Last trip of 2012

I almost went the entire December without fishing and without obviously landing a bass, but on the last Friday of the month I was able to get out for about 4 hours in the afternoon. I threw my waders, a few Dobyns Rods and a small assortment of tackle in the back of the vehicle and ventured out.

On my first cast with an Ima Square Bill I got smacked really hard by something, and about 8-10 casts later I finally connected with a small smallmouth bass, it was a relief to catch one and to know my streak of catching legal open water bass in Minnesota would stay alive. I kind of pride myself on catching open water bass in the frigid MN winters.

From there, I worked and waded down the bank chunking the square bill, connecting with a fish here and there. My fourth fish was finally of some quality, it was around 3lbs, so I slowed down and started saturating the area with plastics.

I picked up a fish on a a shakey stick worm and small shakey beaver, both baits that I poured in my garage. I felt like I should be getting more bites, so I tried a Pumpkin Oil Kompak Craw on my 3/16oz Shakey Football head. It didn’t take long to starting getting more bites and connecting on more fish.

I soon landed a 4lb plus smallie and shortly after that a huge walleye that I estimate at around 30″ and 7-8lbs. Overall, I caught about 10 more fish on the Kompak craw, it was a nice late season outing with decent numbers and excellent quality with several fish in the 3lb class. It was also a pleasant surprise to see how well the Kompak craw performed on the shaky head. I’ve known for awhile that it is an excellent flipping and punching bait for largemouth, but in the last two months, it has proven to be quite deadly as a finesse offering for cold water smallies and one giant walleye.

Not bad for an undesirable species, LOL! It was released to swim again. Too big to eat in my book. This is a trip, I wish I had a buddy and a scale, would have liked to weigh the big smallmouth and the walleye, I am most certain it was the biggest walleye I’ve ever caught and it is tough getting decent pictures with a cell phone by yourself.

This eye, gave my Dobyns Savvy 702SF a good work out. Plenty more walleye and smallie pics in this gallery as well.