First Keeper bass in 18 years!

After back to back days of waking up at 3:50am and being at the launch to meet Obass for 4:30.. fishing for 3 hours and heading to work for the next 9 hours, i can honestly say that i am shot. After i write this its most likely time for a nap. Yesterday the hits started pretty quickly at our first spot. With some rolls and a few missed strikes... mike nails a 34 inch fish on a white sad shad and i proceed to set on a fish only to have my 20 lb braid with 60 lb leader snap off at the braid. So i grab my other rod and bam... again same thing happens. My drag wasnt too tight i dont think.. it was possibly the excitement of having my first top water striper ever that was forcing my hook sets to be a little on the violent side... lesson learned. I tie up again and get the line rapped in the eye of my rod and watch a sad shad go flying into the distance. I was pissed at this point. Mike caught one more around 33/34 inches and then the hits stopped just like that. 

That morning i went straight to WalMart and bought some 30 lb braid and some 50 lb braid and re spooled immediately. Stopped at a local bait shop bought some Yum Houdini Shads in Chartreuse and some Slug Go's and slug go hooks and got ready for my next trip not knowing it would be the next morning. We were fishing by 4:45 and this day me and mike switched rolls. He started with a sailing bait into the darkness and i hooked up on the first strike of the day while he was tying up another bait. It gave me an amazing fight. Pulling drag multiple times and probably took 3 minutes to get too my thumb. Fish went 33.5 inches and i suddenly was very awake. I ended up catching one more around 31-32 inches a short time later on my only other hit of the day. Mike had one fish snap him off and had 3 other explosions of fish whiffing the bait. 

So 2 days of fishing and only 4 fish caught. I had fun catching my first top water bass but i also know it can be much better than that and i will soon be on a mission to beat these days. Id say i got a little fever.. and the only prescription is more fishing! and hopefully a little bit of sleep. My last keeper i was 10 years old fishing with my Dad off the beach at hammonasett using a fresh cut of hickory shad that we caught that morning in clinton and that fish was 40 inches and 28 pounds. So i have a decent number to beat right from the start. That fish was in the paper which was pretty cool as a kid. during the fight my dad held my belt loop to keep me from being dragged in. haha good times. Ill be out tomorrow morning somewhere... if anyone see's the silver sylvan haulin bass 2 come say hey!

Thanks Mike for taking me out these last 2 days. always a blast.

Dedicated too : Fist bump Paulie