The Grind: Swimbait Personal Best Largemouth

My pal and swimbait mentor, Mike Bucca, had been killing it out on the lake all week in his bass boat with large mouth up to 9 pounds. Me being a teacher, new father and weekend warrior, I didn't get to pick and choose my days, I just have to go when I am able. My fishing partner and I hit the launch full parking lot of bass boats and I was none to happy to fish pressured water in front of faster moving vessels, but that is the price you pay when you kayak fish. On top of that, I totally forgot to pack a hat, with my lack of hair that just won't do, so I had to stop at a truck stop and but a $5 trucker's hat. Let me introduce to you my new lucky fishing hat. Despite my annoyance at leaving gear at home and dealing with a lake brimming with trolling motor powered boats, I knew that my only enemy was my mental toughness and my dedication to the grind. The grind is the ability to pursue a goal with a a relentlessly and shut out all those negative peripherals.

Now, to properly frame this story, you have to realize that I have dreamed of breaking the 8 pound and 10 pound mark on large mouth since I was a little kid. I have had many close calls and caught more 6 and 7 pounders than I can count, but landing the big mamma always eluded me. This is partly due to the fact that I spend 95% of my time on swift water chasing big spotted bass, shoal bass, striped bass, small mouth and musky. I just don't spend a ton of time on flat water known for big large mouth, so stumping your toe on an 8 pound fish in a little creek or really swift water is an outlier. So, for the first time in a long, long time I am not competing in any tournaments and suddenly have the freedom to fish wherever I want. Instead of prefishing or chasing a tournament trail, I decided I am going to invest a little time trophy hunting on flat water known for big large mouth.

Trophy hunting requires a different mindset and I came prepared. Dobyns Rods Champion 807 Mag HSB swimbait rod with 25# mono and a 9" Bull Shad. It is actually very liberating to go to a body of water knowing that you are going to only throw one or two lures, hoping to force one or two bites over the course of a day. No pressure to run and gun, no pressure to find fish or change out lures. You find a few spawning flats with deep water nearby and you fish the hell out of them. The big mammas will be hanging nearby. You just have to be there when they move up and eat.

Navigating my Big Rig around big boats can be a serious pain and you have to really adjust your mindset. You aren't going to head them off, you won't hit that prime piece of cover first or fish down that bank before them. Honestly, you aren't even fishing for the same fish. You are fishing for just a couple of opportunities at the biggest fish in the lake. So, slow down, ignore the other boats, and focus on completely saturating areas from multiple angles.

Boat position is a key factor for a couple of reasons. First, you don't want to get so close to your cover that you spook the fish. You won't necessarily spook the fish off of the cover itself, but a bass will follow a swimbait for a considerable distance before it tries to choke the bait. I made this mistake on one of my first casts and blew the opportunity for a big fish early in the day. I made a long cast to a tapering point, but an incessant breeze was pushing my boat steadily towards shore during the retrieve. I spotted the tell, tale shadow of a big fish behind my bait and imparted a subtle action with my rod tip to make the bait dart like it wanted to escape. Unfortunately, my drift had eaten up all the open water between myself and the shore, so when the fish made a slashing run at the bait I was already on top of it. The big fish turned and headed back to her deep lair. My lack of boat control had blown the opportunity.

Blown opportunities are soul crushing when your desperately trying to break your personal best record and only expecting a couple bites all day. To make matters worse, I cast off a brand new swimbait. Cast offs happen when you throw 3 to 6 oz baits all day, but it hadn't happened to me since 2013 and I was bummed beyond all belief.

The day dragged on and we battled wind and boat traffic without a bite from 8 am until 3 pm. Then, like flipping a switch, the water finally warmed and the big girls moved on up. My buddy Corey busted his new personal best on the 9" Bull in an awesome fight that ended with the big girl throwing the heavy swimbait just as she slipped into the net!

After a round of high fives and gratuitous hero shots, I put my head down and began bombing the 9" Bull. We ran a circuit of spawning pockets, humps, and points in a condensed area, saturating each location with casts from multiple angles and then letting it rest. The water had warmed to around 60 degrees and fish were visible everywhere. You could see them cruising, chasing shad and occasionally busting big shad on top. I knew my moment would come.

And, boy, did it come. I had easily the largest fish I have ever seen swing and miss on the 9" Bull on a shallow creek channel. That brings me to 0-2. But in a mere 15 minutes I was holding not 1, but 2 giant large mouth. The first was a blind, gnarly old girl who had been through the wars. She smoked the Bull Shad on a moderate retrieve near deep creek channel. She immediately came to the surface and tried to jump, but I buried my rod tip and forced her head back down. Time stood still as she slowly entered the net handing on by one, lonely hook barb. I was blown away! The day had been a grind and I was exhausted, but it wasn't over yet. She was having trouble swimming off, so I kept her on the Boga and down in the water to revive while I fished on. Maybe 5 minutes later my rod doubled over like I hit a brick wall and I drove the hooks home. I immediately knew this fish was a different class of fish and pulled off my finest fish fighting and landing routine to date. You have to put the screws to big fish on swimbaits and give them no quarter. As the fish swam under the nose of my Big Rig, I switched off my rod to my left hand, choked up on it above the first guide, grabbed the net and muscled her into it in one, smooth motion. Boom! Pow! I did it! I lost a lot of fish at the boat last year and had been working on my landing technique. Mental preparation paid off and I held my new personal best. Finally cracking that 8 pound barrier. The emotions that flooded my mind and body are indescribable. Years of longing, considerable investment in tackle and gear, giving up tournament fishing, and having the mental fortitude to grind through a hellacious day was such a sweet payoff.

It isn't often that kayak anglers get to pose with more than one fish, so posing with two trophy class large mouth is absurd. As I held nearly 47 inches of bass in my hand and admired my long sought prize, I realized that sometimes the grind is more than just making it through a day. The grind can be weeks, months, or even years of not giving up. My dad always said "your time will come" and he was right. Now it is time to grind on that 10 pound mark.