Paddle Palooza Week Part 2

Thursday I went on a quick evening trip that started at my super secret bank spot. I got there and could see large bait slicks on top of the water.As I got out of my jeep I could see why there were so many slicks I could see the trout slashing through the schools pogies. Immediately I got excited by all the action and couldn't wait to catch speckled trout after trout. Quickly I rigged up and casted my 3/8 jighead and blue moon deadly dudley and cast and retrieved anticipating a strike. After 10 minutes of casting and no strikes I was perplexed the fish were visibly feeding but I couldn't draw a strike. Time for a change I clipped on a lemon cork and fished various depths between 10 inches and about three feet with no luck. After 20 more minutes of fishing it was clear that the fish were not going to eat an imitation when the real thing was laid out buffet style in front of them. Later that evening at seminar I attended presented by Brendan Bayard he further validated the problem of having too much bait on one of his powerpoint slides. As much as I wanted to stay and to try and make the trout bite I decided to head to a little pond to fish for some bass. My partner had been telling me about a pond where he only caught big bass so I reluctantly left the speckled trout and went there with him. After ten minutes of nothing I was beginning to think I had been suckered into another one of his fish stories. Almost immediately after that thought he had a huge explosion on his topwater and a nice three pound bass was landed. A couple minutes later it was my turn and my wake bait was grabbed I fought the fish but it shook free during an aerial show. we then proceeded to alternate catching six more fish all at or above the three pound mark. By this time I was cutting it pretty close to make the seminar early so I took a cast to remove a backlash and about halfway back to me I saw a fish rise from the depths and grab the wakebait. I could immediately tell that this was a bigger fish and my suspicions were verified when the fish jumped and I could see this was the biggest bass I had ever hooked. Even though I don't fish for bass that often I watched a few shows and I went into KVD mode skillfully playing the fish. When I finally got it up close I could  see it was big it went over 26 inches and is my new personal best. I am not a bass fisherman but this one got me excited and I wouldn't mind catching a few more like this. I then rushed to an informative presentation by some fellow louisiana kayak fishermen. My luck continued that day when I won a door prize an inline spinner from seeinspots lures. This was truly turning out to be a good week and I was optimistic about the weekend activities.