Lunch on the lake

Hit up the lakefront for an hour at lunch, hoping to catch something. My last two outings have been nice, but no fish landed... And although I claim I love fishing, I love catching too.

Assembled my 5-piece rod as I walked, so I was ready to cast as soon as I got to the water. I saw some other guys fishing, but they didn't seem to be catching anything. Another guy walked by and I asked him what he was fishing for. "Anything that'll bite!" Yeah man, me too!

Apparently gobies were the only things that bit, because that's all I caught. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining brightly, and there was little to no wind.

My limited fishing experience tells me these are not the ideal conditions in which to fish at noon in the summer. Can we get some clouds up in here?

I threw some dropshot-rigged cooked salad shrimp (which got some gobies); tube jigs; silver size 0 mepps; texas rigged grub with wiggly tail. Got a lot of small hits close to the rocks, which were definitely gobies (although I know for a fact there are a ton of rock bass right there... but they obviously were taking a siesta).

After a while, I started casting as far as I could, to see if I could entice anything bigger into my offerings. It was a little difficult, because between me and the breakwater is a high-traffic boat lane to and from the marina. I tried casting out, letting it sink, reeling in the slack, and letting it sit there.

After a minute or so, I moved the rod a bit to check, and I felt resistance. Hooray! Fish on! I reeled in, pulled the rod back, and repeated, just the way my new hero Jeremy Wade on "River Monsters" does when he hooks into 300 pound fish. I didn't want this one to get away!

As I reeled it in, I was excited to see what I got. Could it be a smallie?? Perhaps?

Nope, goby.

my nemesis, the goby

Not to be discouraged, I re-baited, re-cast, and waited. Hey, at least I beat the skunk.

A few more minutes passed by, and once again I felt resistance... But much more this time!!

I didn't want to get too excited, but I did my Jeremy Wade maneuvers anyway; this one seemed a lot bigger. I reeled, pulled, reeled, pulled; at this point the fish was about 30' away from me in the water. I got it close to the surface and saw a flash of brown. Smallie!?

SNAP! My line broke. 

I didn't get a good look at it, but I don't think it was a goby. With that, it was time to head back to work. 

Watch out smallies, I'm coming for you. You're safe for another day, but I'll be back.

a view on my walk back to work