Bass fishing today

[Old Greenhorn]

Oh, it's worse than any drug. A long time ago we had a permanent site in a campground. The kids were small and my folks had a site across the road from us. It was what we could afford and a way to get the kids to have time with their grandparents. The camp had a 15 acre pond that was on my parents side of the road and we had a canoe dock there. We also had a few neighbors there who were tournament fisherman. They would go to tournaments and bring a few of their fish back to camp and release them in the pond. All the regulars at camp had fish tags and when we caught one, we would scratch our initials in a tag and release it back with the tag. Over the years we had quite a crop of nice bass. I caught a lot of fish, but never one with somebody's tag on it. They prospered.
 So one Sunday morning I take my son out in the canoe with me. He is 6 years old and had, literally, a Mickey Mouse fishing pole with the big Mickey Mouse float on it. I am catching and releasing some decent fish. My son hooks into a good one and it pulls the back of the canoe around. I know he has like 4 or 5lb. test on his line, so I drop my rod and start following the fish wit the canoe as I coach him through it. I know he is going to lose this fish in the heavy weeds, but we keep working at it. He is (as you might guess) extremely excited and shaky but he is also listening to me and very serious about getting his fish. I am trying to figure out how to console him when he loses this fish because I am sure he will. But we keep working on it and I keep coaching him and we work through a ton of weeds on his line. After about 15 minutes we boat this  fish. It's a 16" large mouth at about 6 pounds and came into the net with 10 pounds of weeds on the line. The fish was more than half the length of his rod. Turns out the camp was running a fishing tournament for the kids that weekend (we didn't know that) and he won 1st prize and a nice rod and reel. It's the only fish I ever had mounted and gave it to him for a Christmas present that year. He was hooked. That fish is still hanging on his wall.
 He has more hours bass fishing in the last 5 years than I've had in my entire life. It's as if I got my kid hooked on a drug.

[SawyerTed]

Catch a 4 pound small mouth in a river!  There's nothing like it.  I've caught some big saltwater and fresh water fish and none compares to a small mouth bass for pure fight!  I'm not too enthusiastic about large mouth bass.  But small mouth!  Wow!

A small mouth on 6 or 8 pound test in a river is like catching a lightning bolt without the pain!  Every nerve will tingle and sometimes picking up the fish is hard due to the shaking!

Tom, there's nothing like watching a kid manage a trophy fish!  When they start out catching big ones, it's no wonder they become lifelong fishers!  That's a great memory!

[barbender]

Finicky and obstinate, Robert. It's like looking in the mirror😁

[YellowHammer]

Yep, they sure are purty!

[SawyerTed]

Eeewwww!