napa

I will begin this trip by admitting I have been snake bitten in my hunt for Larry for a LONG time now. Every since I caught the Slob O Sorus April of 2010, i have not caught a fish over 3.5lbs. Certainly not for lack of effort, but 15 months of not seeing Larry has caused many sleepless nights.

Valps and I started out around 6pm Sunday night for a trip on Boone. I missed a big strike within minutes, of course. An hour or so later I had a "signficant" fish on my shad colored worm. My line was running as hard as I have felt in a year. I fought it for about 15 to 20 seconds then POOF, it was gone. I wanted to tie the anchor to my neck and jump over board. I couldnt believe i had hooked a lunker, reeled her in and then just like that she was gone. It was going to be tough to recover.

We continued to fish and once it became dark I tied on a black jitter bug. Our morale was very low at this point. I tossed a cast near a dock and a ledge. At this point i had no idea i was fishing in about 2ft of water, since it was pitch black. I retrieve the jitter slowly and then SMASH. I had the fish hooked, it was MINE this time. Valps said "your on the wall kid." I couldnt believe it, i had just landed a 4.1 lb 19 inch lunker. The pain of the past 15 months was finally washed away. Larry, aka Whitey Bulger, could avoid me no longer!!!!!

I later pulled in a 3lber and Valps had some nice bass as well. Over all, it was a magical night on Lake Boone. Larry also bit the heck out of me on her way out just to make sure I wasnt too cocky about nailing her!

Ive been stocking Larry for over 15 months now and I finally nailed her. Mark it down boys, July 10th 2011.....

I BOONED LARRY and loved every second of it!!

After the Knopps pond tourney of failures and paying my rent to the Landlord again, I couldnt resist going back to old faithful, Maspenock, and continuing my search for Larry.

We were just casting from shore, tossing out everything we had. I was getting ready to leave and decided, "why not toss out 1 more cast." Landed it right next to this infamous dock, which has caught several beasts over the last year, and BOOOOM, my rod was bent, and i was in for a battle. I knew it was a slob because it wasnt a smooth reel in, i was actually "cranking" hand over hand almost as if i was Deep Sea fishing...Well, we got her to the shore, As soon as she was netted, the hook snapped of in Larry's mouth. Thank the lord we netted it before the hook gave out. She was 21in and weighed 5.4lbs (unsure HOW its not atleast 6lbs)

A BEAST IT WAS

Career High Bass for me

Went out with a buddy of mine around 12:30 until 4:30. Not ideal time, not ideal conditions, as it was hot as hell, and mid day, but when your using Yamamottos and YUM worms, fish cant resist. 1st cast of the day i nailed a 1.5lb large mouth. That set the tone for an action filled day.

We fished in the Bermuda Triangle for about 45minutes, caught 1 fish, but for some reason we were getting hooked on everything, so we shifted.

We hit up this cove which has a big floating dock. So we caught 4 small Large mouths in about 20 minutes, when of course kids come out to use the dock. Hot spot denied.

Shifted to another dock, hit 3 more fish in about an hour, nothing big, but action. Kids decided to use that dock. Hot spot denied. At this point i was getting pretty pissed, haha.

Went back to old fatihful and fished for the remainder of the day and caught another 4 large mouth bass.

Nothing was over 2lbs, so there was no need for pictures. We did bring in a total of 11 large mouth bass on the day, so it was a success despite the piss poor conditions in the sweltering heat.

We got skunked for the most part of Monday, so nothing to report. Anyways, We got up nice and early again on Tuesday the 18th at around 7am. Another glass morning and perfect weather. It was our last trip and we needed to finish strong. We headed to a rocky shelf about 300 yards from the original cove. Very remote location. I tossed out a few jitter bugs and poppers since it was still early enough. No strikes.
Then a Kayaker basically submerged from the water with his boat painted like a Loon. So what does my angling partner do? He asks if the gentlemen has seen the loon on this lake today. This guy basically was a Loon. Nice question kid. Anyways, we headed back over to the cove with the very stringy and thick weeds. We used a variety of bait and peppered this cove with everything we had. Valpey had one of the biggest strikes of the weekend on a live perch, but somehow didn’t land it. I used a jitter, popper, rooster tail, Yum worms, and lastly I broke out a squid. Not ideal for the shallow waters with that many weeds, but nothing else was working. I made sure my retrieve was fairly quick to keep it above the weeds. I ended up landing a nice 17inch pickerel, 1st one of the trip. I had hit for the slob cycle on this trip. Largie, Smallie and now Picky. Also hit a slob in the morning, noon and night. Pretty damn solid.
We relocated out of desperation to make one final attempt to get Valpey on the board. The water was so clear we could literally see a family of 5lb bass swimming together. I was hitting them in the head with bait, yet couldn’t land one. But spot fishing was pretty cool.
So, Valpey tosses a yamamotto into about 2 feet of water and his patience and dedication finally paid off. SMASH, kid nails a 19inch pickerel and a man eater to saw the least. It actually bit Valpey in the thumb just for good measure. Hense im wearing a rediculous glove to prevent that. Finally, the kid was on the board and the trip was complete! We had fished for over 20 hours, tossed an estimated 500 cats each. It truely was a legendary trip.

We came to NH to conquer Lake Waukem and we left having conquered not only the lake, but the entire town of Meredith.

After the morning bite, we did some water skiing, batting cages, go carts, and of course kept the buzz going. We decided to head about a little earlier than the previous night. We got on the lake around 8:30pm to yet another moonless night. The water was completely glass yet again. We headed to the original cove and began to jitterbug. I was using a green jitter with black spots. I tossed a cast between a fallen tree and a dock. Bloop, Bloop, Bloop…jitter is about 10ft from the boat when a fish just smashed it. It jumped 3 times and the battle was on. It was difficult to set the hook since the fish hit so close to the boat, I didn’t have much time to react. Thankfully a got the fish into the boat, thanks to a great net job by Valpey. Yup, another slob of a large mouth bass. This Foreign Larry weight it a 3.11 lbs and had a length of 17 inches. It was becoming all to common as 4 of my last 4 catches dating back to the previous weekend had been slobs. My arrogance grew like the hair on Valpey’s head. We didn’t have much action the rest of the night and I had a disgruntled angler on my hands. Valpey was basically using fish repellant as body spray before heading on to the lake. Probably not the greatest angling tactic I have seen. He was getting frustrated with the lack of action and lack of Larry on his hook. Though beyond happy to see Lunkers in the boat, he needed to land one for the trip to be complete. He had basically lost 5 worms, 3 lures, restrung his line 5 times, and broke a pole over my head out of frustration. I agreed, his time was over due.

We ended up hitting a Harley Bar and owned the place Saturday night. We left and went angling from about 10:30pm to 1am. It was a crystal clear night, yet there was no moon. This occurred all 3 nights. Very baffling, and it made it extremely dark. I doubt it had an impact on the fishing, but it was strange. That night we not only got 0 bites, but we saw/heard 0 jumps either. Im sure our hysterical laughter throughout the night on the boat didn’t help the cause, but it is what it is. So we hit the hay and prepared for a 5:30am wake up to hit the morning bite. My bed was similar to a balance beam used in the Olympics, while Jeff could have fit like 17 sumo wrestlers in his bed.
Alarm goes off, I wake up still hammered and see Valpey on the floor sleeping. Best part is that I wasn’t even curious; I had no reaction to why this Angler was on the floor. The reason, well, that’s a story for another day. We hit up a local McDonalds for a little boost. Valps asked the girl at the window. “How’s the weather going to be today.” She replied, “Beautiful, about 105 degrees, humid with no wind.” We left speechless as we didnt know how that was a beautiful day, seemed fairly unbearable. So we returned to the bass boat and went about 2 miles across the lake to Mosquito cove. The water was glass yet again and very cool too. The terrain was ideal. Lilly pads, hanging trees, some rocks and a range of thick weeds to spotty weeds. Depth was around 8-12ft I would estimate. We arrived at our destination at around 6:20am. There was a gentlemen fishing from his canoe when we arrive. We referred to him as the P-Town native. “How’s your morning going sir, any luck?” I slurred. “Yea I just caught a nice Large Mouth about the size of….” Guy basically started to unzip his pants and realized his location and said “ Ummmm yea the size of this paddle.” He paddled away thankfully. Fairly in shock and baffled, we began fishing.
No joke, 5 minutes later we hear laughter approaching. As the kayak gets closer we see some women hysterically giggling by herself. She basically had an “I smoke crack” shirt on with 2 crack pipes as earnings. She talked to us for a few minutes, laughed in our faces, regardless of what we said. She was a riot and disappeared.
Okay, enough character encounters, back to fishing. I tossed out another Green Tailed YUM worm and made it weedless. I casted about 20ft off the lilly pads into the middle of the cove with spotty weeds and dirt. Within a few minutes I got a monster strike. My drag was going wild. The fish began jumping out of the water, diving deep and trying to go under the boat. After a great fight, Valps nets the fish and there it was: Foreign Larry, aka Larry Shire. It weighed in at 4 lbs and was 18 inches in length. A beautiful fish and hell of a fight. Apparently since it was so early in the morning, my aftermath reaction wasn’t up to par and I took an earful from my angling mate. I don’t buy it, I was beyond excited.
We continued to fish that area for about 90 minutes. Valps pulled in 2 small bass, but we landed nothing else. We hit a few more spots that morning, but nothing to report. It was about 85 degrees before 8:30am. Beautiful morning to say the least. Again, not much action, but when I landed a fish, it really counted. Action is nice, but slobs are better.

I headed up to Meredith, NH this weekend to do some serious angling with my main man and pure angler, Jeff Valpey (angler21). His family owns a rustic place on Lake Waukewan, which is a 928-acre body of water with hands down the cleanest water I have ever seen. You could see down to at least 15ft of water with a perfect view of the terrain and fish lurking. The fish were healthier looking and put up a bigger fight due to the cleanliness of the lake. There were several coves, islands, rock shelves and heavily weeded areas to fish. The place was ideal. We had originally planned to get there on Sunday, but headed up a day early. So this was referred to a "Bonus Time."

After a ruthless drive that took longer than my drive to Canada, we wasted no time in getting on the water. It was around 4:30 and still about 90 degrees when we headed out for our 1st trip. The water was glass already, so we went right to the cove near the bird sanctuary. The weeds were extremely high and thick. Very different than MA weeds, as they were similar to over grown grass. Ideal place to jitter bug, but due to the time of day and temperature we chose to use Yum Worms and spinners. As we were heading into the cove, Valps spotted a 6 to 8 pound Large Mouth lurking in the cove. He could see it as clear as day. A great site to begin our afternoon. Within 10 minutes Valpey tossed a cast in-between a dock, boat, Jet Ski, and a lady drinking a wine cooler. An angler esq cast to say the least. Instantly he nailed a nice Large mouth on a Black Gary Yamamotto worm. Weighed in at 1.5lbs and 14inches. Very solid way to start bonus time. The weeds were very difficult to avoid and it caused a lot of issues despite hooking the worms to make them weed less. We shifted over to one of the islands and angled at what Valpey referred to as “the Log.”

The Log was a location in the shade with 2 large trees submerged in the water. It was an ideal location. We angled for about 20minutes with no luck, so we were about to head in when I tossed out a Green Tailed Yum worm to the far right of the log. SLAM, my drag is getting taken for a ride. I end up getting the fish close to the boat, but it keeps diving, going under the boat as well. I was fairly nervous my line was going to snap despite 12lb test. Valps ended up netting the bastard and there it was. A 3 lb, 17 inch small mouth bass. Nice fat belly and healthy looking. Very different look than the Larry Smalls I caught in Maspenock. I will be honest; it fought like a 5 pounder.

Bonus time was a success, and the trip hadn’t even officially begun. We still had until Tuesday to conquer this lake. Oh, and this was the start to a NH state record for consecutive hours with at least a buzz.. An incredible feat by Jeff and myself. The beers would flow throughout this trip.

Couldnt resist the lake the following morning. Only went out for about 45minutes and hit 4 bass. Biggest one was a 2 pounder. I used YUM worms on this adventure.

Hit the lake around 9:00pm with the one and only Valpey. I had all new gear as i went buck wild at Bass Pro and bought the entire store the night before. The lake was straight up glass all night. Not a ripple in the water. Beautiful conditions.We used jitter bugs, some poppers, and a jig. We decided to try out some new territory and didnt have much luck. Alot of fish kept on missing the jitter bug. We shifted over to behind an island and casted towards the shore around 10:30pm. Some guy was beyond hammered driving his boat right at us. "You fishing buddy?" He responds in a slurred manner, "Nah, just trying to find my way home." Interesting character to say the least and a complete risk to anyone on the water.

I tossed a jitter near a fairly high wall, where some people were having a party. A fish jumped at my jitter and missed. I retrieved a few feet, then SMASH. Im realing in and the bass jumped out of the water atleast 4 times, solid fight, but didnt think anything of it. Valpey then called for the net, i managed to toss him the net as the fish was taking my line under the boat. Valps scoops and misses, but realized it was no small fish. Finally, Valpey gain his composure and netted this fish. "Holy crap Napa, you finally caught Larry."...I grab this beast of a fish and we realized it was not just Larry, but it was infact Larry Smalls. A monster of a small mouth. It weighed 3.5lbs and was 20 inches long. I was finally on the board, 1st slob of the year, after atleast 50-60hrs on the lake in the past 2 months. Words cant describe my joy. I was on cloud 9. People from shore couldnt believe A. the fish and B. our sailor mouths in full force. Screw it, it was my time to shine!

Valpey then pulled in a nice smallie which was around 1.5 lbs. Had we not just seen Larry Smalls, that would have been one of the bigger smallies we have caught this year. Still, a nice fish and heck of a fight.

Rest of the night was decent, not much action but we didnt give a crap. Def hit the bottle hard all night. Valpey ended up passing out in his seat in the canoe. Easily the most dangerous place to pass out, luckly i got us in before the kid tipped left or right and went in the water.

I finally caught Larry gentlemen, and im on the wall of Lunkers FINALLY!

Headed out on the canoe around 3:30, fairly calm, sunny day. I fished along the shore line, around docks and a fallen tree. Mainly shallow waters with shady cover and weeds. I used Gary Yamamoto Yum worms. I only spent about 2 hours but covered well over 200yrds of territory. Landed 3 Large Mouth bass..All around the 2lb mark. In the last 2 days, i have landed 9 large mouth bass with the Yums....They are killing it lately