My Buddy's First Keeper at the Canal

[Notaro]

My friend, Jason and I woke up at 2 AM and drove down to Bourne and grabbed a cup of DD coffee and parked at the Run yesterday. We set up our gears and were prepped to catch some fishes. Jason was still a novice to this canal fishing game and I had to tutor him a bit on how the jigging and other fishing styles work on the canal. He was deaf and wasn't feeling comfortable about fishing in the dark. I reassured him that it is fine to fish in the dark because of the night lamp posts on both sides of the place.

He couldn't attach a leader to braid directly and properly. I had to show him how to do the Alberto knot. At 4 AM, we saw some bass feeding on the surface and started pounding the water with jigs. As the sun was rising a bit, there were a lot of bass banging up on the surface and he landed three bass and lost two out of five of them. I didn't land anything due to not fishing so much this season after graduating from college, and my fishing skills might be a tad of rusty. He landed those bass like he never had in his life. First two of them were sub-legal keeper and he released them. Then he landed a 34 inches and 14 lbs bass on a small tin with a red hook. He said that he was digging Cape Cod Canal fishing. He was already hooked on it and might turn into a canal rat soon. =D

Here's the picture of him with a 34 inches and 15 lbs bass. You know the feeling and the joys of teaching, showing someone, and putting him on a fish. I may not catch anything yesterday, but Jason's catch had renewed his fishing passion to another level.