S*******l
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It has been one heck of a morning!
Today began at 2:45AM up in Boston. I had spent the past few days in
Brighton with Lauren, but after hearing about big bass in the Cape Cod Canal
I knew I had to get back to the fish.
I was just about the only car on the highway all the way to the bridge which
was definitely a nice change of pace. Finally at around 4:40AM I settled
down in my honey hole along the rocks of the Big Ditch.
It felt more like October this morning than June-that is for sure. Of
course after my second cast the sky opened up and began raining. I watched
as the brisk NE breeze blew sheets of rain from east to west down through
the Canal. Of course I had forgotten my rain coat at home – what a perfect
start!
After about 5 casts my braided line managed to tie itself into one heck of a
killer wind knot. I had to cut and retie and ended up losing a ton of line
.
I completely emptied my spool on the next cast and only saved losing
everything by quickly flipping the bail over at the last second. It wasn’t
even 5:30AM and I was soaked to the bone, freezing and almost out of
fishing line!
Instead of getting all ticked off I made a move, left the Canal and headed
back to the barn to grab a coat, a hat and a new spool of line. Fortunately
I had a back up spool ready to go so I wasted minimal time re-rigging. By
6:15AM I was back on the rocks, waiting for the fish to show.
Problem was there was really no life whatsoever. No birds, no bait, no one
hooked up and no bass on the surface. I found myself a comfortable rock (if
there is such a thing), snuggled into a crevice, and patiently waited for
some sign of activity.
I sat there for about 15 minutes. I remember thinking something along the
lines of – “Well I’m guaranteed to not catch a thing with my hook out of
the water, so I might as well take a couple casts.”
This was one heck of a long and fat fish.
So a couple casts is exactly what I decided to do. And on my second cast
something awesome happened.
I chucked my little homemade, absolutely horrendous looking pencil popper
way out into the middle of the Ditch. The current was running pretty good
so I just popped the plug back and forth as it floated downstream. I was
looking at a seagull over to my left when I heard a deafening SMACK!
There was a huge bass on my plug! The fish had completely missed the popper
but I had seen a huge dorsal fin just behind the pencil. I kept twitching
the lure back and forth in the current. Not more than 2 seconds later he
came back full force and absolutely engulfed the plug.
My rod doubled over and line began screaming from the reel. Thank God I had
changed out the spool with a full load of braid! This bass was dumping
yards upon yards of braid in an instant. Without debate I began hustling
down the rip-rap after the fish.
I passed by a couple really nice guys, Monty and Kevin on my trek after the
fish. They stopped what they were doing, moved out the way and let me do my
thing which was really awesome. After a couple of minutes the fish had
peeled around 150 yards of 40 pound braid and began digging for the bottom
in tight to the shore.
It was now or never so I buckled down the drag and began working the bass
against the current. This guy had some serious weight to him and I could
feel the fish digging for the bottom. With all the jagged rocks in the
Canal, I figured my best shot was to just horse the striper in and tighten
the drag down even more.
I’m not sure how long it took to get the bass in towards shore but I began
to gain good line on the fish after buckling down the drag. The bass
surfaced about 15 yards off the shore and rolled on his side, showing Monty,
Kevin and I his belly. Like most of the fish I’ve seen this year, this
bass had some good girth to him and had been feeding well to say the least.
I eased him up towards the rocks and could see the single live bait hook (
the kind we use for tuna) embedded in his jaw. I reached down, grabbed the
bass and brought him ashore.
Man oh man was this guy beefy! All three of us stood there on the rocks,
smiles from ear to ear, admiring this beauty of a bass. I think I was still
in shock – good thing I got up off my butt and decided to take a couple
casts!
The bass literally came out of nowhere. None of us had seen any signs of
life or seen any fish caught. I must have just been lucky and by chance
happened to plop my plug directly in front of the fish.
The bass tipped the scales at 45.7 pounds and close to 47 inches long –
hands down one of the biggest (if not the biggest) bass I have ever caught.
Just a few pounds away from the coveted 50!
I decided to give the fish to Monty and Kevin. They seemed like two real
nice guys, plus the bass was bleeding pretty good from the gills.
Big thanks to Monty for some awesome photography work. Can’t beat meeting
new friends down on the rip-rap.
I’m still in a bit of shock as I write this. What an absolutely crazy
morning-I can’t wait to get back down there.
There’s really no better time to go fishing than right now. You can’t
beat spring on Cape Cod and especially at the Cape Cod Canal. | l****n
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