Always leaves me wondering ...

[Finaddict]

I am sure many of you have seen this more than once, and I am sure that it has happened to most of us more than we realize. I have seen it quite a few times in the past, but it always is both cool and frustrating at the same time.

I was working a spook (AH Fatboy Slider) on Sunday evening, a big fish was boiling behind the spook but not breaking the surface, continually boiling behind it on the way in. I was doing everything I could think of to cause the fish to strike ... slowing down the retrieve even slower than the crawl I started, pausing the plug which often causes fish to strike and speeding up a bit ... a fish hit, but it was a small guy - around 24 inches.

I reeled the fish in as quickly as possible in hopes of casting out and hopefully interesting the larger fish to strike again ... as I was pausing to wait for a wave to help wash the schoolie up onto the ledge I was fishing, the big fish came in and was right on top of the little one ... nosing it and rubbing it ... not five feet from me ... right in the white wash ... a hesitated swinging the fish up a second in hopes the bigger fish would either get snagged or gulp down on the little one ...

Always real cool, but also ... always real frustrating, but keeps us fishing. The bigger fish did not come back, probably got spooked by me standing over it on the rock above ... had to move to another local to find the fish, but always love and hate seeing that.