tried to get into the sunken plants. I had the fish hooked so well that I dont think I could have lost it if I was trying to. I got the fish to the bank when it occured to me that I did not have my landing net. I have yet to buy a new one since i lost it on my last carp outing. Anyway I was quite suprised at how easy the big bass was to land by the mouth after getting him tired.

Here is the fist fish.

This fish was 19 inches and is so far my biggest of 2010.

A few casts later I caugh another nice size bass that was 17 inches about 10 feet from where I caught my fist fish. This one also put up a nice fight but I was able to land it quickly even with no landing net.

I caught 3 more "keepers" which were all released within the next couple hours all around the same location. Two of these fish were just over 14 inches and one was just over 12 inches. They also seemed to get smaller as the day went on lol.  I also caught all 5 fish on either a 6 inch purple robo worm or a 10 inch brown robo worm. I am guessing I had both the right location and bait picked out today. I do not know wich one was more important.

Also I think I am the grand master of the "Bill Dance" method of fishing (Hold your fish out as far as you can to make the smallest dink look like a lunker).

I need to go buy a new landing net. I got the most nasty rash on my right thumb/index finger from hand landing all these bloody bass today and haveing them shake around as you grab them. Do you guys who hand land bass constantly use gloves?

Nice fish!

This may be the first time I ever seen you hold a bass .  Very nice catch indeed.

Nice job!

I can count the number of times I've netted bass on one hand. Not really necessary IMO.

Nice job!

I can count the number of times I've netted bass on one hand. Not really necessary IMO.

Well I usually use a landing net to land EVERYTHING that is too big to deadlift out of the lake. I fish for catfish, carp, trout too so I just got into the habbit of netting fish. Plus netting a fish is always safer and you have a lower chance of loseing a fish at a bank. I honestly think I have landed less than 20 decent fish by hand... most of them bass with a couple of catfish and one carp landed with huge difficulty. Bass are pretty d**n easy to land by hand you just have to grab the mouth as tight as you can and be fast about it. Its very easy but my thumb and index finger are pretty scratched up. If I landed fish like this all the time I dont want to know what shape my right hand would be in.

This may be the first time I ever seen you hold a bass . Very nice catch indeed.

More like the first time I went out fishing and caught ONLY bass. Even if I am targetting bass I usually will catch something different by mistake such as a catfish or large panfish.

Awesome outing, nice fish!!  Funny thing is, I've never used a net to land anything, ever!!