Lake Remembrance Fishing Report with Jordan

The Story

I had the pleasure to fish with an amazing person on Wednesday morning.  His name is Jordan and he is the best bass fisherman that I know.  He has been for years as a matter of fact.  It has also been years since Jordan and I shared a boat together but in all the years of knowing Jordan, we have always staying in contact and swapped fishing stories.  Even when he moved to Idaho to get his degree in biology, he would share smallmouth fishing stories with me.  Jordan is particularly special to me because he is a former student of mine.  

Jordan was a student of mine when I taught in the Lee's Summit School District.  He was in my sixth grade class and was an outstanding student.  What kept us in contact all these years has been our love of fishing.  Jordan hadn't done a lot of fishing up until sixth grade but a fire sparked in him that still burns brightly today.  He's a polite, respectful, and considerate young man that I am so incredibly proud of!

The Report

Jordan caught all of the bass and most of them were caught in the morning shade.  He caught them on soft plastics and a black and blue jig around cover.  That's pretty much where I caught all of my fish as well.  I did manage one crappie about 6 feet deep in the standing timber on the south side of the lake as well.  Most of the bites came along east shore of the large point on the lake and along the east bank.  I managed to land a small bass, a green sunfish, and a lot of bluegill.  As the wind shifted and some clouds started to roll in, we were optimistic that the bite would improve.  There wasn't a big change until the last fish that we caught right before noon.

We had been picking up some bluegill on a jig under a float along the east bank near cover.  Jordan made some great casts and caught more fish on a fly rod than he ever has in his life.  That was pretty special for both of us to share.  He caught his last fish on a fly and I decided I wanted to catch one more.  I did, but it felt like it was too small to count so I made a few more casts with my fly called The Standard, which you can see pictured below.  My indicator went down like numerous other times that morning but when I set the hook, it felt different.  It felt heavier...and it was!

The fish surged for the cover that it had emerged from and I was extremely nervous that it was going to break my 6 pound test leader.  I had to coax it out a couple of times and finally it became content to hug the bottom in deeper water.  The fish even pulled the boat about 10-15 yards from where the fight had begun.  We eventually came to the conclusion that this was a catfish but neither one of us knew how big.  It felt like the fight lasted about 5 minutes and my 4 weight fly rod was goose-necked most of the time.  Eventually the beast wore out and the tale of the tape was 22 inches, and 3 pounds, 12 ounces.  It was a memorable fish to end a memorable day.