Addicted to Lures

My goals from 2008 were

• Learn pitching
• Learn to use jigs
• Locate deep structure fish
• Catch a legal-size pike
• Fish on St. Clair

I was probably about 50% on these goals. I did do some pitching, and I caught my first bass on a jig. I'm not super comfortable with this, but I'm working on it.

I didn't find deep structure fish. I am comfortable in the shallows, I need to do a better job finding deep fish.

I didn't catch a legal size pike, but Natalie did. She named him "Steve", it was quite an event. He hit a Series 3 sexy shad crankbait close to the boat. No leader, and luckily the line didn't break, although there were definitely some nicks in it afterward.

I did not get out to fish on St. Clair, but I have done lots of homework and it's on my game plan for 2009.

Some other notables:

• I caught my personal best smallmouth on Kent Lake. It was 19" (just under 4lbs according to a conversion chart). I caught her on an olive X-Rap 10 in about 10 feet of water, near the island closest to the west launch.
• I played Fantasy Fishing on Bassmaster.com. I have never played fantasy sports before. I ended up in 384th place, which is the 98.6 percentile according to Bassmaster.
• The best lure of the year was a Series 3 crankbait in Sexy Shad. It caught fish all year long.
• I upgraded my depthfinder to a Humminbird 787c. I love the GPS and using SD cards to manage data on my computer.