Ringing in 2016

New Year's is a time in which hope springs eternal - new goals are set, resolutions are made. Aside from my personal, spiritual, and family goals, I set a couple of fishing resolutions as well.  One was to learn some new techniques, and the big one was to catch my first smallmouth and shoal bass.

Those smallmouth and shoalie trips will come later in the year, but I did get to go fishing on January 3rd for the first time in 2016.  I loaded up for an afternoon on Lake Acworth.  I had gotten a GoPro for Christmas, and I was hoping to break it in with some epic footage of a struggle with big bass. Or a small bass. Or a medium sized bass.

I had removed the stock 1/4"-20 screw, and replaced it with a Ram Tough Ball in the well-nut under the back of the carry handle on the bow of my Diablo Amigo, and I had a Ram mount adapter for the camera set up to get that "hero" shot of the hookset and the landing.

Not too long after launching, I found out that I needed to conserve battery life as much as possible.  Forty-five minutes into the trip, the battery was dead.  I had a 64GB card and thought I would get several hours of footage, but did not realize the battery life was only 55 minutes. (I had spent about 10 minutes learning to sync the GoPro with my phone via WiFi, so that cut into my filming time as well).  I did not get a bite in the first hour, so no epic fish fight today - just some paddling and casting.

The southeast fell victim to some major flooding over the Christmas holiday, and while the water levels had receded a lot, there was still a lot of color in the water.  Dark colored jigs and plastics were going to be the order for the day.  Learning how to fish jerkbaits and swimbaits could wait until the water cleared up.  It was my first trip of the year, and I did not want to start 2016 with a skunk.

About two and a half hours went by before I made my way around a point and started casting a 3/8 oz  shaky jighead with a magnum junebug worm.  I was just dragging it on the bottom out from the point, rather than hopping it, and the movement suddenly stopped.  I felt dead weight and gave the rod a good sweep.  The fight had begun with the first fish of 2016, and it was a good one - a 17.5" spotted bass.  It was my only fish of the day, but I went home that night feeling good about the prospects of the new year.  Last winter, I struggled mightily to catch fish, but so far this winter, I have been able to grind it out and keep catching a few on most of my trips.