Lincoln Beach report 5/26: The One That Got Away

[catchinon]

I went to Lincoln again yesterday. When I started fishing at 7:30 it was 58.5°; at the end of the day it had risen to 66°. I went out a ways from the jaws until I got to 9 fow and started strolling toward the island. I got my first bite at 8:15 but didn't hook up. My first fish came to the boat at 8:30. Last trip I reported that I was using a fire tiger flig but it was actually a pale perch pattern (I think). That and wb accounted for the majority of the fish I caught. I caught about two an hour all day. The biggest was 26", nothing to get too excited about. There was a big lull between 12:15 and 2:55 when I caught my eleventh. I guess I'm either stubborn or persistent because I stuck it out hoping to reach my goal of 13 cats.  I got number 12 at 3:05 and thought it was going to pick up as the water was getting warm. Nope. I had to wait till 5:30 before I hooked another cat, a 19". Whoopdee. But I kept trying. My 30.5"er had come later in the day and I had to ride out a dead spell to get it. Finally I hooked up with one more fish before I had to leave. Now this one felt big and feisty. When it got to the boat it flat refused to come up, dragging my rod tip under the water several times and ripping off line against the drag. When it finally came to the surface I could see that it was big enough to at least bump my 28" smallest cat on the scoreboard. I got it close up a few times but it kept running away. Eventually I had it close enough to try to net it. Unfortunately it was so big that I couldn't get it all the way in the net. As it got out it threw a fit, thrashing and sending water splashing all over the place. It headed straight for Bird Island. Somehow my line tangled on my pole and so I had no drag to fall back on and before I could do anything about it he snapped the line. Dang (that's not what I actually said, it was more PG-13). Now I have to go buy a bigger, longer net. Maybe something like they land those 40-pound blues with. 

I caught almost all my fish on white bass, but I did get a couple on strawberry chicken. Neither pork nor shrimp did any good but I only tried them for a while during the lulls. The Santee rig started producing somewhat in the afternoon but nearly everything came on the perch flig. After I lost that one to the big fish I tied on a fire tiger one but didn't get anything on it; admittedly I didn't have a lot of time to try it. I spent most of the day in about 10 fow.

I intend to fish every day for the rest of this week. Next week doesn't look to have many good days. As soon as I get the old swamp cooler going and my batteries charged I'll be heading out in a while. Maybe that big one will want to play again today. I've caught most of my biggest fish in the same general area (as has Ben) and so you can bet that I'll be dragging bait through there again.