[PECo]

Daryl (aka Daryl) and I fished Lake Basile from 9:45 am to 1:45 pm:



He introduced me to the lake earlier this year and will be moving to Utah soon, so we headed there for what could be, but I hope wasn't, our last fishing trip before he goes. We parked in the spaces for the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail at the end of Lordship Road, and shlepped El Habañero and La Calabaza down the trail to the lake. The air temperature rose from the 60s to the 70s while we were on the water. We had bluebird skies and an occasional light south breeze. The water was clear down to five feet. It's interesting how the lake has changed throughout the year. It went from murky with several beds of pads to totally congested with heavy weeds to clear with several beds of pads and occasional weeds. I started throwing a small white spinnerbait with Colorado blades, but it didn't run as deep as I wanted to fish. I paddled over to a bed of pads and threw a wacky rigged five inch Senko at the edges, but didn't get any hits, so I threw it into the middle of the bed. I boated the first fish when a short largemouth bass picked it up off of the bottom:



I wanted to fish a larger area of deeper water, so I swapped out the white spinnerbait for a big rainbow trout patterned Mepps Number 5 blade inline bucktail spinnerbait. It wasn't long before it got me the first keeper largemouth, which was 15 inches long and weighed one pound, three ounces:



I didn't get any more hits on the inline spinnerbait as I worked my way around the pond. But when I got down to the southwest corner of the pond, I saw a two to three pound largemouth come up from the bottom and follow the inline spinnerbait back toward El Habañero. That told me there were bigger fish on the bottom that weren't feeding very aggressively, so I tied on a Texas rigged Zoom Baby Brush Hog with a 1/4 ounce bullet weight pegged with a rubber bobber stopper. I let it fall to the bottom and slowly hopped it along the bottom on the retrieve. When I felt the first "tic" on the line, I set the hook and pulled up a 15 inch, 1-1/2 pound largemouth:



Things were obviously going in the right direction, because the next "tics" got me five more keeper largemouth, the biggest of which was 16 inches long and weighed 1-3/4 pounds:




At this point, Daryl had been throwing a wacky rigged Senko and had gotten just a couple of short largemouths off of a laydown near the shore. He finally tied on a weighted Texas rig like mine, but used a four inch Yamamoto Double Tail Grub instead of a Baby Brush Hog. It took a little while, but I finally heard him yell, "I have a big fish on. It's a BIG fish!", so I paddled over in time to see him boat a 19 inch, two pound, 13 ounce largemouth, which turned out to be the lunker:



When I saw it, I guessed that it weighed at least three pounds, but it was light for its length, just like all of the other largemouths that we caught. The Double Tail Grub also got Daryl a 15 incher. Before we headed off of the water, a wacky Senko got me my "just one more" and my "just one more, just one more" short largemouths, and then the Baby Brush Hog got me my "just one more, just one more, just one more" short largemouth. All told, I boated seven keepers and six or seven shorts, and Daryl boated two keepers and four or five shorts. I'm glad that he got the lunker for once, before he leaves the state.
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[snap fisher777]

did you eat them? they look pretty good. nice job!

[DirtyDawg10]

Nice job guys! Definitely a light 19" LMB especially this time of year.

[PECo]

I couldn't believe how light it was. I made Daryl weigh it twice.

One day I'll have to fish Lake Basile in the evening, instead of in the middle of the day. I want to find some of the big largemouth bass that I know are in there. Two pounds, five ounces is my best out of over 100 fish that I've pulled out of there this year.
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[slim2043]

Nice work gentlemen... Fish are supposed to be getting FATTER in the fall not SKINNIER

That looks like it should be at least 3... The big ones are gonna have to eat the little ones in there to make it more fun for fishing
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