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We had a great time at the backwaters today.  We only fished for a few hours and each managed 2 nice largemouths.  This was was my biggest ever at 18.5"

Dave finally got some top water action.  

Nice largemouth Dave.

Here is a fatty.

We did catch a few pike.

Another shot of that 18.5" monster

Dave and I fished the backwaters a few times this weekend with some success. All in all, we landed about 8+ LMB, 2 SMB, 4+ Northern, 8+ perch, and 20+ bluegills. The biggest LMB came in at 18.5” (most were 15”-17”) and both smallies were 16”. We caught 5 perch @ 9” and a few gills that went 7-8”

Most of our LMB & SMB & Northern were taken from top water baits. Skitterpops with bright colors. I did catch one on a Culprit frog. Caught at least 1 northern on a shallow runner stickbait. The perch were taken with a crawler on the bottom, so were some of the gills. Most of the gills came from a crawler or waxie under a bobber.

We had my boat and also tried a few areas from shore. Our best luck was near the lily pads bordering a deeper channel.

We saw some guys landing several Northern using spinner baits. I think they even caught a dogfish.

A few interesting things happened. Dave caught an 8” gill on a #13 rapala (which is about 7” long). Another time, we saw a frog jumping clean out of the water about 10 feet from shore. Sure enough a big smallie jumped out of the water a few times trying to catch it. At this time I was reeling my line in super fast. It didn’t take long and that smallie grabbed that frog. I casted to the general area with a skeeterpop and gave it a few jerks. WAMMO! Caught that 16” smallie. That was cool.

Dave won the most embarrassing moment award. He fell on the rocks and wet grass 3 times and scraped and bruised himself a bit. But to top it off, he was trying to slep over a waist high piece of concrete and tripped and fell flat on his belly. The bad part was that he was carrying a net in one hand about 3 fishing rods in the other. In an effort to save the rods, he just let himself fall (didn’t catch his fall with his hands). WACK! Down he went on his hip and stomach. That slowed him down quite a bit for the rest of the weekend. He suffered a big bruise on his hip and a dandy on his leg. Arms and elbows showed plenty of road rash. Oh yeah, the rods didn’t fare so well. He broke the tip off his $100 Guide Series rod and broke the handle off an UL reel that he was borrowing from me.

Everything was released. Some of the bigger fish will make the internet in a few days.