by Fritz Nordengren

It was the kind of picture perfect day that exists in photos on brochures for all the fishing lodges of Northern Wisconsin. The morning was crisp and cool, and a light fog hung at the water level as the boat came up on plane on the way across Crab Lake to the first cove.

Ronnie and I, fishing from his boat, were looking for Smallmouth Bass, hoping to visit some of the more productive places we fished the day before and trying to learn a pattern.

We were alternating lures: Ronnie was going between a green and blue tube jig and a slider jig with a curly tail worm. I was using a borrowed green and blue tube from Ronnie and a 5 inch White/clear Senko. My favorite color (Smoke Pearl Blue) hadn't been working but my supply of White ran out by the end of the day, I returned to a Blue with hopes it might start to work.

It didn't take long that afternoon for the blue to prove itself as I landed a Smallie while we worked the shoreline of a large cove. On the next cast, a small 13 inch Muskie grabbed the Senko and swam around near the boat, un-aware that my fishing line was tied to the Senko. I watched him swim for a few seconds, then set the hook. He thrashed and fought as I brought him into the boat. A few photos of this "pup" and then back to the water he went and I was convinced the blue Senko would work.

As we worked our way out of the cove, we came to a dock and floating dock/swimmer's deck. Ronnie pitched his jig into open water, about 10 - 15 feet from the swimmer's dock and 10 - 15 feed off the bank when a Smallie hit.  As he brought it aboard, I cast the Senko in about the same place. I was fishing with Flame Green Fireline. Because of the clear water, I tied on about 8 feet of clear mono as a leader. The mono and Fireline sank at different rates, so I could follow the Senko down to about where it disappeared, then watch the knot between Fireline and mono. 

In the same spot, I cast and caught 3 Smallies, all in the same size range.

It was getting close to time for us to get off the lake and head to dinner. The group had picked a 5:00PM meal time to give everyone time to take advantage of the sunset bite.

Neither of us wanted to stop fishing, but both were hungry. As we came to the end of the cove, there were some small lay down trees just before some grass and weeds.

We'd picked up on Smallies being next to lay downs most of the day so I cast back to shallow water and reeled the blue Senko in slowly working along side of the lay down.

The line took off sideways and I set the hook. The rod bent with more authority than it had with any other fish that day. In the clear water, Ronnie and I both had a glimpse of the Smallie -- easily the biggest one we'd seen so far. It gave a good fight, and when it came up close to the boat, we both saw it was easily a heavy 2 1/2 pound maybe 3 pound Smallie.

And then, it was like one of the car commercials where everything is going really fast and then s-l-o-w-s waaaaay down. Both Ronnie and I thought, "let's get the landing net".

And then. . .the line went limp.