So the weather hasn't been all that great lately in western Washington and I still feel like we got ripped off on our Fall Bass Fishing Season. But it was nice out today and my buddy and I decided to give Desire a shot today for some Largemouth Bass.
Between the two of us, we probably boated well over a dozen Largemouth Bass. Biggest was probably only 1.5 lbs or so. He caught 2 on a top water frog. Most of the fish were caught on a drop shot.
We were throwing everything at them today, trying to see what they wanted. I hooked into a really good fish twice, felt really heavy, pulled hard, ripped out drag, and then spit the hook a few feet from the boat, still under water. I couldn't see what they were or how big they were. But just by comparing the fight, they were pretty good fish. My guess would be easily 2+ lb range based on the bend in my rod, the strength of their pull, head shakes, etc. It was really disappointing but what can you do right?
We pull up next to this dock and I cast my 5" Rainbow Trout Pattern Swimbait parallel with a dock. I'm slow rolling it back to the boat when Absolute Mayhem breaks loose! As my swimbait is approaching the end of the dock WHAM!!! BAM!!! THANK YOU VAN DAMME!!! Something Huge SAVAGELY DARTS OUT FROM UNDER THE DOCK LIKE A MISSILE AND ABSOLUTELY HAMMERS MY SWIMBAIT!!! Even with all CAPS that is a HUGE understatement. This fish came out SO HARD and SO FAST that neither me or my buddy could tell what it was. We both saw a dark back and a massive fish just absolutely clobber my swimbait!!! So I set the hook and this fish is big and pulling hard! I thought I had an absolutely Pig or a Largemouth on. It was headshaking violently and pulling out drag and it had my adrenaline raging!!! But we were both in for a huge surprise when we see that it's actually a Rainbow Trout! I get it close to the boat and flip it on and we are both freaking out and what just happened.
I weighed the fish with my Berkley Digital Scale and this Rainbow was 3 lbs even. My Biggest, Personal Best Rainbow Trout! Hoo Rah!!! We didn't have a measuring tape with us but this fish was easily in the 20" range.
I always catch and release but this was too great of a catch to release. I had someone in mind who absolutely loves trout so I kept it. My buddy was nice enough to bleed it out and gut it for me. Luckily I had a cooler with me that had a bunch of ice in it.