First Couple Fish On The Hollow Body
The place where we stayed up in Tamworth had a nice pond on it called Moore's Pond. The pond isn't to big, but gets up to forty feet deep. I was excited to fish here when we arrived. Camp rules made the boat rentals difficult at first, which was pretty annoying, but I eventually got to spend a morning out on a row boat. My brother and I first tried out going deep for smallmouth with a drop shot rig and deep divers. This yielded nothing, so I tied on a swim jig and started to work a huge area of pads. This pads were only in about 1-3 feet of water, and looked like killer largemouth territory. After the swim jig didn't really work out, I threw on a Scum Frog hollow body. I hadn't ever caught a fish on a hollow body before, and I was ready for my first. On the very first cast, a fish explodes on it twice, missing both times. I cast and work the frog into the same spot and the fish explodes on it. I set the hook as hard as I can on my medium power rod, and fight the beast for a solid minute. When he gets close, he looks like a hefty four pounder and I get pretty excited. He then gets caught up in a bunch of pads and gets unhooked. Oh well, back to fishing! Through the course of the morning, I get between 10 and 15 its on the frog, some of the fish hooked, but none of them landed. (It got to the point that every time I hooked up with a fish and lost him, I belted out some very salty language and hoped I hadn't drifted too close to the camp site for any children to hear.) After repeating this over and over, a bass finally slams me in some thick pads and I land him. The fish is only two pounds, but I am as excited as when I caught my 4.5 earlier this year. I had finally caught one on the hollow body. The next day, I fished the same pads again, but only had a small slime dart and a couple other hits to show for it. Determined to end with a bang, I grabbed my rod and a frog and headed out to bank fish the pads for some more bass this morning, the last day of the trip. Early on, I was bringing the frog through some padless water and I suddenly saw a swirl to the right, giving me an exhilarating feeling that only topwater bass guys know. I let the frog sit for about five seconds without moving it, knowing I was about to set the hook. I got ready, and began to work the frog again. The bass attacked the frog and I set the hook, yanking the lure right out of his mouth. DAMMIT! I quickly recasted and the repeated my encounter with the fish, again missing the hookset. I started talking out loud to this punk-a** bass who thought he could out fox me and declared war. For another fifteen or so minutes, I kept working the frog in until I saw the swirl again. I let the frog sit, waiting. I once again started to twitch my rod and WHAM!! He exploded and I set the hook. With my rod tip high, I felt him fighting as I worked to keep tension on the line. I was NOT letting this one off. He jumped and thrashed in the air and I gasped, expecting him to throw the frog. but he didn't. I brought him to shore ad held the fish up. It was a beauty, easily over three pounds. No world class fish, but a bass anyone would be happy to catch. I looked in his mouth in excitement and saw the frog way in the back of his mouth. WOOHOO! I snapped some pics, unhooked him, and released him. I also had the pleasure of removing a worm hook from a rather undesirable spot on the fish. Not his mouth, but just the opposite. EW! After that, no more fish, but I left happy, feeling I had won. Now that I've gotten better at frog fishing, you're next ponkapoag!