It's a Big One....and We Got it on Tape!

by Matt Palka
(Endicott, NY)

My dad and I were fishing sometime in May 2008 at Lake Otisco and the first time around the shoreline we spotted this lunker heading out to deeper water parallel to the shore. I cast ahead of it but my lure went to far and the fish swam away. My dad hooked into a 16 inch largemouth bass while I spotted the smallmouth near the shore. A few hours later we headed back to the same spot and the exact same scenario happened. My father spotted what looked like the same fish and I cast ahead of it and reeled into its path. The aim was dead on. As I reeled the Senko to a stop, the smallmouth gulped the Senko down off the surface and I let him take it for a while, then set the hook as hard as I could. From the first jump, we knew it has huge! The smallmouth got me under a dock, but I pulled him out and almost under the boat, but my father netted him! The best part of all was we got the netting, weighing, and measuring on tape with my fathers camcorder. We also got pictures. That is the biggest smallmouth I have ever caught!