The great fishing adventure - err...something

Zearing, IA is a small town in the middle of nowhere. The closest city is Ames, IA, which is home of the Iowa State Cyclones (the fake Iowa sports team) and Iowa State University. The population hovers around 500 citizens, and there isn't much around. However, they do have this cool sounding festival thing called Zearing Days. Fireworks, concerts, food...all of the things that normal places have for the Independence Day Holiday. Not Zearing though...they want their own special day that takes place at the end of July. Small Town thing?

Anyway, on this trip, we took our kayaks with us and fishing poles! This isn't unusual as we have taken kayaks and fishing poles with us before, but this time, I actually used both at the same time! I fished AND kayaked at the same time! I am really putting that Kayak Bass Fishing sticker to good use on the kayak now!

We had made a trip to Ames for dog food for my camping buddy, Pip the Shih Tzu, and decided to pick up some frog lures to use to attempt to catch the massive Largemouth Bass that I just knew were hiding in this lake! Tammy picked out some Lunkerhunt Frogs for me to try.

I'll be honest, it took awhile to get used to using these (as of this writing, I am technically still getting used to them) as you have to be patient once the Bass bites and give it a second or two before "hooking" the fish! Really hard to do, especially if you haven't been fishing in a while, like I hadn't!

After a night of not being able to hook a fish, despite quite a few bites, I did some googling and found some recommendations for bending out the hook on the frog and getting it away from the body. My father was kind enough to help out with this process as I broke the first one that I had attempted this process with.

Well, the next day, Tambins and I took the kayaks out again (me to fish, her to work on her tan) and this time, the fish were faced with a complete amateur fisher, with hooks on the lure that seemed to snag a lot of weeds. The fish were getting scared at this point...they were after all, watching me catch a lot of weeds! After a lot of practice casting and finding out how to avoid snags with this set up, I found a nice little area with some logs partially submerged and some grass cover on top of the lake. I cast the lure and the moment it hit the water, a fish grabbed it and pulled it under! I yanked back on the rod and was able to land my first fish of the year! Not only that, but my first fish ever in my kayak! Woot!!!

I ended up catching one more Bass about the same size that day, which was super exciting! I did still have some issues hooking the fish and had a lot more bites that were not successful. I guess practice makes perfect and I will learn over the course of the summer! Hopefully, I will catch a big one before the end of the year!

I like the Lunkerhunt Frog that I was using, and I have some more styles to try out! We will be camping again later this week and next, and I can not wait to continue to try to catch those largemouth bass using the frogs!

I love the fishing hat in the pic below! It keeps the sun off my face and ears, which helps keep them from getting burned! Also, I think that it makes me look like an actual fisherman! Tambins thinks it makes me look old. 🤷‍♂️

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Get your Lunkerhunt frog here: https://amzn.to/3y0KeJw

Link to cool fishing hat: https://amzn.to/3y0KeJw