I woke up one beautiful July summer morning with the strong urge to go fishing. Imagine that? I turned on the weather channel and sat back to watch the day's forecast. The wind was at 1 mph and the temperature was slowly rising. I was very excited once I saw optimal bass fishing conditions and called my friend Vinny. He answered with a groggy voice and as I explained the weather he slowly came to life & a sound crackled from his mouth. "aahwegoin'?" To which I replied "WHAT??" He then cleared his throat with a rumble and said "are we going?" Yep, be ready in 15," I said. On the way there, we did our usual teasing and putting down each other's angling tactics (which is the norm) and we then decided to settle this battle with a lunch bet.

We both agreed. As we launched the boat, we made up some really tasty sounding sandwiches that we would make the other pay for as part of the agreement for losing. We chatted about lobster heroes all the way to caviar soup. Mmm Mmm Good! We finally reached a shoreline that produced some really nice fish in the past. We were using plastic worms with an eighth of an ounce bullet head & a sluggo hook since it holds the worm on a lot longer and prevents it from sliding down the hook when smaller fish tug at the worm's tail.

I cast in the worm a few times to loosen the line on the spool and untwist any potential kinks that may have formed on the line from the previous trip.

While focusing on the spool with the bail open, I noticed my line pull slightly from my fingers in a short jerk. I figured it was a little sunny or crappie and just left it as I uncoiled more line to a desired casting length so I can reach the shore line under the over hanging trees with the skipping of my worm. I closed the bail manually and checked the weight to see if a fish had taken my offering. As I raised it, I saw another fast barrage of nibbles and set the hook. ZZZING!! Nothing. I pulled the hook so hard I jerked our little 12' Jon boat & almost capsized the boat. Vinny yelled "Hey, trying to flip us??" We laughed it off.

We were slowly blowing along the shoreline with the slightest of winds adjacent to a submerged tree. I joked about a HUGE bass being in the tree ready for my worm and casted. The worm hit about 3' from the front of what looked like the top of the tree and slowly descended. From previous experience I estimated the drop to be about 9 or 10'. The worm stopped short of my assumption, so I figured it was caught in the very tip of the submerged tree. I raised the tip of my rod and saw the line slowly jerk with one hard pull so I reeled up some slack while lowering the tip of the rod & set the hook ZZING!! The rod stayed bent.

 At first I thought it was caught on what we call a Largemouth Branch (tree), but I was wrong. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz the line took off to my left. I held the rod up skyward to keep pressure on whatever was at the end of my line. I started hooting & hollering about that Lobster Hero that I was going to wolf down once we got back to dry land. Vinny insisted it was still a branch to which I disagreed. I started to turn towards the fish and he immediately changed direction and head back for the tree. He was powerful. The line started stripping again as he guided my line toward the hulking tree. The bass started playing jump in and out of the tree pictured behind me. He finally navigated in and out of several branches and got stuck. I yelled thinking he was lost forever and I contemplated losing my rig. I kept a constant pressure on. The fish came out of one branch but I still had a few more to untangle.

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As I fought the fish, I smiled while looking over at my buddy. This fish dove under a 900 lb tree & weaved in and out of the limbs like a true pro! He had done this to other fishermen before. "Click" I felt a branch give under the water with the gain of some line and kept constant pressure. The line went slack for a second. Then, I reeled up quickly to catch up with the fish and all of a sudden it breached the water like an ICBM and jumped over the tree in an awesome display of strength and agility. I noticed that the branch was still weaved into my line and that made me nervous.

However, I kept at it. Rod up, pressure on and trying to gain line. I could've sworn he had his tail shaped in the form of a middle finger when he jumped!! Maybe I just got up too early to go fishing this day! :) Anywho, after calling him every name in the book, he started to pull less. He jumped shorter distances. This time when he jumped, he hit the tree. I thought he knocked 'em self out. My heart was thumping, knees knockin'. I thought I was going to lose him with each jump. I finally gained line on it and conquered 'em! What a magnificent fish. I wish I had a scale to weight him. After a short rant on how I'm going to have the best, most expensive hero known to man, I asked Vin to take a picture. I had to have one for my album since it was such a roller coaster of a fight. The bass is currently swimming free somewhere in my secret fishing hole and I hope we meet again real soon. Always catch and release to assure a strong and abundant fishery for future generations. New York State Bassin' :)

Michael Di Pippo, President & CEO
http://penfishingrods.com