1st Smallmouth Bass of 2015

Darl's First Smallmouth of 2015

Spring of 2015 so far has not been the spring I envisioned all winter long. Usually I'm on the Allegheny by mid-March catching smallmouth bass. But a series of impediments delayed my fishing this year. But I finally got out for a few minutes on Sunday, April 19. Actually I was driving to Oil City to meet my wife for lunch. She was working the weekend at her office to catch up. So I threw in my G.Loomis 721 spinning rod and called Dale Black's cell phone as I headed down the highway. Sure enough, Dale and Chris Wolfgong were fishing on the River - both for their first time this year, too. "Got room for a third in boat," I asked. "Well, my trolling motor batteries are dead and we are fixing to pull out. But if you can be here shortly, I'll wait and we can make a drift or two to see if we can get you that first smallmouth of the season for that Facebook contest you are running."

Pulling into the parking lot, I grabbed my rod and camera case, and headed towards Dale's beached boat, passing Chris on his way to  his car. "We caught most of our fish on tubes today," says Dale. But I had a Galida's Grubz tied on the rod from last fall, and decided it would work just fine. Dale raced the boat upstream about one mile to a shoreline current break where the boat would sit in the slack water. I made my first cast into the Allegheny River of the 2015 to a current seam. I made two turns of the reel and a fish smacked it! Fighting the strong river bass to the side of the boat, we quickly netted it and measured it. It was 17-1/2 inches. "Well, I accomplished what I needed to do," I explain to Dale. "We can leave whenever you want to." Of course Dale had to fish a few minutes longer. In the next 10 minutes, we landed six smallies. Then we headed in.

So with my first cast into the Allegheny, I was able to conclude Darl's First Smallmouth of 2015 Contest. The winner of the bass lure pack is Gail Petersen of Meadville whose guess of 17-1/4 inches was the closest of all contest entries. Go fish!