Devin's Belated Birthday Greeting From the GOMH

With all the fishing I've been doing I kind of lost track of time for got to get the younger of my two nieces who live down in Florida a birthday card this year.  Devin caught her first bass ever this year, so I came up with a plan to dedicate my first fish of the day to her. It had to be the day after her birthday because it was around 11PM on her birthday when I came up with the idea.  I was hoping it would be a golden bullhead, but it turned out to be a nice chunky 16" jumper that hit my Grass Pig first.  Second fish of the day was a golden bullhead.

17"

I got it way up under the bridge.  That was my only golden of the morning.  It looks darker in the picture than it actually was.  I arrived at 4:45AM and didn't get the golden until around 5:15AM.  A guy showed up who was fishing the Grumpy Old Man Hole for the first time.  He showed up just as I was contemplating moving to the South side.  We talked for a little bit.  Then he went to get his stuff and went down on the SW side.  I arrived on the SE side maybe 5 minutes later.  Turns out his name is Josh and is the Assistant Manager at Reeds Sporting Goods.  He and his wife just bought a house in the Hillman area, not sure if it was in town or not.  He is a multi-species fisherman who prefers toothy critters, which were biting this morning.  I ended up getting 8 toothy bullheads today, with a couple of more missed..

I think got Josh one or two toothies and a couple of jumpers as well.  An older guy came and started fishing on the SW side with Josh for sunfish.  He didn't have much luck.  Fishing slowed and I was contemplating going back to the N side when Josh picked up his stuff and started heading that way.  I told him I was just thinking about doing that and he was nice enough to offer to fish on the NW side, so I could go back to where I was fishing when he first saw me in the morning.  I took him up on the offer.  I buzzed off my first cast with a swim jig toward the channel buoys and was immediately struck by a jumpin bullhead.  I hadn't gotten anything but toothy's out there so far this year.  I had a fish caught or hit on probably my next 10 casts before it slowed down.  Josh got a jumper on a minnow and then had to leave.  As he was going a loon swam into the area I was getting bit in and Josh said something about it.  I took a picture of the loon as it came in, then it came in closer and kept diving in the area I was getting fish.  The loon must of pretty well scattered the bait fish that were in the area because the fish stopped biting for me.

I missed one last toothy and left around 10AM.  I got fish on the Grass Pig, Frenzy Crankbait, Berkley Ripple Shad and two different Brovarney Jigs one with Devil Spear and one with a Grass Pig Jr. for the trailer.